American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that
aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from
1956 untilits final season by Dick Clark, who also served as
producer. The show featured teenagers dancing to Top 40 music
introduced by Clark; at least one popular musical act—over
the decades, running the gamut from Jerry Lee Lewis to
Run–D.M.C.—would usually appear in person to lip-sync
one of their latest singles. Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon
holds the record for most appearances, at 110.
American Bandstand premiered locally in late March 1950 as
Bandstand on Philadelphia television station WFIL-TV Channel 6
(now WPVI-TV), as a replacement for a weekday movie that had
shown predominantly British films. Hosted by Bob Horn as a
television adjunct to his radio show of the same name on WFIL
radio, Bandstand mainly featured short musical films produced by
Snader Telescriptions and Official Films, with occasional studio
guests. This incarnation was an early predecessor of sorts of the
music video shows that became popular in the 1980s, featuring
films that are themselves the ancestors of music videos.
The Regulars |
