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American Bandstand

J

joeybabe25

Some years ago, before, I believe Dick Clark's 2004 stroke there was talk of bringing back "American Bandstand" with Ryan Seacrest as host.

I don't know if they were planning to do this as a daily show, as "Bandstand" was until August 1963 or a weekly show.

What do the folks here think about a daily "American Bandstand" with perhaps Ryan Seacrest, or perhaps another host (who's young, famous and hip these days that would do the show)?

The USA Network had Dance Party for about 7 years in the 80's and 90's, but I have forgotten if it was a daily or a weekly show.

What about a new "American Bandstand"? And if you think it would work, could it succeed as a daily program?

Joe
 
joeybabe25 said:
Some years ago, before, I believe Dick Clark's 2004 stroke there was talk of bringing back "American Bandstand" with Ryan Seacrest as host.

I don't know if they were planning to do this as a daily show, as "Bandstand" was until August 1963 or a weekly show.

What do the folks here think about a daily "American Bandstand" with perhaps Ryan Seacrest, or perhaps another host (who's young, famous and hip these days that would do the show)?

The USA Network had Dance Party for about 7 years in the 80's and 90's, but I have forgotten if it was a daily or a weekly show.

What about a new "American Bandstand"? And if you think it would work, could it succeed as a daily program?

Joe
Click to expand...
Wouldn't work today--even as a weekly program. How many kids (or adults for that matter) in 2013 are going to watch a TV show to listen to songs that they can (probably) find anytime on YouTube or some other online service, or watch other people dance? The fact that MTV has completely abandoned music (why do they still host the VMAs?) is the best example of current TV thinking.
 
AB's Spotlight Dance(when a selected couple danced to a hit song at that time) was the idea for Fox's current summer
talent series "So You Think You Can Dance." Lauren Sanchez hosted the show in its first season. Then, when Sanchez got
pregnant, Cat Deeley took over hosting duties and is still hosting the show today. Nigel Lythgoe, the show's executive
producer(and also EP of "American Idol") is its lead judge, along with ballroom dancer Mary Murphy and various other judges.
 
BD Sullivan said:
joeybabe25 said:
Some years ago, before, I believe Dick Clark's 2004 stroke there was talk of bringing back "American Bandstand" with Ryan Seacrest as host.

I don't know if they were planning to do this as a daily show, as "Bandstand" was until August 1963 or a weekly show.

What do the folks here think about a daily "American Bandstand" with perhaps Ryan Seacrest, or perhaps another host (who's young, famous and hip these days that would do the show)?

The USA Network had Dance Party for about 7 years in the 80's and 90's, but I have forgotten if it was a daily or a weekly show.

What about a new "American Bandstand"? And if you think it would work, could it succeed as a daily program?

Joe
Click to expand...
Wouldn't work today--even as a weekly program. How many kids (or adults for that matter) in 2013 are going to watch a TV show to listen to songs that they can (probably) find anytime on YouTube or some other online service, or watch other people dance? The fact that MTV has completely abandoned music (why do they still host the VMAs?) is the best example of current TV thinking.
Click to expand...

And more to BD's point, it's the same reason why Soul Train disappeared several years ago. Before the growth of cable, Bandstand (along with Soul Train and maybe Hee Haw) was the only game in town as far as reliable source for popular music.
 
I think it might work. Bandstand wasn't the only place to hear current music but it was one of the only places to see artists perform (although most just lip-synched). Done correctly, with a suitable supply of guest stars, I'm pretty sure the teeny-boppers and their buddies would tune in. Whether this is a desirable demo is another question.
 
The reason it would work is because with the right guests people would get to tune in to actually see that person perform.

The reason it would not work is due to the fact that with 500 channels to choose from there are certainly no blockbuster hits anymore except "Wheel of Fortune" and it has probably two-thirds of the audience it had, say, 10 years ago. There's a smaller piece of the ratings pie for every t.v. show out there.

As far as "Hee Haw" which was mentioned earlier in this post's thread, it lasted about 6-8 years longer than any of the competing country music shows like "Pop Goes the Country" or "That Nashville Music." Part of that was the arrival of TNN and CMT, but part of it was the fact that "Showbiz," the company that produced basically every country music t.v. series except "Hee Haw," sold out to Multimedia which at the time was producing "Donahue" and later Jerry Springer. They didn't want to deal with country fans and the shows were still popular enough that they simply couldn't stop production cold turkey so they tinkered with the formula for those shows and killed them that way by alienating loyal, long-term viewers.

MTV and VH-1 likewise helped to kill "Bandstand," but I think ABC thought toward the end that they really didn't need AB anymore.
 
pgtcf7806 said:
The reason it would not work is due to the fact that with 500 channels to choose from there are certainly no blockbuster hits anymore except "Wheel of Fortune" and it has probably two-thirds of the audience it had, say, 10 years ago. There's a smaller piece of the ratings pie for every t.v. show out there.
Click to expand...

The AB demo is primarily females 12-20. That's pretty narrow. WOF, dumb as it is, apparently appeals to a much larger population (who apparently have trouble sleeping).
 
pgtcf7806 said:
The reason it would work is because with the right guests people would get to tune in to actually see that person perform.

The reason it would not work is due to the fact that with 500 channels to choose from there are certainly no blockbuster hits anymore except "Wheel of Fortune" and it has probably two-thirds of the audience it had, say, 10 years ago. There's a smaller piece of the ratings pie for every t.v. show out there.

As far as "Hee Haw" which was mentioned earlier in this post's thread, it lasted about 6-8 years longer than any of the competing country music shows like "Pop Goes the Country" or "That Nashville Music." Part of that was the arrival of TNN and CMT, but part of it was the fact that "Showbiz," the company that produced basically every country music t.v. series except "Hee Haw," sold out to Multimedia which at the time was producing "Donahue" and later Jerry Springer. They didn't want to deal with country fans and the shows were still popular enough that they simply couldn't stop production cold turkey so they tinkered with the formula for those shows and killed them that way by alienating loyal, long-term viewers.

MTV and VH-1 likewise helped to kill "Bandstand," but I think ABC thought toward the end that they really didn't need AB anymore.
Click to expand...

One Showbiz production, "The Porter Wagoner Show," outlasted all the country-music shows except "Hee Haw," and it's interesting that all the Showbiz shows were canceled at about the same time, in the early '80s. (BTW, "Hee Haw" tinkered with its format, too, and encountered enough audience resistance to end it in, I believe, 1993.)

Back to "AB": one of the reasons ABC finally canceled it was to make room for more sports programming, so I can't see it back on Saturday afternoons--at least not on the Alphabet Network. In order for it to be the make-or-break outlet for new songs, it has to be on five days a week as it was in the Philadelphia days; likewise, it could again develop of a family of semi-regulars (not just the dancers) the way it did in the 1957-63 period, when local acts like Bobby Rydell, Connie Francis, Chubby Checker, and James Darren were frequent guests, as were Bobby Darin and Paul Anka. I'm not sure many stations are going to give up talk shows or local news to run the show at its old network time of 4 PM. While I think someone in tune with the spirit of today's music could conceivably make it work, I have my doubts that it could get enough support from either broadcast or cable.
 
You'd like to think it might work - again. I think the expense of bringing in recording artists to perform might be a problem. Things do seem much more mobile now in terms of being able to listen to music. Would teenagers or anyone want to watch a TV show for an hour or more now for that kind of content?
 
pgtcf7806 said:
MTV and VH-1 likewise helped to kill "Bandstand," but I think ABC thought toward the end that they really didn't need AB anymore.
Click to expand...

Video killed the radio star, which lead The Midnight Special to morph into Friday Night Videos. What killed Friday night Videos?
 
visaman said:
pgtcf7806 said:
MTV and VH-1 likewise helped to kill "Bandstand," but I think ABC thought toward the end that they really didn't need AB anymore.
Click to expand...

Video killed the radio star, which lead The Midnight Special to morph into Friday Night Videos. What killed Friday night Videos?
Click to expand...

Actually, the Midnight Special morphed into SCTV Network 90 from 1981-83. After that show ended, FNV began in July 1983. That show lasted until the end of 2000, though by 1994, they started to phase out the music with more comedy. Carson Daly went to five nights a week beginning in January 2001.
 
Cincinnati Kid said:
You'd like to think it might work - again. I think the expense of bringing in recording artists to perform might be a problem. Things do seem much more mobile now in terms of being able to listen to music. Would teenagers or anyone want to watch a TV show for an hour or more now for that kind of content?
Click to expand...

Guests on "AB" worked for scale ($150 for a daytime show, IIRC). Would today's recording artists do that? Heck, today's celebrities refuse to sit on the couch after their turn on talk shows unless they get paid more than scale.

Also, I think you raise a good point as to whether today's teens would watch people dance or live (or lip-synched) performances for an hour; I doubt if you could get many teens to watch anything in the late afternoon. And I repeat: I don't think the station support is there.
 
People are forgetting that the entire premise of American Idol is built upon the same principle that American Bandstand used - teens will watch other teens perform.
 
landtuna said:
People are forgetting that the entire premise of American Idol is built upon the same principle that American Bandstand used - teens will watch other teens perform.
Click to expand...

Except that AI is teens (and often young adults) covering someone else's songs, not their own. Plus, Dick Clark didn't take time each year to ridicule the teens' dancing skills.
 
BD Sullivan said:
landtuna said:
People are forgetting that the entire premise of American Idol is built upon the same principle that American Bandstand used - teens will watch other teens perform.
Click to expand...

Except that AI is teens (and often young adults) covering someone else's songs, not their own. Plus, Dick Clark didn't take time each year to ridicule the teens' dancing skills.
Click to expand...

I didn't say the execution was the same, just the premise. Personally, I liked AB although I wasn't a regular viewer. I detest AI.
 
On the other hand, I could see a DVD release of "American Bandstand" in 33 volumes (one for each year the show was on national TV, from 1957 through 1989), with each volume containing two or three complete shows and a segment called "The Best Of The Rest" (the best segments from the year in question not in the complete episodes in that set).

It's my understanding that kinescopes or videotapes of almost ever nationally-broadcast "Bandstand" episode exist, so it might be easy to do.
 
Joseph_Gallant said:
On the other hand, I could see a DVD release of "American Bandstand" in 33 volumes (one for each year the show was on national TV, from 1957 through 1989), with each volume containing two or three complete shows and a segment called "The Best Of The Rest" (the best segments from the year in question not in the complete episodes in that set).

It's my understanding that kinescopes or videotapes of almost ever nationally-broadcast "Bandstand" episode exist, so it might be easy to do.
Click to expand...

They were used liberally in the NBC series "American Dreams," which I'm almost certain was produced by Clark's production company--for obsvious reasons.
 
Joseph_Gallant said:
It's my understanding that kinescopes or videotapes of almost ever nationally-broadcast "Bandstand" episode exist, so it might be easy to do.
Click to expand...

I thought that after tape came into use in the late 50's, AB, just like about every other show used the same tapes over and over, erasing the content as they went along. If they made Kine's at the same time I'd love to see them.
Any idea where they are, and why they have not surfaced?

Joe
 
...and reality TV killed MTV (now Morbid Television) and VH-1 (now Video Hellhole One...Music LAST!)

BTW: I'm tired of all the Snooki overhype and overkill. If she wasn't such a curvacious broad she would be just another dysfunctional hag.
 
joeybabe25 said:
Joseph_Gallant said:
It's my understanding that kinescopes or videotapes of almost ever nationally-broadcast "Bandstand" episode exist, so it might be easy to do.
Click to expand...

I thought that after tape came into use in the late 50's, AB, just like about every other show used the same tapes over and over, erasing the content as they went along. If they made Kine's at the same time I'd love to see them.
Any idea where they are, and why they have not surfaced?
Click to expand...
...Paul Brownstein convinced Dick Clark to repackage some of those for airing on VH-1 in the '90s. They were kinnied as late as 1969...
 
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