Oh, to be on American Bandstand!

The grey linoleum floor in front of our little black and white TV was my dance floor every afternoon after school from the time I was 6 years old. I loved to dance and sing and longed to be a teenager so that some day I could be on American Bandstand.

The first national TV show aimed strictly at teenagers, they worshiped it as did all of us who aspired to be like them. Rock and roll was heard around our house on my older brother’s 45’s, and his girlfriend looked just like the dancers on Bandstand. She wore her cardigan sweater backwards with pearls, had a charm bracelet and a bucket bag and lots of crinoline petticoats under her very full skirts. Oh, yes, and t-strap flats. Wow, I couldn’t wait to be among those ranks. Some day I would go to Philadelphia.

I learned all the dances, begged for the clothes the older girls on the school bus wore and idolized the regular dancers on Bandstand. If you’re still with me, you’re remembering Bob and Justine, Kenny and Arlene, the Jimenez sisters – Ivette and Carmen (who had the white streaks in their hair), and my favorite – tight-skirt wearing blonde Frani Giordano who won a convertible in the pony contest. Man, could I do the pony! And the Chalapyso, the stroll, and anything else that popped up on my TV. At Pajama parties we rehearsed and practiced for the days when we would actually be able to go to dances and maybe even have boys as partners.

But the regulars….they were just normal high school kids (some in their school uniforms), and they became national celebrities who received gifts and 45,000 letters a week from the adoring kids across America who wanted to know them. I can even remember buying some of the teen magazines which featured them on the cover along with the likes of Annette, Bobby Darin and Duane Eddy.

Bandstand was a daily inspiration for my generation and the one just above us. In one of his books, Dick Clark explained it this way: “I helped give rock’n’ roll a credibility it didn’t get by being played on the radio. If a large corporation like ABC Television could devote two-and-a-half hours of its afternoon schedule to this music, then parents could reason that it must be worthwhile. These tactics helped keep rock ‘n’ roll alive.”

And speaking of the radio. How about when transistor radios came out? Man, we could carry our music with us and listen to it outside and on our bicycles – it was a little miracle. The DJ’s of the time were our heros and of course Dick Clark was at the top of the pack. He was so clean cut and made his dancers so non-threatening in their dresses and sports coats that parents had a hard time convincing us it was “devil music.”

I am so jealous of my friend Carol. She lives here now, but is from Philadelphia and went to Bandstand and danced on 5 occasions. I have interrogated her for any small detail. She tells of being allowed in for 15 minutes at a time often so that more kids could have the experience. The line was always very, very long to get in she says, but nobody really minded, because you were surrounded by teenagers who liked to dance and were just like you. She did tell me that she spoke with Dick Clark on a few occasions and that he never showed any favoritism to the regulars, but was kind and friendly to everybody. Didn’t you just know that?

If I have a favorite memory of the show, it was the time that the Four Seasons were guests and sang “Sherry.” The kids went so crazy when it was over that Dick had them sing it a second time while I sat spellbound.

I watched Bandstand into the 80’s when it went off the air. I loved the disco era and had a partner and all the slinky dresses. It was an interesting time with the Bee Gees in the background. I never got into the hard rock or heavy metal. When I lived in blue collar Michigan I felt that I would remain youthful as long as I knew what the kids (now in California) were wearing, how they were dancing and how they wore their hair.

I can’t think of any television program that made a bigger, longer impact on my life and gosh I miss it. My moment in the sun was in the 80’s when Dick Clark was the host of the $100,000 Pyramid. I was a contestant and got to meet him. What a gentleman! I was surprised though that the bigger than life guy was shorter than my 5’5”.

By the way:

•When Dick took over the show in 1957, he added black dancers.

•In 1957, 45’s cost sixty-nine cents in Philadelphia, and in many places, if you bought six, you got one free.

•Dick Clark named the song “At The Hop”  from “Do The Bop” and it became an overnight number one hit.

•On the show kids couldn’t say they were “going steady.” The code words used were “going together.”

•My 3 favorite songs from this era are “Dream Lover” by Bobby Darin; “Step By Step” by the Crests and “Special Angel” by Bobby Bare