By Joe Brown (contact)

Fri, Dec 26, 2008 (2 a.m.)

associated press file

TV personality Brooke Burke dances this year’s finale of “Dancing with the Stars” with partner Derek Hough. Burke was awarded the mirror-ball trophy on the program. Dancers and partners won’t compete at the Orleans on Monday, but they’ll show what they’ve got on the floor.

Marie Osmond fainted. Olympic gold medalist Misty May-Treanor tore her Achilles tendon. Soap star Susan Lucci fractured two foot bones. Comedian Jeffrey Ross scratched his cornea.

All part of the parade of celebrity injuries and hookups that is “Dancing With the Stars,” the competitive reality TV show that pairs past-their-sell-date celebrities with professional ballroom dancers.

Season 7 ended in late October, and for die-hard “Dance” fans, Season 8 can’t come soon enough (it begins March 9). But until then, there is “Dancing With the Stars: The Tour,” which will waltz — and samba and mamba and tango and jive and quickstep — into the Orleans Arena on Monday.

A live band with four singers will accompany a floorful of Season 7 stars, including Lance Bass, Toni Braxton and Maurice Greene (plus Marlee Matlin from Season 6), and pro dancers Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Mark Ballas and Derek Hough, Kym Johnson, Lacey Schwimmer, Edyta Sliwinska, Karina Smirnoff and Fabian Sanchez.

“Dancing” began at the BBC, where it was called “Strictly Come Dancing,” and quickly spawned variations in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden and Ukraine. Reaching the top 10 in 17 countries, it was the world’s most popular television program across all genres in 2006 and 2007, according to magazine Television Business International.

Emceed by Sanchez and Smirnoff, the live showcase will certainly be entertaining enough, but without the competitive edge — and the catty comments of the judges — something will be missing.

In the light of the stumbling economy, we daydreamed some spinoff possibilities for when the “Dancing” format inevitably wears out its welcome or when the networks even more inevitably run out of recyclable stars — whichever comes first.

Dancing Around the Subject With the Stars —Watch the accountants of the stars give their clients the bad news — that they have to endure another reality competition to make the mortgage (and pay accountants’ fees).

Damage Recovering With the Stars — Ed Bernstein, Adam Kuttner and other TV-famous Las Vegas personal injury attorneys seek gigantic settlements for performers injured on “Dancing With the Stars.”

Deacquisitioning With the Stars — Increasingly desperate entertainers compete to earn the most cash by selling their awards and “Dancing With the Stars” trophies via eBay and garage sales.

Dance Dance Revolution With the Stars — In a blatant sop to attract a younger demographic, the network further humiliates stars, who must try in vain to keep up with unbelievably agile teenage competitors in the side-by-side video arcade game.

Dance Marathon With the Stars — A star-speckled revival of the Depression-era craze pits has-been showbiz types against unemployed people, dancing for weeks on end till they drop in a human endurance contest.

Dancing For Tips With the Stars — A new crop of cash-poor celebs hitchhikes to Vegas and climbs onto the bars at the Spearmint Rhino, Cheetah’s and Glitter Gulch, shaking their sagging moneymakers for spare change.

And when these are canceled, there is always Drinking to Forget With the Stars and Defenestrating With the Stars.