Sample Entry - American Bandstand
American Bandstand was a US television
show in the form of a dance party. Originally called ‘Bandstand’,
it began in 1952 as a local Philadelphia broadcast on the ABC
network affiliate WFIL-TV. When host Bob Horn was fired in 1956,
the station asked Dick Clark, a Syracuse University graduate
who had come to WFIL in 1952 as a news announcer, to take his
place. In 1957,the show was picked up by ABC-TV for national
broadcast and was renamed American Bandstand, making
Clark a nationally recognized personality. Aired in the after-school,
late-afternoon time slot, its simple ‘record hop’
format – with ‘ladies’ choices’, ‘spotlight
dances’, a ‘record revue’ segment and ‘lip-synced’
live performances – delighted millions of teenagers, who
used the show to learn new dances, and spawned countless local
variants in the process. The standout American Bandstand
‘regulars’ were popular enough to become minor celebrities
in their own right.
By the end of the decade, American Bandstand
was being carried by 101 affiliates to 20 million teenagers,
bringing in $12 million in annual revenues. Clark was financially
involved in 33 music-related corporations, including three
record companies, a management firm and a pressing plant.
His publishing company held copyright on 162 songs, many of
which he helped to popularize on his show.
In rock ’n’ roll history, Dick Clark
is often positioned opposite DJ Alan Freed as the squeaky-clean
advocate of white rock against Freed’s preference for
African-American sounds. Clark maintains that the characterization
is inaccurate. In 1960, both Clark and Freed were summoned
before the Congressional committee investigating payola. While
Freed was indicted, Clark emerged unscathed. American
Bandstand moved to California in the mid-1960s and continued
broadcasting until 1987, but was never again the cultural
force it was in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Bibliography
Clark, Dick. 1997. Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.
New York: Collins Publishers.
Clark, Dick, and Robinson, Richard. 1976. Rock, Roll and
Remember. New York: Crowell.
Shore, Michael, and Clark, Dick. 1985. The History of
American Bandstand: From the Fifties to the Eighties.
New York: Ballantine. |
