Page 62 - 2019octnov

A Look Back at American Bandstand

fiftiesweb.com

eekday afternoons were spent with the kids in Philly, Network with new host David Hirsh but went off the air in
the kids on American Bandstand. I knew all their 1989. American Bandstand is such a part of American history
Wnames. I knew when couples broke up. I imitated that Dick Clark’s podium now resides in the Smithsonian.
all the dance steps, sometimes with the refrigerator door as a
partner. My mother thought I was nuts.
To many of you, it was about the music and the artists. Forget
that. I was a preteen, which is to say, I was a teenage wannabe.
And, for me, the kids on Bandstand were all I aspired to be.
Dancing was a major feature of Bandstand. The kids who
showed up every day (Bandstand aired every weekday
afternoon for the first six years) knew all the most popular
steps. The Slop. The Hand Jive. The Bop. They even invented
a few – the Stroll, the Circle and the Chalypso.
These experienced Regulars considered an infrequent
participant or a first time visitor “an amateur.” I wonder what
they would have thought about a kid in TV Land, practicing
the new steps in front of her bedroom mirror and praying to
God her little brother didn’t catch her at it.
Bandstand began as a local program on WFIL-TV (now
WPVI), Channel 6 in Philadelphia on October 7, 1952.
Then it was hosted by Bob Horn and was called Bob Horn’s
Bandstand. On July 9 of 1956 the show got a new host, a
clean-cut 26 year old named Dick Clark. When ABC picked
the show up, it was renamed American Bandstand, airing it’s
first national show on August 5, 1957. The show was moved
to Los Angeles in 1964. From 1963 to 1987 Bandstand was on
only once a week, on Saturday. Briefly it was part of the USA

A Brand New 55+ Active Adult Community

MOVE IN BY DEC 31ST AND SAVE UP TO $3,800!

TOURS OFFERED DAILY

firewheeltownvillage.com

5151 N. President George Bush Hwy Garland, TX 75040

page 60 | www.celebrationmagazine.com