Celebs star in CBS' 'Secret Talents of the Stars'

Actress/model Marla Maples trains for her performance as a gymnast in 'Secret Talents of the Stars.' (Monty Brinton / CBS / April 4, 2008)

And you thought you'd seen celebrities do everything.

Dance, sing, skate. Live together, lose weight.

Get arrested, go to jail, go to rehab.

All dressed up, dressed down, dressed in (and out of) their underwear.

But now TV has come up with a new way to feed our celebrity-crazed pop culture cravings.

"Secret Talents of the Stars" arrives on CBS this Tuesday, at the too-late hour of 10 p.m., when the little ones won't be able to see the show biz showing-off. Thank our stars for DVRs. Then even the tykes will able to savor the country music song stylings of "Star Trek" helmsman turned gay Howard Stern sidekick George Takei. And the stand-up comedy of country crooner Clint Black. And kid star turned DJ turned human train wreck Danny Bonaduce astride a unicycle among circus clowns.

Sixteen stars will compete - ranging from R&B star Mya (tap dancing) to Olympic skater Sasha Cohen (contortionism) to the ubiquitous Ben Stein (dancing the jitterbug) - in a live seven-week talent show, where viewers decide online who goes, who stays, and who finally wins the, uh, whatever they win.

It sounds almost too good to be true - a cheesefest cornucopia along the lines of those 1980s network-glory-days legends "Battle of the Network Stars" and "Circus of the Stars." Add to that the reality competition element, and the celeb-crammed lineup, and it's practically a trifecta of pop culture cool!

But not so fast, boys and girls of all ages. Robyn Nash, executive producer of "Secret Talents of the Stars," isn't having any of that campy trashing. Nash, whose previous productions include "World's Most Amazing Videos" and "Stupid Behavior: Caught on Tape," has noble intentions.

"I've always been fascinated by celebrities and interested in other things they might do," Nash said by phone last week while prepping the live show for its debut. She remembered reading an article about Pierce Brosnan also being a fire-eater - sadly, not a talent to be showcased on this first edition - and thought celebrities must "all have secrets like that. And they aren't always so tabloidy. I wanted to kind of find those and have it be like an old-fashioned variety show.

"Some of them are very good at their secret talent, and some are not so good," Nash admits, "but we're pairing them with really strong backing acts, so they have a chance to really shine. If someone's singing, they're singing with a 20-piece orchestra. If someone's dancing, we're surrounding them with 14 to 16 great dancers. These are big production numbers. We're not looking for anyone to fall on their face."

Who moved my cheese?

Oh, dear. Whither the cheese factor?

Perhaps it will come in the costuming. When ABC's "Battle of the Network Stars" pitted 1970s and '80s celebs in network-vs.-network teams for "sports" like the obstacle course or the baseball-throw dunk tank, you had sights like the one immortalized in the label of its YouTube clip - Pernell Roberts in a Speedo - with the "Trapper John, M.D." star suddenly seen in a light that might better have stayed dark.

Despite the new show's title, the fun in "Secret Talents" is unlikely to come from seeing candid new sides of the stars. We already see them everywhere all the time in our fame-fixated world. Back in the '70s and '80s, celebrities were at more of a distance, making it fascinating to see, say, Robert Conrad insulting his opponents and berating his teammates, clearly more invested in the contest than the many "stars" who were there to boost their profiles from TV's lower ranks.

Commanding attention

These celebrity competition shows "had so many stars, you couldn't ignore them," says Billy Ingram, proprietor of the nostalgia site TVParty.com, which revisits trends and traumas of TV's past. "Especially during the early days [of the format], you had stars like Lucille Ball and Lauren Bacall and Tony Curtis and Vincent Price."

Shows like "Circus of the Stars" were Nielsen blockbusters, but "Secret Talents" producer Nash probably would be pleased with a 12 share in these days of diminishing network numbers. That would put her show in Nielsen's weekly top 10. CBS is clearly banking on the series' appeal, scheduling it to climax during the May sweeps - precisely where networks two decades earlier aired those previous star battles as ratings magnets. Unlike "Circus," which CBS' new series most closely resembles, but like most of today's celebrity showcases, "Secret Talents" is competitive. Nash hopes viewers will "get attached to people as they move on and cheer for their favorites."

If it doesn't work here, just wait. Industry reports say NBC has picked up a "Celebrity Circus" format, and ABC, CBS and Fox are eyeing similar concepts.

Very special talents

Related topic galleries: Celebrity, William Shatner, Athletics, Track and Field, Tony Danza, Dancing, Vincent Price, Television Industry