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Dick Clark has passed
- Thread starter raccoonradio
- Start date
What a shock to hear his passing. Philly is in mourning! And New Years will never be the same again, it's the end of an television era! I piece of my childhood memories are gone. RIP Mr. American Bandstand 
Such an American icon. Can't imagine that even one TV viewer could say he or she was not in some way touched by the TV presence of Dick Clark. No one can replace him, not even Ryan Seacrest.
I put a link, if your interested, on the New York Television thread about his early days in Utica N. Y. I had the honor to meet him a couple times and was his guest at the American Bandstand Anniversary show a few years back. He & Kari treated me & my family like we were their family. The Utica connection.
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imhomerjay
Guest
bpatrick said:
Not those of us who know you can group any set of people who die...since it happens continually...and say it's a set of three.
The last time I saw him on New Year's Rockin' Eve he looked like he was in good shape considering what hs had been through in recent years. Rest in peace Dick.
GSN's website (GSN is where they showed 1980s-era Pyramid game shows taped at CBS) didn't mentioned Dick Clark's passing or tribute. And PBS Newshour ignored the news of Dick Clark's death.
C
charles123
Guest
R.I.P. Dick Clark you will be missed, I'll always remember him when he always salutes to everyone before a show ends.
When Bandstand originated in Philly, Clark lived in Wallingford, PA (western Philly suburbs). So did, at the time, the man who is now my stepfather (the latter in fact continued to live in Wallingford for some time after AB went west).
At least my stepdad last night told me Clark lived in Wallingford.
RIP Dick. I probably saw him on Pyramid more than any other show other than NYRE, even AB.
ixnay
At least my stepdad last night told me Clark lived in Wallingford.
RIP Dick. I probably saw him on Pyramid more than any other show other than NYRE, even AB.
ixnay
B
Bob1370
Guest
As a kid in the late 50s and early 60s, he was part of a daily ritual which included watching American Bandstand at 4 PM ET followed by the Mickey Mouse Club at 5. (That continued through the early 60s when Mickey went into reruns, but AB would stay new and fresh for another 20 years, though at the end it aired on ABC first-run only on Saturday.) It's where so many born in the 50s got their first taste of rock and soul from a man who clearly and genuinely liked the music AND liked the audience he was presenting it to. (He was actually once quoted, IIRC in an NPR interview, as saying he respected classical music and knew he should like it, but it was rock, soul and cool jazz that really moved him.)
Silkie said:
I think, more to the point, Clark got in on the ground floor early before others got on the bandwagon (think of all the off-brand kids' dance shows in the '60s, for example, nationally and locally). And he handled the payola scrape perfectly, with a demeanor that was not in the slightest defiant or apologetic. He did the right thing by divesting himself of the questionable businesses he was in, which was a blessing in disguise, because it allowed him to focus his efforts on television, something he might not have been able to do had he been a record label head.
Whatever you may think of Bandstand's supposed conservatism in music choices, we have to remember that TV was a quintessentially "square" medium when Clark got started, Elvis on Ed Sullivan notwithstanding. The FCC was a much stronger entity than today, and so was public censoriousness. If it hadn't been for Clark making things more palatable to parents and authority figures, it is not out of the question that rock and pop might have been banned by networks and stations for years to come. Without Bandstand, we would not have had the likes of Soul Train, Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, and, of course later, MTV.
From the perspective of someone from my generation, of course, things will never be the same again with pop music and TV. But then again, the genre had a past that was before my time, and I am sure it is as inaccessible to me as the music I like is to today's generation. What made Clark unique was that he suppressed whatever his personal tastes might have been in order to let the current generation be itself.
I've just learned that his remains will be cremated and have it scattered at sea. Unfortunately, no funeral will be held (public or private), and memorial services aren't finalized yet.
Levon Helm.imhomerjay said:
azumanga said:
Greg Ham's passing has been in the news, but I hadn't heard about Jonathan Frid. Thanks for that heads-up.
Mike Stroud said:
As I said, one of the most successful and astute businessmen of a generation. To paraphrase from one of the old Uncle Remus stories if you come across a tar baby you're gonna get tar on you one way or the other. Dick Clark avoided that as a result of his business acumen.
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