Apologies for the poor quality video, but above you’ll find evidence of sometime-movie mogul Mark Cuban’s debut on Dancing With the Stars. The Magnolia Pictures chief/simultaneous distribution evangelist/financier and distributor of Brian DePalma’s Redacted performed last night; his fate as a reality TV star will be decided by “America” tonight.

What you don’t see above is the prologue, which you can allegedly watch on ABC.com (I’m still waiting for the video to load). In a segment designed to introduce the audience to Cuban and his partner, Kym, Cuban revealed that he had hip replacement surgery just seven weeks before rehearsals began for Dancing With the Stars. “Most people are still on crutches,” Cuban says, lifting up his practice shorts to reveal a massive scar. Kym’s voiceover commends Cuban for working through the pain while we watch footage of him practicing with a tortured expression on his face. Cut to Cuban, interview style: “I’m not going through all this pain and agony just because. I’m there to win.”

It strikes me that, whether it’s his doing or that of Dancing’s producers, Cuban has managed to hit on a magic combination of about 100 winning reality TV cliches: rich fish out of water, an American Idol’s beginner’s enthusiasm for competitive performance, Extreme Makeover-branded physical struggle, non-household name reifying his stardom by going on a show mostly staffed by declining B-listers united in the deception that they’re so famous they don’t need to be there. On a show like this, it seems like a brilliant strategy: the audience, it seems, unfailingly rewards not those who perform well, but those who perform *surprisingly* well.

More on the dance itself after the jump.

When it comes to actually performing the foxtrot, Cuban, unsurprisingly, doesn’t do much heavy lifting, although he does pull off a little Wizard of Oz heel click at the end. But he creates a richly-layered spectacle nonetheless. Where the other male stars on the show are generally decked out in simple black tuxes (or, in the case of model Albert Reed, sparkly ice dancer ensembles), Cuban shows up dressed in a brown tailcoat covered with patches. This may be a fashion thing that I’m not aware of (Derelicte?), but in the context of filmed dance, I took it as a reference to the “tramp” figure, who moved from vaudeville to Hollywood musicals of the 1940s.

Cuban plays up the irony of a rich man appearing on television dressed as a hobo by choosing to dance to “King of the Road”–and mouthing most of the lyrics while he dances. “I’m a man of means by no means,” goes the song, and the “bouncing bionic billionaire”, as one of the judges later dubs Cuban, sings along. (Later, another judge will reprimand Cuban for dancing more with his tongue than with his feet.) It seems to be an economic burlesque, in line with that number from Easter Parade where Fred Astaire and Judy Garland play a couple of “Wall Street bankers” turned tramps, tattered tuxes and all:

The judges praised Cuban’s enthusiasm, warn his technique needs work. Still, he earns a respectable score of 21. “I’m really happy,” says Cuban. “Blackjack, baby!”

Will Cuban make it through the first round? If he does, can we expect further exploitation of reality TV tropes and riffing on his own persona? God, I hope so.