Cathy and the Candy Apples

[Rhondinella]

Is Cathy crazy or merely insane?  Discuss.

[Potanical Pardon]

Found ourselves in Canton, Ohio the other day...WOW what a weird city that is. I'm so confused about everything about it. Most of it is meth-head nomads sitting around or crossing the street or mega-churches. (And what's up with a post office not having a drive-through drop-off lane? I've never seen that in stand-alones.) It's like a weird time warp there - gentrification without any budget or signs of restoration and it's as if everything is from the 50s-early 70s, aged and weathered since then...with a cowboy twist. Very mid-20th century automobile town (which it is, so naturally) with an abandoned vibe to it like Anthony Bourdain's recent visit to Detroit yet with tons of people in muted colors. EVERYTHING is greys and browns, whether it's due to dirt or choice of clothing, and the numerous rusty cars from 30 years ago.

 

Anyways, my girlfriend insisted that we HAD to visit Candy Apples since we were there-ish. Yelp told us it was 11 minutes away, so off we went. We totally stalkerazzi-ed the place which both looked like what I expected and not at the same time. It's as small as it seems on-screen. I figured that it was part of some lonesome building off a sort-of main road. It is, I suppose. It's behind some used car dealership and a bunch of 1970's ranch residential housing. I had completely forgotten about Cathy's husband's general store/random stuff business sharing the building and being next door, so I LOLed at the first sight of "JERKY" in bold red right next to the Candy Apples sign. (They have free jerky, fyi.)

 

We didn't linger too long because that's the ultimate creep factor as we also saw parked cars with dance-related bumper stickers and decals parked there as well. I tried to get my girlfriend to go inside and pretend we were looking around for a dance studio for our non-existent child because we irrationally had a compelling need to know whether Cathy's group-of-the-moment was going to be yet another all-boy competition fix or another supergroup recruitment from across the nation. She wussed out, so sorry, no scoops.

[wanderwoman]

Cathy is pretty wacky. I wouldn't go all the way to crazy, but girl has some issues.  Primarily, I think she has a "look at me" mentality.  Back when the show began, I read somewhere that Cathy's studio was supposed to be one of the six locations for the original show concept (following dancers from six studios).  When the ALDC was picked and the show changed to a single studio focus, Cathy made friends with Abby and, as a concession, Vivi was allowed to take class at Abby's.  I read that everyone knew Vivi wasn't at the same level as the team at Abby's, but by having Cathy and Abby sling shit at one another, they could find a "rival studio" in the same overall region of the country.  For comparison,  if Asia's home studio teacher was the rival, the production costs would be sky high because, aside from a national competition, the team's would rarely compete against each other.    

Edited April 26, 2014 by wanderwoman

[Rhondinella]

Great story, Tandaemonium!

 

wanderwoman--I don't think I had ever heard that whole story.  I remember reading that they had made some deal with Cathy to have Vivi on the show, but I didn't know the other details.  That explains a number of things.   

[hatchetgirl]

This lady is a supreme nut job.

[realdancemom]

I think Cathy knows she's playing a role.  One good thing is that she kept Vivi mostly out of this crazy show.