Sometimes in life, you’re forced to change your
plans in order to do something that you feel is important. Today just happens to be one of those times.
I initially had another topic of discussion
planned for today’s entry, and actually had most of the entry planned out ready
for posting. But then something happened
on Wednesday that made me rethink my original plan. I’m going to postpone today’s planned entry
for one week. You’ll see it on April 27th.
Today, we’re going to focus on a man who many
dubbed “America’s Oldest Teenager” and the show that he hosted for almost four
decades.
I’m sure by now most of you already know about the
death of Dick Clark. He passed away of a
heart attack on April 18, 2012 at the age of 82.
Dick Clark’s life and career had been nothing
short of remarkable and extraordinary, and he always put so much effort and
charm into every project he worked on.
Almost immediately after graduating high school in 1947, Clark landed a
position in the mailroom of an AM radio station owned by his uncle and managed
by his father. Within a few weeks, he
filled in for a vacationing weatherman, and soon began announcing station
breaks. Over the next few years, Clark
would work at various radio and television stations, and made his television
debut as the host of a show called “Cactus Dick and the Santa Fe Riders” (a
country music show).
In Clark’s later years, he took on the role of
producer as well as host. He created his
own production company “Dick Clark Productions”, and became the host of several
radio and television programs, which included the following.
-
Creator and host of “Dick Clark’s
Rockin’ New Years Eve”. Clark hosted the program every year except in 2000 and
2004.
-
Creator of American Music Awards,
which have aired since 1973.
-
Creator and host of long running radio
program “Rock, Roll & Remember”, which ran from 1982-2004.
-
Host of long running game show “Pyramid”
off and on between 1973 and 1988.
-
Executive producer of the NBC show “American
Dreams” which ran from 2002-2005.
-
Co-hosted “TV’s Bloopers and Practical
Jokes” with Ed McMahon.
-
Co-hosted “The Other Half” talk show
from 2001-2003.
-
Hosted several short-run game shows
including “The Object Is (1963)”, “Missing Links (1964)”, “Scattergories (1993)”,
and “Winning Lines (2000)”.
Dick Clark was one busy man, wasn’t he?
When Dick Clark suffered a stroke on December 8, 2004,
and was forced to miss Rockin’ New Years Eve and end his radio show, many
believed that he would take it easy while he recovered.
Yet, the very next year he returned to Times Square along with Ryan
Seacrest to help ring in 2006.
Who knew that Dick Clark’s January 1, 2012
appearance on his own “Rockin’ New Years Eve” special would end up being his
final appearance ever on television? I
know I will never look at New Years Eve the same way again with his passing.
Now, some of you may be looking at his list of
accomplishments, and thinking that his life was filled with lots of excitement
and business dealings. You would be right. But, some of you may also have noticed that I
left off one of Dick Clark’s major accomplishments. There’s a reason why I did this. It’s because I couldn’t think of a better way
to honour Dick Clark’s memory than doing this blog entry on the one show that
made not only him famous, but thousands of musical artists all over the world.
Of course, I’m referring to “American Bandstand”,
a music-performance show that featured the best of Top 40 radio.
I was fortunate enough to have been born in the
early 1980s, because at that time, American Bandstand was still on the air. When I was younger, I would watch American
Bandstand on Saturday afternoons after the morning cartoons were over. Watching performers singing (well, actually
lip-synching) on stage while hundreds of teenagers were dancing all around
them. It was like being at a discotheque
or a club, but it seemed more intimate, if that description at all makes a lick
of sense.
And Dick Clark, as host of the show, was front and
center. But, did you know that Clark
wasn’t the show’s first host?
When the show debuted in September 1952 on
Philadelphia’s WFIL-TV, it was originally known as “Bandstand”. The program’s first host was Bob Horn, and
its original format was quite different from what it would come to be known for. The first few episodes focused on short
musical films, and occasional studio guests.
Basically, it was like a precursor of MTV, which
would debut 29 years later.
And Horn HATED it!
Horn didn’t think that “Bandstand” would become a
hit under the original presentation, and came up with the idea to have the
program retooled. Inspired by an idea he
heard from a radio station, Horn transformed “Bandstand” into a dance music
program, which had a studio audience made up of young people dancing to records
in front of television cameras. The new
format debuted on October 7, 1952, and immediately became a bigger hit. Teenagers went crazy over the chance to
appear on television, and the show became a great promotional tool for up and
coming artists to release new singles.
TRIVIA: Because the original studio could only
comfortably hold 200 people, the short music clips produced by Snader and
Official aired, so that different groups of teenagers could appear on the same
show.
The show ran for four years without much
incident. That would all change on July
9, 1956, when Horn was arrested for drinking and driving. He was fired on the spot as host of “Bandstand”. It was later reported that Horn was also
involved in a prostitution ring during his time as host.
As a result of Horn’s firing, he was temporarily
replaced by producer Tony Mammarella before another host was found to take
over.
Dick Clark.
Upon Dick Clark taking over the host of the
program in late 1956, he took the program and really made it his own. A few months later, ABC was looking for a
program to fill their 3:30pm timeslot, and Clark took the opportunity to pitch
the program to network executives. It
took some persistence on Clark’s part, but ABC agreed to air “Bandstand”
nationally beginning on August 5, 1957.
That same day, the program changed its name to “American Bandstand”.
And, don’t think that the name change was the only
thing that Dick Clark did for the program.
He really stepped in and made the program his own with positive
results.
For one, Clark would often interact with the
teenagers on the studio floor just as much as he did with the scheduled musical
guests. One feature that became popular
was his “Rate-A-Record” feature. When a
new song was featured, he’d ask two people in the studio their opinions. He’d have them give the single a score
between 35 and 98, and he’d average out the two numbers to give a rating for
the single. He’d also ask the people to
justify their answers as to why they scored the song the way they did. Here’s a clip of this in action from 1988.
(Did anyone see the George Michael lookalike in
the crowd there?)
Dick Clark also seemed to have a real genuine
interest in music. His style of
interviewing was top-notch. Many artists
got their first big breaks on that television show, and I have located some of
these performances to post below.
In 1971, then 13-year-old Michael Jackson appeared
on the program without his band, The Jackson 5, singing his solo hit “Rockin’
Robin”. Watch the clip below.
In 1975, one of ABBA’s first television
appearances in the United States was on American Bandstand. Here they are below singing their hit song “S.O.S.”
In January 1984, a young woman named Madonna made
her debut on American Bandstand, where she had some rather lofty
ambitions. You’ll have to turn up your
speakers for this one, but here she is performing her song “Holiday”.
Who knew that just a few years later, Madonna was
well on her way to fulfilling the declaration she made to Dick Clark?
American Bandstand’s popularity would influence
the creation of other similar programs including “Soul Train” and “Top of the
Pops”, and for the most part, Clark hosted almost every single episode of
American Bandstand by himself. The only
exception was the episode from May 27, 1978, when Donna Summer was his co-host
to promote the film “Thank God It’s Friday”.
The show would air exclusively on ABC until 1987,
when network executives wanted to shorten the length of the program from sixty
minutes to thirty minutes. Clark refused
to agree to those terms, and as a result, American Bandstand began airing
exclusively in syndication beginning on September 17, 1987. Clark would stay on as host until April 1,
1989, when he was replaced by David Hirsch, and the show’s final episode
appropriately enough aired thirty-seven years after the show’s format was first
retooled, on October 7, 1989.
Despite the cancellation of American Bandstand,
the show still lives on. Dick Clark
produced and hosted the 50th anniversary of the program in 2002,
which featured an exclusive performance by Michael Jackson. References to the program were made on “American
Dreams”, and in 2004, Clark was set to revive “American Bandstand” with help
from Ryan Seacrest in time for the 2005/2006 season. Unfortunately, with Clark’s December 2004
stroke, plans for the revival quickly fell through. However, one idea that stemmed from the “American
Bandstand” revival brainstorming sessions lead to the creation of the reality
television competition “So You Think You Can Dance”.
I guess one thing that we can take from the
passing of Dick Clark is that his influence will always be around. Although he is gone, his Rockin’ New Years
Eve parties will continue to go on. His
influence on television will forever be present.
And American Bandstand was the one show that made
Dick Clark a star...perhaps an even brighter star than the musical artists that
featured on his program for the three decades he served as host of the program.
Thank you for the memories, Richard Wagstaff
Clark. You’ll never be forgotten.
In
Memory Of Dick Clark
1929-2012
1929-2012
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