Hello, It's Danielle Fischel checking in.

Podcaster, TV director and mom of two, most commonly recognized on these streets as Topanga.

But right now I am appearing on your television sets once again as part of Dancing with the Stars Season thirty four, immersed as a competitor in the world of ballroom dance.

I've gone from not even having one minute of dance experience unless you count dance in at a wedding, so now abandoning my family essentially to practice for what feels like twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, alongside my assigned pro partner, Pasha Pashkov, and throughout the journey, I'm keeping you up to date with everything that is going on behind the scenes in the form of this here podcast, Danielle with the Stars, all in the hopes of being able to add the title of Len Goodman Mirror Ball Trophy winner to my Wikipedia right behind Chef, which I never was.

That may not be on my Wikipedia anymore, but it used to be one of my favorite little tidbits.

Guys, you won't believe this.

We are making an exclusive announcement about week five dedication night.

You are not going to want to miss this.

Who will I be dedicating my dance to?

What song am I dancing to?

It's going to be very special and you will find out in just a little bit.

First though, I am hot off the press line for week four, marking one month of competition, and tonight was Disney Night, so you may notice I'm not in my wardrobe tonight.

In the past, I've come off the press line, I've run in here, and I have started this here podcast.

It occurred to us we are making other people and other departments wait while I had weight to take off my costume, wait to cut.

They sometimes sew my hair into itself, so like today for Disney Night, I was Blue from the Jungle Book, and we put my hair in the shape of cute little bear ears in order to make sure they don't go anywhere that they're super secure.

They literally take a needle and thread and they sew your hair into itself.

And then at the end of the night, I can't take that down.

I'm not dressed in gentsen with a pair of scissors by my hair.

Insane, Absolutely not.

So the hair and makeup department stays to help me get out of my wardrobe and hair and makeup stuff, not just me, all of the competitors.

But so anyway, I have changed, I have done the press line.

Disney Night was amazing.

I thought all the performances were spectacular.

The opening night choreographed by the one and only Mandy Moore, guest of this podcast, that you guys absolutely loved.

I've heard so much great feedback about her episode.

She is a true gem of a human and an absolute talent.

The pros all love working with her.

There's just such a difference working with her than there is with working with other choreographers, so she is spectacular.

Opening number was amazing.

It's one of the maybe the best Disney Night I've ever seen as a fan of the show.

So I don't know what your thoughts were, but I think it was top tier.

I danced a quick step with Pasha too, I Want to Be Like You the Monkey song from the Jungle Book.

I've always loved the Jungle Book.

I love this song.

It's got those iconic little moments.

I want to walk like you, talk like you, be like you.

From the moment Pasha and I started talking about Disney Night, what did we want to do?

The Jungle Book was right up there at the top of my list for possibilities.

And the minute I said it, Pasha was like, oh, oh my gosh, I want to be like you.

Is a perfect quick step, and I said, great, let's do it.

I don't know anything about the quick step, but let's do it.

Turns out the quick step is quick.

It's also ballroomy.

That's not a word, but I'm saying it anyway, which means lots of frame, you know, Like Pasha describes it as looking like bananas.

So much banana talk this week between Pasha being King Louis the Ape and me being Blue the Bear, and our frame being like opposing bananas.

So Pasha likes to take two bananas and put them back to back, and that's what our frame should look like.

I have a bit of a janky neck.

I don't have a great neck.

For one thing, it's very short and squatty.

For another thing, it cracks very easily and it gets very stiff, and like, I don't have a long, graceful giraffe neck, and yet you have to for a lot of these dances.

So I'm really still working on that.

And this dance is a bit of a challenge because you go from bouncing around very quickly to with very little time having to be long, graceful and elegant and like a banana.

So anyway, I didn't think I was going to love this dance.

I freaking love it.

It's by far my favorite dance we've done thus far.

We've done a tango, a fox trot, the chat scha, and now the quick step.

The quick step is by far my favorite.

I don't feel like Chachag I've given a good shot to because I was injured that week and I couldn't feel my kneecap floating around and all the fluid, and so I feel like I would have enjoyed that dance more if I wasn't so worried about whether or not my leg was gonna hold up my body.

But no matter what, the quick step is definitely my favorite.

It's bubbly and fun, and Pasha and I got to show a really fun, super playful side of our personalities, which is just kind of the dominating factor of our personalities.

We have so much fun together.

Every day, although we're working really hard, is spent just like laughing and telling each other backstories for what's going on in this dance and you know, like I remember Week one with the tango, there was a little bit of a feeling of like trying to contain some of my smiling, joyful nature because a tango was supposed to be a little intense, and I didn't do a great job of containing that in week one.

But in this week, Week four quick Step, I didn't have to contain it at all, and that just felt really nice.

I just got to smile the whole time and look at my friend who is my choreographer and dance partner, and we just got to have fun.

So it was a really great week.

I'm a little disappointed that our scores didn't improve, obviously, I'm thrilled that our scores didn't go down.

I feel like that would have been really disappointing.

But I was really hoping that tonight was going to be the night that I saw my first eight and it didn't happen yet, So the good news is I still have that to look forward to.

We were told for this night, Disney Night, that we could pick any song from the Disney catalog, and that specifically they were hoping for a focus on Disneyland because tonight's Disney Night was in celebration of Disneyland Resorts seventieth celebration.

Disneyland has been around for seventy years.

The Jungle Cruise opened at Disneyland on day one, so the Jungle Cruise has been around for all seventy years, which is another reason we thought it was a perfect movie and song to choose for tonight.

We got to go to Disneyland to shoot some of our packages and the car picked us up super early in the morning.

We got down to Disneyland, we got to ride the Jungle Cruise.

We got to eat a doll whip.

So Pasha, you guys have heard me joke about how much Pasha likes rice cakes.

Pasha also loved more than anything if like for his number one favorite sweet food is ice cream.

He loves ice cream, specifically ice cream, not gelato, although there are some gelatos he likes, but he really likes ice cream.

His favorite milkshake is a pineapple milkshake.

Pasha has never had a doll whip.

He's been to Disneyland a bunch of times.

For some reason, he's never tried a dole whip.

He didn't even know they existed.

So I was thrilled because I love me some food, and I love me some Disney Park food.

So I was thrilled to introduce him to a doll whip they had, I think it's fairly new, something called the Pineapple Upside Down Sunday and it is a pineapple upside down cake with doll whip soft serve and a caramel drizzle.

And he said he was gonna or toward that.

He was like, yeah, that's definitely what I'm getting.

And I was like, oh, just why don't you just be a purist and get the little like classic one like I'm gonna get.

And he's like, no, I want this one.

And I was like, okay, ah, he ordered, He ordered right.

It was really good.

The cake was a nice little texture.

It was great.

Anyway, I'm talking too much about food, so you can tell I'm probably hungry.

So that was really fun.

I got to introduce him to that.

Now that's going to be a staple of every time Danny and Pasha take Kiki to Disneyland, They're going to have to get the Pineapple Upside Down Sunday.

We got to ride the Jungle Cruise, which was super fun.

We also got to ride Pirates of the Caribbean, which was really really fun.

Those are two of my favorite rides there.

That was great.

And then when we left we had to go after Disneyland, so the car picked us up at five forty five in the morning.

We got down there around seven forty five in the morning.

We wrapped around ten forty five, and then we had rehearsal at one.

From one to five, Pasha and I were starving.

It's the only thing we had eaten was dole whip and a banana.

We lots of bananas on this show, and so on the way home we grabbed turkey legs and French fries, and Pasha and I sat in the back of the car and devoured turkey legs.

We had grease all over our face and all over our fingers, and at the end of our rehearsal we went to go record the dance and I got real close to the mirror for the first time and realized I still had turkey grease on the edge of my nose.

It had been there for four hours.

And not only did he not notice, he didn't tell me and he didn't notice.

So I wore an incredible dress that day.

I've been following this fantastic talented woman named Kelsey.

Her Instagram handle is at rope Drop Design and she takes vintage, officially licensed Disney Wares, sheets, comforters, you name it, and then she upcycles them, which is a term to say that she takes something old and vintage and turns it into something new and modern.

And she took a jungle Book children's bed sheet and she turned it into a fabulous, adorable puff sleeve dress.

Like the puff sleeve is like making all my aerial dreams come true.

And the jungle Book print is so cute.

It was the perfect length, it fit me perfectly.

She asked for my measurements, sent them to her, and she made it in rapid time, sent it to me and it was so cute.

And then as a little homage to Boy Meets World and to Tapanga, I paired it with a pair of red cowboy boots.

And if you're a fan of Boy Meets World, you know that Tapanga war red cowboy boots in the Disney World episode of Boy Meets World.

Kind of that famous photo of me in the white shorts and the red and white striped mock turtleneck crop top with the red cowboy boots, and so I wanted to give a little nod to Tapega and to Boy Meets World with that outfit.

And yeah, then we went to rehearsal and rehearse the rest of the day, and you guys got to see the dance tonight.

It was so great.

It was our first real fast dance all week long.

So when we normally do something kind of fast like the chat Shaw, we slowed it down like we would rehearse it.

And Pasha has an app that he can play the song and then slow it down and play it at eighty percent speed.

And so to make sure that my brain computes all the steps that I need to do, we start at like eighty and then we jump up to eighty five, and then we go to ninety and then eventually I get to one hundred percent speed.

This dance we never had to do that with, which is really great.

I was able to do it from at one hundred percent kind of from the beginning, and rehearsals were really fun.

I was nervous that I wasn't gonna have the stamina.

It's so much jumping and so much hopping, And on day one, Pasha had no idea what he was in for Was I gonna be a natural at this dance?

Was I gonna be terrible at this dance?

And on the first day he was like, Okay, let's practice this move and then he like walked me through them.

And it's the part it's the Lindy Hop part, which is where in the middle of the dance, we like I step back on my foot.

It's called a rock step and then a kickstep.

And he was like, the combination is a rock step, a kickstep, a kickstep, a rock step, and then it's kickstep, kickstep, kickstep, rock step.

And he shows it to me and I'm like okay, and then he takes my hand and I do it, and I do it pretty well, like kind of right off the bat.

And you should have seen the relief on Pasha's face and his whole body was like, oh, okay, okay, all right, okay, you can do this.

And I was like, yeah, I think I can do this.

He's like, no, you have no idea.

This is real make or break, Like, this is a real make or break thing.

If you can't do this, you're just not gonna have a good quick step.

And I picked it up pretty fast.

It is interesting to me that that is the part that then tonight the judges said I made a mistake, and Bruno said, no, you know, you know.

He's like, you know, you know the mistake that you made, and I wanted to I thought to myself, like, do I know the mistake that I made?

Because I definitely know when I'm off anytime we've rehearsed the dance, I am the first person to be like, oop's missed a step.

And if I don't know exactly what the step is, I still I'll know the area where I'm off.

I'm like, yeah, it was something over there near the rock step or the kickstep, like did I gather?

Did I not rock step?

Like?

What did I do?

And I didn't feel like anything was off, but we went back and watched it.

So somebody recorded it on the monitor for us, and we went and watched it.

And although I'm not technically off, there is a moment in the rock step kickstep where Pasha and I are not perfectly SYNCD, which means I was probably half a beat late on one of my kicks.

I didn't even miss the kick.

It wasn't like I missed a step.

It's just that the timing wasn't perfect.

So that's what I think is the mistake that they're talking about during the Lindy Hop.

And on the one hand, I'm bummed that that kind of what feels like a kind of a minor mistake was something that they all really noticed and felt like was kind of a big deal.

And on the other hand, I'm really happy that with a like difficult dance with all kinds of frame and all the stuff about my shoulders we've talked about and all of that, that like that's the thing they commented on.

That means everything else was really great.

And I'm trying to find all the silver linings where I can so that I continue to stay motivated to just learn and become better.

We after week, so that's kind of where I'm at.

We got three sevens, which is the same score we had last week.

I'm still really looking forward to getting an eight.

Maybe next week will be that week.

Today's camera blocking started with not a good performance for me from the beginning.

I know how important counting is while I go through the dance.

It helps me stay directly on beat.

It helps me know exactly what my steps are.

If you hear me counting out loud in my rehearsal videos, you'd be like, what even is she saying?

And I can give you an example, like the dance starts.

You hear the four clicks.

There's like click click, click click, and at the top of the dance, it's one beat per move because I'm doing my feet, so it goes so one two, three, four, five, six seven eight one two three four five, and then Pasha pops up and then from there we just count odds, so it's five seven one three five seven, one three five seven.

Then we run down the stairs and then I'm no longer counting, and after we run down the stairs, we go too slow, quick and quick slow quick and quick step pop step pop gather and then you go rock kick kick rock.

I That's what I'm saying in my head as I go.

Not only does it tell me what I'm doing, but it helps keep me on beat.

This morning, for my first camera blocking, even though I know how important counting is, I was like, I'm gonna try this one without counting it and just see like what kind of performance I get out of it.

And then I learned, you know what happens when you don't count it in your head, you get not so great performance, and there were a couple of places that I was off, and we did it a second time, significantly better the second time, and then we did a dress rehearsal, and in the dress rehearsal, I definitely messed up the Lindy Hop.

I did step pop step pop gather, gathered my feet, and then I skipped my rock step and I went from gathering my feet directly into kickstep, which meant that I was completely off time with Pasha, and he like grabbed my hand in a way that let me know I was off, and by the time we got to the next kickstep, I was back on with him.

But I definitely made a mistake during my dress rehearsal, which is a little bit of a bummer because that's your last and true opportunities, your first and only time you're doing your dance in your costume, with your hair and makeup completely done, so it's the closest you're going to have to doing it for the show, and yeah, you really want that one to go well.

So it did go well.

Everything else was great and it was overall fine, but I did screw up the Lindy Hop there for sure.

Pasha was so happy with the way tonight's dance went, and honestly, like every week, everyone's super supportive.

This week, the amount of people who came up to us and said, oh my gosh, this is by far your best performance, this is your best dance.

This is like everyone was saying it.

It was very sweet.

And after the performance, everybody came up to me and was like, that was so great.

Pasha was happy, and Pasha said the same thing.

Pasha was like, I know when you're off.

I didn't think you were off, but then when we watched the tape, like I said, we were able to see what the judges saw, what they were talking about, that there was a moment where we weren't perfectly in sync, which I say we were not That means I was not.

I Pasha, of course, is always perfect.

I was off by half a beat and so okay, I have room to grow.

Next week, I have two announcements.

One I've already teased that I want to tell you about Dedication Week next week.

But before I get into Dedication Week next week, I wanted to tell you that Dancing with the Stars legend Sharna Burgess will be joining the Danielle with the Stars family.

She's taking the insightful hot takes and ex spurt scores that she has been sharing every week on TikTok and turning it into a podcast Shanna Burgess in the fourth chair.

Every Thursday morning, it will be added to the Danielle with the Stars feed and you can hear her thoughts on everyone's dances and the scores.

She is so smart and so cool and has helped me so much just by talking on TikTok and I love listening and watching her, so I'm happy to bring it to all of you.

So make sure to subscribe to the Danielle with the Stars feed so that you never miss an episode of that.

I got to see everyone's dances tonight for the first time, from top to bottom, with the exception of I went and did a TikTok live after Pasha and I danced.

I've been going on TikTok Live occasionally and it's been so much fun.

Everyone comes on and has great questions and I really enjoyed that, so that was nice.

I got to see Jen and Yahn's performs first of all Disney Week makeup and like Yan in All Blue as the Genie and his goateee in the ponytail, and Jen is such a perfect jasmine Mark and Whitney's Hamilton.

What a performance, what a dance, so much fun.

Hilaria and Gleb who were unfortunately let go tonight, which another shocking elimination.

They're all going to feel shocking.

I think I e was also in the bottom three, and I know that they say that it's not necessarily really the bottom three, that only one person is the person who goes home was definitely in the bottom three, and that the other two people may have even at the most scores.

There's like they just kind of throw that in there.

But still in my mind, I'm going to treat it like a wake up call and I don't ever want to be in the bottom three again, which I know there's no way around that it's eventually gonna happen, but I don't like it.

It was a bad feeling.

And next week I just want to I really want to get my first eight.

That's the that's the main goal.

That's my main I mean, obviously the main goal is to become better and better every week, but like, how do you see that you're getting better and better every week, hopefully your scores improved.

So I'm really hoping for an eight.

Standing up there when that red light hits and you were finding out that you're in the bottom three, and then they do those long, beautiful, good TV dramatic moments where they just don't say anything for a long time, and my heart was beating through my chest and I could feel Pasha, you know, like taking deep breaths, and then you know, you don't hear your name, you hear two p ball, you hear Hilaria and Gleb, And the feeling of you being relieved that you're safe is is not.

You don't even have like a few seconds of that being your primary feeling.

It's absolutely simultaneous.

At the exact same breath that you're like, I'm safe, the opposite feeling is and they are not.

And Hilaria and I have spent quite a bit of time together.

Her children are big Girl Meets World fans.

Her daughter Carmen is just so sweet and her all of her children are great.

And Gleb.

I have really really loved getting to know Gleb.

He's very funny, he's incredibly sweet.

I'm gonna miss his smile and his big, warm hugs and his just supportive nature.

Anytime I see him in the hallway, he says, Oh, Danielle, I just love watching you dance, which is like such a nic compliment.

None of them are going to be easy, just none of them are going to be easy from here on out.

Today in the audience here for me, it was so nice to have MEMI my friend Mimi Ganopolis, who is the mom on Wizards Beyond Waverley Place, her and her husband Brett were here for me today.

And then Carmen Sanchez and Ruby Marino, two of the stars of Electric Bloom, a new show on Disney Channel that I have had the incredible honor of directing.

They were here in the audience for me today.

Also Christine Laken, my dear friend of thirty plus years, and her daughter were in the audience.

Patrick Renna, my friend also for thirty plus years, who you might know from the Sandlot, was in the audience for me today, which was also so incredibly special.

I mean, he also is like a full social media star.

I wish I would have had time to ask him some TikTok tricks, because if you are not following Patrick Renna on TikTok.

Do yourself a favor and look him up and follow him.

He is pretty spectacular.

And then I had my dear friend Cassie Joe and her husband Brandon and their beautiful daughter Swazee in the audience.

They live in Arkansas now, but they used to live in California, and Cassie Joe was one of our NIICU nurses when Jensen and I had Adler, and Adler spent the first month of his life in the hospital, we obviously became pretty close to some of the nurses.

Two of our favorite nurses, Quinn and Cassie Joe, and we have kept in touch even though they have moved back to Arkansas, and they are die hard Dancing with the Stars fans.

Cassie Joe has watched all thirty four seasons all twenty years.

She's never missed an episode.

And Swaze, her daughter, who's five, is just the biggest fan, so cute.

So I invited them.

They flew here from Arkansas.

They got to be in the ballroom.

All Swazy wanted was one to give me a hug and two to have Pasha twirl her on the ballroom floor.

And not only did he twirl her.

He did full spins and he dipped her and she, my god, she just night of her life and she's the cutest thing.

I also had my very good friend Kathy who was there with me.

Of course, Jensen, my husband, my biggest supporter, he was there tonight.

And then my friend Erica flew in from Texas, so I had quite quite a cheering section.

It was very very nice.

You know.

My favorite part of doing this is that I get to show you the watch I was wearing and the jewelry I was wearing.

So I am wearing this beautiful watch.

It's a Daniel Roth watch.

Check this out.

It's so pretty.

I love it so much.

It was compliments of Eric Wind who let me borrow it.

I'll put the information for you in the highlight on my Instagram page all about the watches, and it is.

It's got diamonds set in yellow gold and the face is gray and it's just so beautiful, so special.

Thank you to Eric Wind and Wind Vintage.

And I'm wearing jewels again from my friend Jamie at Forever Fine Jewels.

I wore the Chubby Huggies Loser the I wore these last weekend.

But I have not worn these little daggers, and I think these are just so cute.

I love these.

This is a necklace that my mom gave me.

It was actually it was originally a gift from my dad to my mom, and then my mom gifted it to me on my wedding day, my first wedding day.

But who's counting anyway?

Now it's mine.

A lot of you loved my WWE entrance TikTok slash, Instagram reel.

It's hands down the favorite, my favorite social media post we've done thus far.

Of course, it's just so up my alley.

It was so much fun.

Pasha had absolutely no idea what was going on, but he loved it.

So I'm going to be doing a part two and it will be the women's division of my WWE entrances.

So I can't wait to show you guys all of that.

Speaking of next week, it's Dedication Week, Week five of Dancing with the Stars.

Everyone's been asking who's it gonna be, what's gonna what are you gonna do?

Is he gonna be your husband?

Is it gonna be your kids?

I am doing my Dedication Week dance with none other than mister Bill Daniels, mister Feenie himself is going to be on the ballroom floor with me, and we are going to be dancing a jive.

Let me clarify when I say we are going to dance a jive, I mean Pasha and I are going to dance a jive.

And Bill is going to be on the ballroom floor with us, and he's going to participate in the dance as well, and we are dancing to the Boy Meets World theme song.

Saying it out loud feels crazy, but yes, we get to dance to the Boy Meets World theme song, the one you all know and love, and Bill Nils is going to be on the ballroom floor with us, and I'm so excited.

It's really a dedication to Bill and the role he has played in my life and the role Boy Meets World has played in my life.

I have really felt like Dancing with the Stars has been a second act for me in my career and as a performer.

And as I look around at some of the other contestants who are so inspiring as well.

Elaine is fifty four, Andy's in his fifties, and I think about how inspiring it is to know that age really is just a number, and as long as you really want to do something, you can continue to do it.

And like, who is a better example that than ninety eight year old Bill Daniels who still goes to conventions and is next week going to be on Dancing with the Stars ballroom floor.

Like, he's just such an inspiration to so many of us.

And to be able to say thank you to him and to give him this kind of a platform for him to receive the love that he deserves is going to be very memorable.

So I'm very, very excited about that.

I can't wait.

Thank you guys for voting so that I was able to get to this point of dedication week.

That's not going to be the only surprise.

There are going to be other surprises next week.

I can't tell you everything right now, but there will be some special guests in the audience.

Some people I'm shocked or able to be there, but I'm so happy or able to be there, And yeah, it's going to be really special.

Again, thank you to all of you for all of your support, all of your messages, all of your encouragement.

I am still just having the time of my life and the fact that you, guys, continue to vote for me and let me stick around.

I can't wait to just create more content for you, have more fun, and continue to light up the ballroom floor, hopefully getting better every week.

Guys, come on, we have to get our first eight.

I know.

I can't wait for that to happen.

Maybe it'll be Bill.

Maybe next week Bill will be my lucky charm and the Boy Meets World theme song, And it's my love letter to all of you and to Bill and a Boy Meets World.

So that's it.

Thank you all for listening to this episode of Danielle with the Stars.

I will see you soon.

Bye.

Danielle with the Stars Produced and hosted by Danielle Fischel.

Executive producers Jensen Carp and Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, Producer, editor and engineer Tara Sudbosch.

Theme song by Justin Siegel.

Follow us on Instagram at Danielle with Stars and vote for me.