After several weeks of sifting through the country's aspiring hoofers—eliminating, where necessary, any contestant they deemed perhaps better suited to Kevin Bacon stand-in work than a televised dance competition—So You Think You Can Dance finally paraded its top 20 before America last night for an unforgettable evening of high-kicking, rack-shaking, and hair-flinging. And that was just the boys! While the proceedings don't quite have the premium patina of sister-competition American Idol, both shows share something special in executive producer Nigel Lythgoe—who also serves here in the capacity of exacting judge, compassionate mentor, and sass-friendly father figure. In the above montage by Molly McAleer, we've compiled Lythgoe's greatest* opening night moments—which, in a promising sign for the season, were literally all of them. Oh, Naaaahjel, Nahhhjel—we just love that Southern attitude, too! And to think—thanks to SYTYCD, there's a chance hip-hop contestant Twitch might be allowed to come off the streets and actually enter a Broadway theater! Now that's change we can believe in.

*We define "greatest" here to mean most offensive, unsettling, and just flat-out bizarre. [SYTYCD]

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