First Round of the Ultimate Dance Bracket

The winners of these will move on to face the top sixteen seeds, each of whom earned a bye. They will remain unknown until the results for these are tallied, although with a little bit of thinking, you can pick out who the top seeds are from those which are absent.

Now, I realize I've forgotten a thousand other performances from random TV episodes and obscure movies, but I apologize. I opened this up to you people, and combined the best you submitted to me, so while these may not be the best dancing performances of all time, it will most definitely mark the best performance that any of us in the 17-20 year old bracket have seen and enjoyed. So put your votes on the comments, I'll tally the results after a few days and we'll move on to the round of thirty-two just in time for Easter Break.

(I suggest copying the following pairings, pasting them into comments and then just deleting the loser. If you haven't seen one or both of the performances, don't vote or just pick the one you think you'd like most. This isn't an exact science, it's fun, so enjoy.)

The Pairings

17. Hugh Grant in Love Actually vs. 48. Elaine in Seinfeld

18. Tom Cruise in Risky Business vs. 47. The Chicago Bears in “The Super Bowl Shuffle”

19. Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins vs. 46. The office-workers in Nextel’s “Push It” commercial

20. American Wedding Dance Off vs. 45. Jessica Alba in Honey

21. Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson's walk-off in Zoolander vs. 44. Will Ferrell’s gymnastic routine in Old School

22. N’Sync (w/ Michael Jackson), at the 2001 VMA’s, performing “Dirty Pop” vs. 43. Jaleel White’s “Urkel Dance” in Family Matters

23. Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show (waist-up only) vs. 42. Belle and Beast in Beauty and the Beast

24. Prince in “Little Red Corvette” vs. 41. Jamie Lee Curtis and Arnold tangoing in True Lies

25. “I Will Survive” dance in The Replacements vs. 40. Sweet, the dancing demon, in Buffy’s “Once More, With Feeling”

26. B2K in You Got Served vs. 39. Rey Lewis’s Super Bowl Dance

27. Vanilla Ice in “Ice Ice Baby” vs. 38. All the gentlemen in The Full Monty

28. Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman vs. 37. Madonna in “Vogue”

29. Fez in That 70’s Show, outside the Chicago club vs. 36. Shakira in “Whenever, Wherever”

30. Chris Farley’s Chippendale’s dance on Saturday Night Live vs. 35. The Little Girl in Missy Elliot’s “Work It” video

31. Jon Favreau and Heather Graham in Swingers vs. 34. Kevin Kline in In & Out

32. The Night Fox’s ‘robbery dance’ in Oceans Twelve vs. 33. Christina Aguilera in “Come On Over Baby”