Soviet Shaping

Here are three young ladies, each enjoying her own calisthenic hamster wheel, then putting on a workoutfit, then doing the same exercises again. Google translate calls it "Soviet Shaping": "A piece speeches of Soviet beauties, with role models for women citizens. At 6:57 dressing with a hint of erotic elements."

A cheap shot + men's rhythmic gymnastics

Just go to 1:40.

The trick they do is neat, though. Fancy push-ups, pectoral-enhancing leotards and Mortal Kombat music? This is like the bulked-up equivalent of male rhythmic gymnastics. Still waiting for that to become an Olympic event. It seems to have quite a following in Japan.

Don't bring me down, Bruce.

Continuing my exploration of Olympian workout videos, here we have a bland offering from a bland man who (news to me) won a gold medal for decathlon in the '70s and is now the mascot for those Kardashian thingamajigs. What a life.

I don't really have anything to say on this matter. Go Team USA!

This is what Olympic dreams are made of.

It's the Olympics, y'all! So let's party with a real live Olympian and all-around pep-peddler, Mary Lou Retton. If you were a kid in the '80s, you may remember seeing some of these 5-minute "Fun Fit" segments smushed somewhere in your Saturday morning cartoons. 

Gosh darn it if the lady doesn't look like an 8-year-old boy on a pee-wee wrestling team. Wisdom: "Remember: Your body is your responsibility, and nobody else can find the winner inside of you." It's so good. It's all so good. I'm just going to let the stills take it from here.

"MAKE IT SEXY!!!"

VIDEO: "Pussycat Dolls Workout," (Anchor Bay, 2009)
STYLE: Dance/burlesque
INTENSITY: Mild to moderate
STRUCTURE: Short warm-up; three dance routines, each broken down into separate instruction and performance segments; cool-down
GIST: Good for: fitness beginners, the uncoordinated, and/or those who want to learn how to strut and do the sex-kitten thing. Not good for: intermediate or advanced exercisers, more experienced dancers, and/or second-wave feminists.

This video reminded me sooooo much of "Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease," and that's both a good and a bad thing. Good because I unabashedly (or maybe a little abashedly) admitted in my review of that video that, while the workout was only moderately challenging at the time I had it in rotation, it did a lot to bring me out of my shell in terms of embracing girly sexiness and being all "Hayyyy!" -- whatever that's worth.

"Hayyyyy!"

That's how I want to feel about the PCD workout, but they make it pretty effing hard. Because as much as they talk about "unleashing your inner Pussycat Doll," there's nothing to suggest what exactly a Pussycat Doll is, other than a sexual creature that exists solely to please men and out-compete other women.

Before I get into that, though, here's the deal with the workout: For me, it ranged from "omg if I had bought this instead of watched it on YouTube, I'd be pissed" to "this is pretty fun, and it's slow-paced enough for me to do drunk!" Aside from the warm-up and cool-down, it's broken down into three dance routines, each of which gets an instruction segment, followed by a performance segment complete with costume change. The "Don't Cha" routine is reeeeeeally easy and short -- too short. Doing the same four 8-counts over and over and over, I got bored on the first time through. I had also to stop myself from counting the number of times Robin yells, "MAKE IT SEXY!" or some variation thereof.

The burlesque routine I skipped after a couple minutes, because it was just moving way too slow and also I HATE feather boas, especially when they're used to do this un-ironically:

What I will be doing after work today

This baby finally arrived all the way from the Olympic Village today. Not really. Just from wherever Amazon.co.uk has their distribution center. It's got a stuuuuuuuupid name -- it's an offshoot of those NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC YA HEARD ME compilations -- but it looks tres fun and challenging. And, of course, it uses real tracks instead of muzak. I've been trying to research US/UK music licensing disparities to get to the bottom of why American workout videos never seem to have real music, and why it's pretty common in most of the UK titles I've come across. Investigative reportage! We'll see how that goes.

(As usual, this DVD is coded for a different "region" than American DVDs or laptops will automatically allow. Most laptops allow you to switch regions up to 5 times. I'm playing all my UK vids on an old laptop on which I permanently switched regions. If you want this DVD and you're in America, look into options for working with region compatibility.)

Elmocize!

Well, my loving lament for the National Fitness Hall of Fame & Museum yielded some unforeseen riches, because blurred and tiny in a photo of the old museum's display of fitness artifacts, right next to the aerobics troll doll, is a VHS bearing the unmistakable visage of Elmo. "ELMOCIZE!" I cried, startling my cat, who does not like Muppets.

But it's true.

This isn't a workout so much as a collection of body- and movement-related segments, but as it doesn't take much to get small children bouncing around, I can imagine Elmocize does the trick as well as the Wiggles or whatever the wee ones are wilin' out to these days.

Elmo gets all decked out in a coach-type getup and sings an intro song with his cast of kiddies, one of whom adorably gets to have Slimey the Inchworm bobbing around on her shoulder the whole time. (JEALOUS.)

On our tour of Sesame Street's world of personal fitness, we make a stop at the holy temple of contained rambunctiousness, Gymboree. Talk about flashbacks.

Then, we hear a really odd song by this lady caterpillar who likes to work out. She is now my spirit animal. I took a lot of pictures of her.

Hall of Tame

Hey, wanna see something kinda sad? Or maybe not sad, but yes kinda sad and also like something out of a lost Christopher Guest movie?

This, readers, is the National Fitness Hall of Fame & Museum. "There's a National Fitness Hall of Fame & Museum?" you say. Yes! Sort of! The museum, captured so well above, was established in 2005 in the fair and fit city of Minooka, Illinois. Somewhere between then and now, though, the bricks-and-mortar location bit the dust.

Tragic. Could it have been the aerobicizer troll doll? The Thighmaster-box-but-not-actual-Thightmaster? The topical circa-1987 issue of People magazine? 

What a shame. A fitness museum is a great idea. I would go to one. Obviously. But alas, this one wasn't meant to be, so the museum must exist in the hearts and minds and modems of random Google-searchers everywhere. 

There's a Hall of Fame page with a bunch of people you've never heard of who have amazing mugshots. There's a "Fitness through the Ages" section that's pretty astoundingly half-assed. Of typos there are multitudes. Informational gaps galore. 

Still, it's an easy way to kill 10 minutes. Plus their flash into on the homepage is nice.

Gilad to meet ya!

VIDEO: "Gilad Fat Burning Workout" (just going off of the YouTube title below; can't trace it to an actual DVD title)
STYLE: Aerobics
INTENSITY: Moderate to high for beginners; low to moderate for more advanced folks
STRUCTURE: Warm-up, 7 min.; low-impact aerobics, 15 min.; high-impact aerobics, 15 mins.; 5-min. cool-down
GIST: Uncomplicated classic aerobics with a nice studly instructor, inoffensive music and a compact but quality duration. Perfect for beginners; great light cardio for more advanced peeps.

No one in my family was much of a televised-sports fanatic, so we ESPN was never on much in our house. Which explains why I never heard of Gilad, a Harlequin cover-ready studmuffin with nice manners, until really recently. His TV fitness show, "Bodies in Motion," ran on ESPN from 1985 to 1996, and has hopped around various cable channels ever since. He's a muscle-bound man from Israel, beautiful and bland, who wants to bring you into his beach world of better personal fitness. It's really that simple.

That looks uncomfortable, does it not?

After doing this workout a couple times, I think it's perfect for beginners or more experienced worker-outers who want a light cardio day. All the moves are textbook '80s aerobics steps -- leg curls, knee raises, jumping jacks, lunges -- with the exception of a regrettable air guitar triceps thing he tries to make happen. I looked the other way for that bit, but the rest was totally pleasant, occasionally corny as hell and, overall, not requiring much thought. The first 15 minutes of cardio are mostly low-impact, so whiny whiners people who don't like jumpy/hoppy aerobics (or, of course, folks with knee or ankle issues) will have plenty to go on. 

There's a lot of marching in place, which isn't my favorite base step because it looks sooooooo earnest, but a) I typically like earnestness, and b) you can jazz it up however you wanna march. I went full-on Book of Mormon/Army of the Church to entertain myself. 

I wish I had more to say about this video, but Gilad is just sort of boringly competent, nice and professional. His instruction is clear. His moves are easy to follow. His hair is perfect. He's gracious in his pacing and attention to technique. The music is not bad, for being muzak. I enjoyed myself. You can't really mess with the guy that much. 

Well, there's this:

Thrusts of glory

And we're back! With John Travolta's nutsack and Jamie Lee Curtis' lady lycra strip alllll up in your face. In the spirit of renewal, I thought I'd share this totally nuts but ultimately disappointing video: bits of the horrible 1985 aerobics drama Perfect set to the opening movement of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. When my buddy Darren posted this on my Facebook wall, gullible me got really excited thinking that somewhere, somehow, a bunch of people are down to work out to early 20th century orchestral dissonance. That is not the case, at least not as far as this video is concerned. But now that the idea's in my head, I have some protracted googling to do.

Jillian is not here to make friends.

VIDEO: "Jillian Michaels: 30 Day Shred," (Lionsgate, 2008)
STYLE: Circuit training
INTENSITY: 3 workouts, 3 levels: mild, moderate and difficult
STRUCTURE: Each workout has a warm-up; three 7-minute circuits that alternate toning exercises with 2-minute bursts of cardio; and cool-down.
GIST: Good for folks who need a regimen to hitch their wagon to, but pretty weak as a stand-alone workout. Jillian is great technically, but she's no-nonsense almost to a fault. She doesn't sync the moves with the music at all, which is annoying.

Jillian Michaels has built an empire as the current face of at-home fitness. Richard Simmons may have put obese people in his videos, but Jillian, with her guru status on "The Biggest Loser" and no-nonsense gym teacher swagger, is Richard Simmons for the obesity age. They both have high media saturation and a distinct motivational style, but whereas Simmons was warm and cuddly, Jillian is...not. She believes in you and wants you to be healthy, but she does not want to hear about your bullshit and she certainly doesn't want to hug you. (I haven't watched "The Biggest Loser," so maybe she hugs people on that show but I'm pretty sure she doesn't enjoy it. Lady does not seem like a hugger.)

Simmons was all about just getting people moving. Like, "Sugar pie, so you're 400 lbs -- I was too! Let's just put on some old gold and get goin'. You can wear what you already have on." Well, it's been 20 years since Simmons' heyday and the obesity rate has only grown. A lot. In 1990, no state had an obesity rate over 20%. The most recent info from the CDC puts the current national rate at 35.7%.

Jillian's whole style -- straightforward, no-frills and challenging -- is all about saying, THIS IS SERIOUS. GET OFF YOUR DUFF AND WORK. OUT. Yet she's nice! She's approachable...just as long as you're not approaching her with an excuse. Jillian combines tough love with a game plan, which is what so many folks desperately need when starting a fitness regimen.

"My idea of an ideal outdoor activity is lying down under a shade tree with a good book and a cool libation."

I'm dying. I can't stop dying.

Dixie Carter, aka Julia Sugarbaker from "Designing Women," aka arbiter of genteel fabulousness to an entire generation of Southern gays and their mothers, does not have a workout video. No. She has an unworkout video: "Dixie Carter's Unworkout." And whatever you're thinking upon reading that, double it.

To borrow from my roommate, whose concise reaction was: SQUEAL!

Here is a workout for women who still use the phrase, "Ladies don't sweat -- they glisten." Here is a workout for people who would be all too happy to exercise if it weren't for all that bothersome -- to quote Dixie herself -- "runnin',  hoppin', steppin', joggin,' jumpin' up n' down in one place." That is NOT the Sugarbaker way, hell to the no. Instead, she's going to sit in a Laura Ashley armchair on a set that looks straight out of a spread from Southern Living 1991, she's gonna wear her Eileen Fisher top and silk pajama pants, she's going to pour herself a cup of tea, and she's going to talk about how good she looks. And she's going to do it like it makes PERFECT SENSE. 

"You see, these days more and more people keep asking me how I have managed to maintain myself. So it turns out I'm holding up pretty well over the long haul." Advance warning, Dixie-in-heaven: Regardless of how I look in my late 40s, I will be stealing that. It's like she hired the ghost of Tennessee Williams to write her copy for the intro. She even quotes Mark Twain!

Anyway, the routine seems to be a lot of breathing exercises and yoga poses, including this gem, which got bandied about on the Ellen show recently. 

I love this, I love her, and if you don't, Dixie's just like:

Workout videos still around, New York Times reports

The Style section of the country's newspaper of record has bestowed its trend-spotting wand on what this here blog is all about: at-home fitness videos. But! They're not talking about ye olde workout videos from the likes of Jack LaLanne, no no. They're talking about new offerings such as the "Lord of the Abs" series pictured above, bowel-dropper P90X and an old favorite here at World of Sass, Hemalayaa's Bollywood series. Some interesting tidbits from the piece:

During the recession, the fitness DVD industry has thrived as consumers opted for $15 videos instead of gym memberships, according to the research firm IbisWorld, which says that fitness DVD production revenue jumped 12.6 percent in 2012, to $264.5 million.

The article also touches on the increasing trend of celebrity-driven videos, ranging from Kelly Rowland's ab workout to Tracy Anderon's ever-expanding empire. Also, there's the still-emerging trend of on-demand fitness videos online:

Industry executives are also beginning to offer live-streaming and on-demand subscription services. Bill Sondheim, president of Gaiam, one of the largest domestic producers and distributors of fitness DVDs, which is based in Louisville, Colo., last year introduced GaiamTV, costing $9.95 a month for unlimited access to more than 500 fitness videos.

The most popular genre, according to the article? Yoga. Funny, because that's the one genre of personal fitness I think can't effectively be substituted with a video -- except, like, running. Duh.

To read the full article, click here.

They don't even CARE about my SPECIAL DAY

Way to bungle a perfectly good gimmick, Women's Health. I came across "Women's Health: The Wedding Workout" while making the rounds on YouTube, and wow -- mega disappointment. Why? It's just a regular dang workout! And a boring-looking one, at that!

The main wedding-y feature is a customizable menu that changes up the workout based on your style of wedding dress -- like if you're going strapless, you can choose to work your arms and shoulders more, so you can look like this buff bride:

There are a couple references to one's "big day" and exercises that are good "if you're going to be wearing heels," but other than that this video TOTALLY squanders what could have been a landmark offering within the bridal-industrial complex. I'm talkin' bout:

Working your arms and back for that perfectly arched bouquet toss. And, for your bridesmaids, whom you can force to work out however you want because YOU'RE the BRIDE...

Grappling practice for getting that bouquet! It'll be a good show for the crowd, and besides, they don't want to be single the rest of their lives, do they? DO THEY??? It's not that big a deal -- just that their worth as women depends on it, is all. Remind them of that -- they'll thank you later. 

And what about the workoutfits in that video? Not bridal at all. This lady here's on the right track. How else are you going to test the full range of motion and sweat-absorbing capacity of your wedding dress than by takin 'er for a spin? Personally, I think the costume department at Women's Health should have looked to good old White Christmas for inspiration:

Again with the "Rhythmics" love?

YES, dear readers. I can't stop. I've been doing "Ритмика" (still trying to figure out how to pronounce it -- any Russian speakers out there?) every day this week. It's freaking fantastic. I've explained why before, here and here, but mostly it just came out like WEWWHWE;H;NACNAC OMG OMG OMGOMG LOVE!!!!!!


Instead of trying again (and inevitably failing) to capture its essence, today I'll focus on the majestical art direction on this show. However chintzy some of the episodes end up looking, the people behind this show knew how to take a couple lean bodies, put them in nature or against a weird conceptual set, and produce some HUMAN BODY HIGH DRAMA. Behold:

Isn't that last one beautiful? Way to turn an ugly-carpeted studio into a perfect picture of post-workout serenity. It doesn't hurt that the dancers are flawless specimens who probably spent their adolescence hyperextending their limbs in rhythmic gymnastics training camps. But they went through all that just so we could feel behooved to work out. How 'bout that!


Oh, and the GIFs. THE GIFs, PEOPLE. They're ripe for the picking. I'll have a fresh basket of 'em next time we take a ramble through "Ритмика." I know you can't wait.

LELE 'UWEHEEEEE!

VIDEO: "Island Girl Dance Fitness Workout: Cardio Hula," (Goldhil, 2004)

STYLE: Hula dance for beginners
INTENSITY: Mild to moderate
STRUCTURE: 35 min. total; 5-min. warm-up and cool-down; 25 minutes cardio/toning through short combinations that introduce and build on basic steps.
GIST: Nice mommy-n-me workout; relaxing; cardio value is mild, but it's great for working on core strength. Major caveat: there's no real explanation of proper technique, which is crucial to getting any good out of this video.

Here's a nice little workout that probably won't change your life, but is perfect for doing with your mom on a weekend visit home, just after pedicure time and right before cocktail hour. 

My mom loves Hawaii -- who doesn't? -- but does not love exercise videos. She prefers clear and present motivation, like a dog to walk or a flesh-and-blood instructor to follow. So on my trip home for Easter, I was interested to see if this "Island Girl" hula workout would float her boat. 

At a compact 35 minutes and devoid of any music that encourages fist-pumping, it got mom on board, but it was grounded heavily enough in the lower abdominals to give me a clear focus and challenge. Nearly every movement is done in a half-squat, with knees bent and center of gravity lowered. Instructor Kili adds deeper pliés and lunges to get the thighs working, but even the simplest movements, such as a side-to-side step, remain in that half-chair pose.

And that's where my main criticism of the video resides: Kili is a nicely laidback instructor, but she does not communicate the importance of posture and technique in keeping that basic pose, which is the foundation for practically every movement in the video. She should have explained how to brace the pelvic floor and lower abs while keeping the chest lifted, rather than simply bending one's knees. My mom, who's not as familiar with core training, said she had mild shin splints by the end of the video, because she was transferring her weight toward the front onto her knees, rather than back and down, into her heels and pelvic floor. A thorough explanation of the proper technique at the beginning of the workout could have helped prevent that from happening.

With that said, though, this video is enjoyable and incredibly relaxing. It has a serene, gorgeous setting and gentle music that's neither intrusive nor boring. Add to that a refrain of core-powered hip swaying, which instructor Kili describes quite literally as "the motion of the ocean," and it's the closest you can come to napping in a hammock while working out.

The movements are all fairly simple, such as mildly stylized torso twists and tendus, but a couple were tricky enough to send me and my mom giggling at our efforts -- namely, lele 'uwehe, a combination of a tendu and a twerk that Kili seemed to relish cuing with a gleeful "Lele 'uweheeee!" (That's definitely not as fun to read or write than it is to say out loud, so you'll have to try it on your own.)

By the end of the video, I felt warm and glowy and firmed-up in the tummy. My mom felt worked-out and ready for a shower and a margarita. Did Island Girl change her opinion of workout videos? Not much, she said, but that's ok -- I'm interested enough for the both of us. 

Sass Wasteland

On this Good Friday/first night of Pesach, I wanted to keep it simple with something truly bad and pass over-able. Naturally, I turned to the fiery manic chasm that is Judi Sheppard Missett, founder and star of Jazzercize and its videos. If Judi Sheppard Missett were a drink, she'd be everclear and diet Red Bull, and if the above clip were a method of ingestion, it'd be those booze tampons the olds kept freaking out about a couple years ago. 

The maker of this clip is TV Carnage, the pop culture wasteland decoupage trolls responsible for keeping you slack-jawed and glued to your hip dive bar's TV at three in the morning. I checked out their website, and what do you know, they recently released their first volume dedicated to workout videos. 

STARS ALIGNING! Here's another preview:

"Ever hear of aerobics?" Smooth.

I'm almost afraid to order the whole volume. It contains multitudes. The Judi Sheppard Missett alone is enough to work you over like a Lars Von Trier film in miniature. I've only recently begun seriously scanning for odd workouts on VHS -- still working on the analog-to-digital transfer stuff; it's more than my poor laptop can handle -- but I always suspected there lurked in charity store bins across the nation untold expanses of workout video detritus. Glad this important anthropological work exists and is enriching the record of human existence.

PS - If you want to further understand the raw unyieldingness of Judi Sheppard Missett, Google image search her name. The eyes...

Sass N Ass Down Under

You ready for some meta-sass realness? I wasn't. But here it is. 

I was looking for a clip, any clip, of this other Ministry of Sound video I want to review, and I came across this totally endearing video of four girls, 2 tween + 2 passing-for-18, doing the Deanne Berry classic "Pump It Up: Ultimate Dance Workout." They sound Australian, so let's just say they're Australian. And what they have created is something of a rarity, even for the Internet: a video of people working out to a workout video. Boom. (There are lots of videos of people doing the P90X series, but I consider those separate from this, because P90X actively encourages user imitation videos. It's all part of their bag, plus it gives them a trove of content to mine for infomercials. Shrewd move, P90X.)

This, though, is pure. These girls are just OWNING this whole "girls' night" (and/or babysitting?) workout party in a way that makes me want to melt with them. I, too, understand the need for a bit of theatricality and lady-friend compatriots. My friends and I had weekly "Sass N Ass" workout-video sessions for a hot minute, and I've been saved many times from the clutches of end-of-the-workday entropy by a friend down for buddy-buddy fit time. 

And the costumes! Sometimes, in order to move one's ponderous ass around at high bpm, you need that extra boost that only a fierce workoutfit can bring. The two younger girls on the right look age-appropriate in their little pleated skirts and awkward stances, while the Fast Times hot girls on the left are turning out the exact look Deanne and her dancers sport in the real video. That, my friends, is what's up. 

And they filmed it all and stuck it up on the internet! With an adorable DIY title card for each segment, even! 

Women are programmed to be hypercritical of their bodies, and women's gyms often market male-free or even mirror-free environments (::cough cough:: Curves) to create a safe space free of judgment -- ostensibly from others, but really from one's self. These Aussie lasses don't. give. a. what. They probably finished their workout, got cleaned up, ordered a pizza, watched their shits-n-giggles video and were like, omg we're such dorks but we're also awesome? so why the hell not, let's show it to the WORLD! 

And now I'm blogging about it. Once they find this and we get in touch and become pen pals and make a collaborative bi-hemispheral meta-sass video together, the circle will be complete and another internet angel will get its wings. 

World of Ритмика

What is there to say about this other than noises I'm insufficient in expressing onomatopoetically? 

"Rhymics," or "Ритмика," the Soviet Russian half-hour TV fitness program I first examined here, has become a part of me. Since Friday, I have spent several hours with this show, maybe 40% actually doing it and the rest just watching in awe. Of THINGS LIKE THIS:

I almost can't handle it, you guys. So much going on here that's cranking my gears: krautrocky electropop, lithe n' limber ballerina bodies with perfect carriage and insanely innate-looking epaulement, cry-worthy workoutfits, every kind of set known to man, ballet-meets-b-boy (or meets Russian folk dance, or meets military training) choreography, collector-geek cred, delightful weirdness and, dare I say, sex appeal. I mean --

Come on, everybody, LET'S MOUSERCIZE!!!

I had com-plete-ly forgotten about this show until a friend sent me a reminder, via this delectable Retronaut roundup of early '80s fitness LPs. (Thank you, Darren!) I remember seeing the odd occasional promo for the half-hour kids' fitness show on the Disney Channel, but it only aired at an hour that was ungodly for me even at age 7, like 6 a.m. or something. Maybe Disney execs figured the most hyper kids would be awake then? Beats me.

Anyway, I don't think I ever caught more than the last 5 minutes of "Mousercize," but it intrigued me even then. Working out with Mickey Mouse? Would the exercises be mouse-like in any real way? Would they be based on scenes from Disney films? Perhaps some housecleaning-type action like Snow White during "Whistle While You Work"? Or maybe some waltzing like Sleeping Beauty during "Once Upon a Dream"? Or some light parkour a la the opening number in Aladdin? These were the secrets The Disney Channel kept for the 6 a.m. hour, it seemed.

Before we move on, can we just get an Amen for this hostess lady's workoutfit? Because seriously.

WORRRRRK

So apparently Mickey and Minnie make an appearance during the earliest part of the warm-up, figurehead-like, and then check out when the real work starts. Whatever, they're old. 

The warm-up includes mousey activities like "looking for cheese" and "finding some cheese" and "nibbling on the cheese." The presenter lady (I just Wiki'd her name: It's Kellyn Plasschaert) has a tendency to shout, but maybe some kids like that? I don't think this girl appreciated it:

After the warm-up come the JAMS, the first of which starts off like a rip-off of Toni Basil's "Mickey," which would have been appropriate enough, but I guess early Disney Channel couldn't spring for the rights, so they rehashed it into a Mousercize song. Kellyn takes the kids through moves like the Pony, the Twist and whatever it's called when you act like you're swimming while holding your nose -- all stuff any wee sugar addict would love early in the morning. 

Then, Donald Duck stops by to show all the young ones that, as the song says, "Ducks Dance Too." And how! It's pretty freaking amazing. Apparently, ducks dance something very similar to The Freddie from Troop Beverly Hills. The Freddie! Forgot about that, too.

It all gets sillier and more frantic, almost frighteningly so when Donald lays down a legit quack attack at the height of his number. But hey, no one said getting kids' willies out was easy or soothing.

I do object to this lady tryna get kids to do crunches. Kids do plenty of crunches all by theyselves without realizing it. Try to get them to think about it, and they'll do just like the poor girl in the purple leotard who jerks her neck up with her hands in a most unsafe manner. Don't project your core-strengthening issues onto innocent children, Kellyn!

At the end, we get to see a little skit where Goofy attempts, as he always does, to go swimming. Poor Goofy. Always getting bottom billing and bad jokes. (Towel boy to Goofy: "Goofy, I'm throwin' in the towel.")

I'm so happy to finally get to see an entire episode of "Mousercize." Maybe I'll go totally full circle, don my most '80s-looking leotard and some pigtails and actually, sincerely Mousercize. You can be damn sure I'ma do the Freddie.