Imagine, if you will, sitting around your radio, circa 1942.

Radio Announcer: “Chesterfield brings you the “Moonlight Serenade” with the Glenn Miller Orchestra. The cigarette that satisfies presents America’s No. 1 dance band with America’s No. 1 swing band leader, Glenn Miller!”

“Tonight, instead of “Moonlight Serenade,” “Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” or “I’ve Got a Girl in Kalamazoo,” we’ve decided to bring you an anti-war medley of pacifist anthems and traditional German folk songs because we really wanted to do something that everyone can connect to, you know? Because, we’re all people, man, and no one’s pro-war, right? Who wants war?”

Nearly impossible to imagine because it just wouldn’t have happened.

But these days are different.

Last week, “So You Think You Can Dance”—a formerly refreshing, wholesome, entertaining American-Idol-style showcase of America’s best young dancers doing everything from the foxtrot to hip-hop—decided to shake its groove thang and its political agenda.

The No. 4 summer show in the Nielsen Ratings, “Dance’s” producers thought it was a great idea to get the show’s 10 finalists to perform an identical solo to an identical song, all in one two-hour spectacular.

Choreographer Wade Robson explained that if he were going to create something for every dancer on the stage. “It's gotta have some meaning. It's gotta have something that everyone can connect to,” he said.

So, what was this universally appealing and meaningful idea?

"It's about peace. It's about the war--anti-war. It's about peace.”

Ahem. Each of the 10 finalists donned a peace-sign t-shirt, and listened to Robson’s explanation of his art.

“Sometimes we don't know what we can do as individuals since we're not the ones in power. So what can we do to change things? One thing we can do as a younger generation is be the change that we want to see."

Each dancer picked a word such as “honesty,” “compassion,” or “equality” to stencil on the back of his or her shirt. They then learned Robson’s routine—a cloying, predictable parade of angst and impotence that said nothing beyond “war bad.” It featured prominent foot-stomping, one violent scream, and a defiant march toward center stage holding up a peace sign. It was performed to John Mayer’s Gen-Y do-nothing ode to loserdom, “Waiting on the World to Change.”

Appropriately enough, the song is also cloying and predictable in its angst and impotence and says nothing other than “world bad.”

A sample of the lyrics:

Me and all my friends
We're all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There's no way we ever could…

Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war (insert primeval scream of anguish)
They would have never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door…

That's why we're waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

The producers of the show subjected the audience to the routine 10 times in a two-hour period. A balancing salute to the troops—even a mere mention of the troops and basic well wishes—were overlooked. The purpose could not possibly have been to entertain. It was so clumsy an attempt to “Clockwork Orange” its 9 million viewers into good ol’ Hollywood defeatism that the show got complaints.

At the beginning of the next show, the judges had apologies to make. In addition to the anti-war extravaganza, choreographer/judge Mia Michaels had worn a U.S. Marine Corps dress blue blouse with its stripes on upside down. Marines and military supporters around the country reacted passionately to the apparent disrespect to troops coupled with the defeatism dance-a-thon.

Michaels claimed she wore the jacket as a fashion statement, was not aware of the emblems’ significance, and had no intention of offending anyone. She offered a straightforward public apology on the show.