Bandstand Beat

Bandstand's first year: From cautious optimism to full-fledged Philadelphia hit

HHere's a look back at American Bandstand's beginnings, when WFIL radio announcer Dick Clark was still pushing Tootsie Rolls on some of his relatively rare television appearances:

Bob Horn didn't know what to expect when he hosted the first Bandstand show on WFIL-TV in Philadelphia in the fall of 1952.

He and co-host Lee Stewart had done all they could do to prepare for the teen-oriented program. The backdrop to Horn's lectern was designed to look like the inside of a record store. Another curtain featured pennants of the area's high schools and the dance floor was flanked on one side by pull-out pine bleachers like those found in most area gymnasiums.

But on that first program, teens just trickled into the studio that Horn and Stewart had hoped would be filled with dancing kids. Most of them were girls. That trickle soon became a torrent.

“By the end of the third day we were trying to find a way to get 1,000 kids into a studio that could only hold 250,” producer Tony Mammarella later recalled.

Mammarella, Stewart and Horn found a way to keep most of the kids happy - they divided them into three groups that rotated in and out of the studio every 30 minutes. Furthermore, they created a committee of 12 teens to help maintain order and monitor clothing. Dungarees, pedal pushers and open dress shirts were on the committee's hit list.

When the show was expanded by 15 minutes just 10 weeks after its premiere, Horn estimated that his staff had provided 5,000 area teens with membership cards that allowed them into the studio twice a week.

Bandstand helped launch a national dance craze in the spring of 1953 when Horn plugged Ray Anthony's recording of The Bunny Hop. The show's growing popularity came at a time when not every Philadelphia family had a television receiver in their home. Consequently, many teens watched the show from other locations, such as firehouses, where they could dance along with the kids in the studio.

Bandstand had expanded yet again - to a full two hours a day, from 2:45 to 4:45 each afternoon - and membership cards had been extended to 10,000 teens when Horn hosted the first of his popular Bandstand picnics in the summer of 1953 at Philadelphia's Woodside Park. Some 12,000 people showed up for the picnic, which raised money for the Philadelphia Children's Heart Hospital.

By its first birthday, Bandstand had a full 135 minutes of daily airtime on WFIL-TV, from 2:45 p.m. until 5 p.m. Horn told columnist Harry Harris of the Philadelphia Bulletin that the show's popularity extended to his committee of teens, pointing out that "some of them have fan clubs of their own.

"The only trouble is that sometimes 'stardom' goes to their heads and they begin to think the show can't go on without 'em, Then we have to clamp down by taking away their membership cards for a while."

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.

 

Bandstandland update plus: How this whole book project began

My path to this blog has taken a long time, more than 20 years, to be more precise.

It began in the spring of 1997, when I used some of the advance money I received for my book on the last tour of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper and spent a couple of weeks in Philadelphia to work on my next project - a biography on Dick Clark.

One of my first stops was to Val Shively's record shop in Upper Darby. If you haven't been to the shop, check out this video:

 

Now you know why this is a must-stop if you want to learn about Philadelphia record history. When I told Val why I was in town, he relayed the sad news that John Jackson's book about Dick Clark and his business empire was about to be published "any day now."

Still, I continued to do some research, including scouring the clip files of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News. A few days later, I met with Davey Frees at his Ephrata, Pa., home. When Davey told me that Bunny Gibson was planning to write a book about American Bandstand from her perspective as a regular dancer on the show, I was intrigued.

Bunny and I went on to have many conversations about how such a book could be written. During this time, she invited me to a party with some of her West Coast American Bandstand friends at her home in Marina del Rey, California, where she was (and still is) a busy actress.

Even though the focus of our book was to be the Philadelphia years of Bandstand, I caught a red-eye flight out of Des Moines, Iowa, for the party. It was a whirlwind of a weekend as Bunny scrambled to make arrangements for the party (including a dance floor that never arrived!). Many of the Los Angeles regulars from the 1960s and 1970s were there (I'm attaching some photos at the end of this post) and I was pleasantly surprised that two of the early Philadelphia regulars were there, too - Myrna Horowitz and Harvey Sheldon.

The dancers were, of course, fantastic, and several camera crews were there, including either VH1 or E! (possibly both) and at least one local station that led their 11 p.m. newscast with a report on the party.

It's hard to believe that party was in July 1997. In the intervening years, Bunny and I have abandoned the plan of working together on a book, but we're both intensely interested in preserving those magical days of Bandstand.

Here are the pictures from Bunny's party:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.