Bandstand Beat

Bandstand host Horn was more than his button-down conservative image

Bob Horn appeared to be an unusual choice as a host of a teen-oriented dance show, even in 1952.

True, Horn had been host of a popular late-night radio program named C'Mon and Dance in Philadelphia on WIP but its appeal was largely to people who had grown up with big band music, not young hipsters who might prefer jazz or be-bop.

But Horn was more than the straight-arrow, button-down professional who arrived for work every day in a conservative business suit. He was well-connected in the Philadelphia jazz community and changed into flashier clothes for the post-work jam sessions he often attended, many beginning well after midnight. While his wife drove a station wagon, Horn drove a Cadillac but would really have preferred something much sportier.

Roger Clipp, general manager of WFIL radio and television in Philadelphia, had lured the popular Horn from crosstown rival WIP in 1950. Horn was switched from his late-night radio disc jockey duties to late afternoons in 1951, about the same time he was assigned afternoon television duties as well. The dual roles created something of a problem for the normally unflappable Horn.

After Horn concluded his television duties at 46^th and Market, he then had to dash downtown to do his radio program, earning him the nickname “Rapid Robert.”

Horn allowed himself 2 minutes and 35 seconds to cover the 75 yards from the WFIL-TV  studios to the el steps and up the platform. During the 10-minute ride to 13th Street, he studied his radio script. He raced up the escalator, through Wanamakers Department Store to the Widener Building and caught an elevator to the 18th-floor radio studios, usually arriving just a minute or two before air time.

Horn’s success led to the formation of the Bob Horn Fan Club, some 400 members of which honored the WFIL DJ with a picnic at Woodside Park on Aug. 2, 1952.

Despite Horn’s radio popularity, WFIL-TV remained a dismal last in the ratings during his afternoon slot. But Clipp and WFIL-TV station manager George Koehler had a plan they thought might turn things around.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. Go here to learn the story behind the writing of Bandstandland or here to listen to the Pennsylvania Cable Network's interview with author Larry Lehmer.

Larry Lehmer's book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

 

Happy birthday, American Bandstand!

American Bandstand made its national debut on ABC-TV on August 5, 1957, with Dick Clark as its host. But Bandstand made its local debut on WFIL-TV in Philadelphia nearly five years earlier with a different host, Bob Horn.

Here's a timeline of some key events of the show's history during its nearly 12-year run in Philadelphia:

August 1950—Disc jockey Bob Horn, 34, moves from WIP radio in Philadelphia to WFIL radio.

1951—Horn adds television to his duties, at WFIL-TV.

May 13, 1952—Dick Clark, 22, joins staff of WFIL radio.

October 13, 1952—Bandstand teen dance program debuts on WFIL-TV with Horn as co-host with Lee Stewart. Horn is named director of recorded music for WFIL radio and WFIL-TV.

March 29, 1953—Rex Polier of the Philadelphia Bulletin calls Bandstand “the city’s beehive of juvenile jive.”

1953—Producer Tony Mammarella substitutes for the vacationing Horn.

January 1954—Lee Stewart is dismissed as co-host leaving Horn as the show’s only host.

March 1954—Poll by TV Guide votes Bandstand as the best music show in the Philadelphia area,

Fall 1955—Dick Clark substitutes for Horn for first time

June 21, 1956—Horn arrested for drunk driving, beginning a downward spiral that would cost him his job. Morals charges, another drunk driving charge following a serious accident, and tax evasion charges would eventually drive him from Philadelphia.

July 9, 1956—Clark is named permanent host of Bandstand.

March 1957—Clark forms his first Bandstand-related business, Click Corp.

August 5, 1957—American Bandstand makes its national debut on ABC-TV, three days after the network dropped Alan Freed’s Big Beat Show. Sixty-seven stations carried the first show and Clark received more than 29,000 letters in the five days following the premiere.

September 1957—Clark adds a weekly prime time network show and a daily local show on WFIL-TV, making him the most-exposed television personality in the United States with 8½ hours air time nationally per week and 13½ hours locally.

January 1958—Clark is on the cover of Teen magazine.

February 15, 1958—The Dick Clark Show debuts in New York City.

February 1958—Life magazine sends a reporter and photographer to Philadelphia to follow Clark for several days.

April 14, 1958—Time magazine reports that Clark will make $500,000 in 1958 and has sent out 300,000 photos of himself to fans since American Bandstand went national. He also makes an appearance on Edward R. Morrow’s Person to Person TV show in April 1958.

1958—Clark bars dancer Pat Molittieri, 16, from Bandstand after her picture appears on the cover of Teen magazine’s June issue.

May 24, 1958—Clark is on the cover of TV Guide.

November 1958—ABC cuts Bandstand from 90 minutes every weekday afternoon to an hour.

December 4, 1958—At Clark’s insistence, singer Lloyd price records a sanitized version if his hit song Stagger Lee so it can be played on Bandstand.

April 10, 1959—Clark is named man of the year by the Philadelphia Guild of Advertising Men.

June 1959—Clark is the surprise guest on the This Is Your Life TV program.

June 28, 1959—Clark dances with the McGuire Sisters in his first 60-minute live ABC special, The Record Years.

August 1959—Clark takes a month off from his Bandstand hosting duties to film his first Hollywood movie, Because They’re Young.

October 10, 1959—Article in Saturday Evening Post says Clark has been referred to as “The Czar of the Switchblade Set” and “the Kingpin of the Teen-age Mafia.”

November 1959—Clark publishes a book – Your Happiest Years.

November 18, 1959—Congressional investigators came to Philadelphia to interview Clark and Mammarella as part of a probe into payola. Clark would later testify before Congress in the spring of 1960. Neither man was ever charged with payola.

September 1960—The Dick Clark Show is canceled.

September 1961—Clark’s second Hollywood movie, The Young Doctors, premieres.

October 1962—Bandstand is cut to 30 minutes.

1963—Clark begins taping a week’s worth of Bandstands on Saturdays.

August 1963—Bandstand moves to Saturdays.

1964—Bandstand leaves Philadelphia for Los Angeles.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. Go here to learn the story behind the writing of Bandstandland or here to listen to the Pennsylvania Cable Network's interview with author Larry Lehmer.

Larry Lehmer's book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.