The Good Old Days
On September 26, 2014
- TV History
Thank God for Dick Clark and American Bandstand! Boy, how this show changed things in music and for teenagers. Did you watch? Got a story?
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Bandstand was the first show I worked (Camera) on at ABC, when I moved to LA from Atlanta in ’65 It Was B&W but I had a ball working with Dick, I later worked on “Where the Action is” with him
I went to college with a guy who had worked summer relief on Bandstand. He said the cameramen loved getting their ped moving and attempting to plow through a group of dancers.
Every day after (elementary) school, I went to my babysitter’s house where we watched this local show called Bandstand.
I worked for WHYY (PBS) in Philadelphia in the 60’s, which was located in the old WFIL (ABC) studio space on Market St. The American Bandstand permanent set was hidden behind a cyclorama. When the set was disposed of, I sent a piece to Dick Clark in Hollywood, and received an acknowledgement from him.
A cousin on mine came from Upstate NY to Philadelphia with her parents, just so she could be on Bandstand. Her parents were seated in the basement where all parents watched on monitors. The Friday show was taped after the live Thursday show. After they came home, about a month or so later she received a yearbook design from the show, showing stock Bandstand studio photos, along with the ones taken during the two shows she danced on. Pretty slick promotion idea for the early days of TV, don’t you agree?
They didn’t call him “The World’s Oldest Teenager” for nothing 🙂 As for Bandstand, it was on its last legs when I came around. Channel 8 in Dallas didn’t carry it for the longest time, and it was intermittent on my local ABC station in Tyler.