Despite his pitiful performance on "Dancing With the Stars" on Monday night, "Bachelorette" and "Bachelor in Paradise" contestant Grocery Joe Amabile must have had Bachelor nation voting for him like crazy. Not only was he not eliminated on Tuesday night, he wasn't even in jeopardy.
Instead, the first contestant out on the ABC reality competition show's 27th season was comedian Nikki Glaser. She and her partner, Gleb Savchenko, were one of five couples who were in jeopardy and had to dance once more for the judges.
The pair joined "Good Morning America" hours after getting eliminated.
Glaser, who said she and Savchenko pushed themselves at every practice, sprained her back early in the competition. "I couldn't even put on a sports bra without crying in agony," she said.
She continued, "I thought I was going to have to drop out and then I just willed it to feel better and I was able to dance on Monday and Tuesday. Now the pain is like kicking back in. It was pure adrenaline, but we danced."
Savchenko said he was proud of his partner's performance. “She really made me laugh when she danced,” he added.
All the couples did the same style of dance as they did Monday night but had to learn completely new routines. Nikki and Gleb improved their score by one point but it wasn't enough to save them. It's possible that a joke Nikki made during an exchange with Tom Bergeron about how she'd had some "rough sets" -- meaning a set at a comedy club but sounding like something else -- turned some voters off.
Initially, these six couples were told they were in jeopardy and would have to dance again:
Nikki and Gleb
"Facts of Life" star Nancy McKeon and Val Chmerkovskiy
Gymnast Mary Lou Retton and Sasha Farber
Blind skier Danelle Umstead and Artem Chigvintsev
Model Alexis Ren and Alan Bertsen
Actor John Schneider and Emma Slater
But at the last minute, John and Emma were declared safe, leaving five couples to reprise their dances.
All the couples improved their scores, with Alexis and Alan scoring a 23/30, matching the previous night's high scores. Judge Len Goodman felt so strongly that they should stay on the show that he vowed if they got voted off, "I'll show me bum in the supermarket tomorrow!" Thankfully, they were safe, so shoppers in L.A. won't be subjected to the sight of the 74-year-old judge mooning them in the cereal aisle.
The rest of the two-hour show was a promotion for "Dancing With the Stars: Juniors," which will debut Oct. 7. The celebrity kid contestants were revealed and the junior pros danced up a storm.
The theme of next week's show, airing Monday night at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, is "A Salute to New York and Los Angeles."
