I even named some of the characters in my films after them. But it went something like this: Buddy Deane was an exclusively white show. Some do remember a handful of kids getting high on cough medicine. I had trunks of it. Thank you for including me as one of the Buddy Dean family. Another royal Deaner couple who met on the air and later married was Gene Snyder and Linda Warehime. Deane began his broadcasting career at KLXR in Little Rock, Arkansas. A devoted fan of the Buddy Deane Show, Waters drew on this history to write and direct the original film version of Hairspray. Dick Clark patterned his ABC-TV show, Where the Action Is, after local remotes done by Deane in Maryland. Almost all dancers wore swim wear and beach attire, with music provided by WJZ-TV. ', Although many parents and WJZ insisted that Committee members had to keep up their grades to stay on the show, the reality could be quite different. Print Headline: Buddy Deane Show was huge hit for young viewers in the late 1950s, Copyright 2023, Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC. I dont think Ill ever get over missing it, if you want to know the truth., Many of the Committee members spouses faced an even bigger adjustment. The show was a teen dance and music show and ran from 1957 to until 1964 on WJZ-TV until the show was canceled.The show was a teen dance and music show and ran from 1957 to until 1964 on WJZ-TV until the show was canceled.The show was a teen dance and music show and ran from 1957 to until 1964 on WJZ-TV until the show was canceled. as its newest live-television musical adaptation. At frantic meetings of the Committee, many said, My parents simply wont let me come if its integrated, and WJZ realized it just couldnt be done. Whats great about the choreography in [You Cant Stop the Beat] is that, subtly, the black dancers and the white dancers have the same choreography, the executive producer Neil Meron said in the DVD commentary for the 2007 film. And it was not unique: Dick Reids Record Hop in Charleston, West Virginia; Ginny Paces Saturday Hop in Houston, Texas; John Dixons Dixon on Disc in Mobile, Alabama; Bill Sanderss show in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Dewey Phillipss Pop Shop in Memphis, Tennessee; and Chuck Allens Teen Tempo in Jackson, Mississippi, were all segregated dance shows. When Barry Levinson, another Baltimore native, requested video from the show for his film Diner, the station told him it had no footage. Mr. Deane hosted a crowd of exuberant teens, who danced to the music of live rock bands, including many name acts. You are history. That's what really happened, and the show shut down." 3. And the whole concept of the Committee changed. I wanted to get into the record businessand years later he did. Theyd stand outside my home. That's what really happened, and the show shut down." 3. So a year later when he had his own show, it seemed only right that "Rock Around the Clock" premiered on "The Buddy Deane Show.". Im Joe, too. There was a change in the works., Part of that change was the racial integration movement. Or dancing with other Committee members when you were supposed to be dancing with the guests (a very unpopular rule allowed this only every fourth dance). There are other socio-cultural comments in various YouTube comments threads about the Madison dance. . Thats what really happened, and the show shut down.. Its host was Winston "Buddy" Deane (1924-2003), who died in Pine Bluff, Arkansas after . The show began in September of 1957 when an Arkansan named Winston Joe "Buddy" Deane was approached by Joel Chaseman, the head of programming at WJZ-TV. Many parents and local officials were angry. Could it be? Ten seconds to airtime. It was very interesting to see my conversation quoted in this article. If Im ever depressed, sometimes I think, Well this will make me feel better, and I go and dig in the box., Holding onto the memories more than anyone is Arlene Kozak, who is by far the most loved by all the Committee members. Deane helped the Bill Haley and the Comets song "Rock Around the Clock" become a hit in Baltimore a full year before it became a worldwide success by promoting their music while at WITH. So you cant imagine how excited I was when I finally got a chance to interview these local legends twenty years later. Hairspray is the gift that never stops giving, Waters told an adoring crowd at New Yorks IFC Center this past weekend, the theater where Hairspray first opened thirty years ago. That was our whole social life, being a Buddy Deaner, says Gene. Yet Joe was a dropout when he went on the show and then, once famous, went back to finish. If you couldnt do the Buddy Dean jitterbug, (always identifiable by the girls ever-so-subtle dip of her head each time she was twirled around), you were a social outcast. August 8, 2022 at 3:55 a.m. On August 2, 1924, Winston Joseph Deane was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. The show featured only white kids dancing, so Scruggs wrote him a letter in the fall of. Buddy noticed my eyes staring and said, Do the same eyes. And the camera got it. Kathy went even further. The Buddy Deane Show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers. I got these letters from the Naval Academy, Helen remembers, so I went there one day, and all the midshipmen were hanging out the windows. You werent one of them anymore. Outsiders envied the fame, especially if they lost their steadies to Deaners, and many were put off by boys who loved to dance. As you can see from the December thread my question concerning African Americans was totally dismissed by the Committee member who was speaking. Counter to host Dick Clark's claims that he integrated American Bandstand, this book reveals how the first national television program directed at teens discriminated against black youth during its early years . At first I was so shy I hid behind the Coke machines., But Evanne used to come right home and head for the TV. Many top acts of the day, both black and white, appeared on The Buddy Deane Show. In 2003, "Hairspray" went on to sweep the 57th Annual Tony Awards, winning a total of eight awards. Acts that appeared on the show first were reportedly barred from appearing on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, but if they had been on Bandstand first they could still be on The Buddy Deane Show. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. sively white show. So I gave it the happy ending that we had, Waters said. were the highest rated local TV show in America." Amazingly, Deane's show was aired live, two-and-a-half hours each day on five days a week with three hours on Saturday. Black History Month . You received demerits for almost anything: Chewing gum. This Article is related to: Film and tagged Divine, Hairspray, IFC Center, John Waters. This page was last edited on 29 July 2022, at 06:25. . Here, Clark's memories of American Bandstand are nested in an overview of important events in U.S. history from the 1950s and 1960s. Many years later they married. I used to get death threats on the show. I'll include some of those comments in an upcoming pancocojams series about that dance.However, it seems to me that The Buddy Deane Show is more important because it exemplifies the need to go back and understand how the past has influenced the present with regard to systemic racism in Baltimore, Maryland and elsewhere in the United States. Even doing commercials was expected. Please read our Terms of Use or contact us. . It is hosted by the titular Corny Collins, with the exception of the monthly Rhythm and Blues special which is hosted by Motormouth Maybelle . The Corny Collins Show is now integrated! Waters himself commented on the films revisionist history, I gave it a happy ending that it didnt have., Hairsprays happy ending gave the story an arc that appealed to Broadway and Hollywood producers. Ninfa O. Barnard Special to The Commercial He just didnt understand., But some have dealt with the problems in good humor. Oh, black teens could dancejust not with the white kids. The Buddy Deane.phenomenon is hardly dead. And although few will now admit to having been drapes, the styles at first were DAs (slicked back into the shape of a ducks tail), Detroits, and Waterfalls (flowing down the front) for the guys and ponytails and DAs for the girls, who wore full skirts with crinolins and three or four pairs of bobby socks. But as more and more kids (even Deane fans) did tum Joe College, many of the Committee made the mistake of not keeping up with the times. The Buddy Deane Show was a highly visible regional program that asserted a racially segregated public culture. (They gave her a diamond watch at the last reunion.) These dances included the Mashed Potato, the Stroll, the Pony, the Waddle, the Locomotion, the Bug, the Handjive, the New Continental and the Madison. This sort of nearsighted, if not disingenuous, framing persists today, whether in affluent parents in New York City insisting their opposition to school rezoning proposals is not about race, or in arguments suggesting that the best way to address racism is to stop accusing people of being racists.. Pixie was barely five feet tall, but her hair sometimes added a good six to eight inches to her height. All the choreography in the movie prior to this was segregated by race, and now its all together, which is a very, very subtle reference to the theme of this movie.. The show featured only white kids dancing, so Scruggs wrote him a letter in the fall of 1958 to . The ultimate reunion.From all over the country, the Deaners could rise again, congregate at the bottom of Television Hill, and start Madison-ing their way (Youre looking good. Hairspray is firmly rooted in 1960s America, but it offers both sophisticated and (tellingly) simplistic ways of understanding racism today. Image Credit: OzNet.com. Buddy Deane was the host of a Baltimore dance show that ran on TV from 1957 to 1964 six days a week. One of the first ponytail princesses was Peanuts (Sharon Goldman, debuting at 14 in 58, Forest Park, Chicken Hop), who went on the show because Deaners were folk heroes. She remembers Paul Anka singing Put Your Head on My Shoulder to her on camera as she did just that. Even today Gene and Linda are the quintessential Deaner couple, still socializing with many Committee members, very protective of the memory, and among the first to lead a dance at the emotion-packed reunions. I was really mad. There were a lot of obscene phone calls., And the rumors, God, the rumors. To this day, Im reluctant to tell some of my black friends I was on Buddy Deane because they look at it as a terrible time.. His show became one of the highest rated stations in the country. My mother wanted me to go, she took me down to the tryouts. And the girl Deaners, God, hair-hoppers as we called them in Towson, the ones with the Etta Gowns, bouffant hairdos, and cha-cha heels. Although the show has been off the air for more than twenty years, a nearly fanatical cult of fans has managed to keep the memory alive. But something unforeseen happened: The home audience soon grew attached to some of these kids. [1], As with many other local TV shows, little footage of the show is known to have survived. Buddy offered to have three or even four days a week all black, but that wasnt it. On Negro day a group of black and white kids staged a similar sneak attack on the Buddy Deane Show. You had to wear nylons. The buddy dean show debuted on Sep. 9. As well, a show was broadcast from a local farm in Westminster, Maryland. I saw the show as a vehicle to make something of myself, remembers Joe. Every weekday afternoon, in each of these broadcast markets, these shows presented images of exclusively white dancers and rendered black youth as second-class teenagers. Penny nervously stumbles over her answers, and another girl, Nadine Carver, is cut for being Black (the show has a "Negro Day" on the last Thursday of every month, she is told). I was totally star-struck and had as much fun that night as I did at the Cannes Film Festival. Kings mention of Funtown is preceded by references to lynch mobs, police brutality, and the airtight cage of poverty, and followed by references to hotel segregation and racial slurs. Most are happily married with kids and maintain the same images they had on the show. "How 'The Buddy Deane Show' really went off the air is the white kids crashed Negro Day to integrate it. by Originally aired 11/5/1986. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. The Hairspray Live! Not show biz, Arlene answers, hesitating, but the record biz, the people. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. I wanted to dance., We had a saying: The show either makes you or breaks you,' says Kathy. While the rest of the nation grew up on Dick Clarks American Bandstand, (which was not even shown here because Channel 13 already had Buddy Deane), Baltimoreans, true to form, had their own eccentric version. Yeah it was Cosenel, says Joe. And according to Arlene, Buddy encouraged one popular Committee member (Buzzy Bennet) to teach himself to read so he could realize his dream of being a disc jockey. . The show was a teen dance and music show and ran from 1957 to until 1964 on WJZ-TV until the show was canceled. Fran Nedeloff (debuting at 14 in 61, Mervo, cha-cha) remembers the look: Straight skirt to the knee, cardigan sweater buttoned up the back, cha-cha heels, lots of heavy black eyeliner, definitely Clearasil on the lips, white nail polish. On the air before Dick Clark debuted, the show was a hit from the beginning, says Arlene today. [1] He was 78. Owing to Deane's mid-South roots and work history, he featured many performers from the ranks of country and western music (e.g., Skeeter Davis, singing "The End of the World" and Brenda Lee singing "Sweet Nothin's"), who then achieved cross-over hits among rock and roll fans. But by far the most popular hairdo queen on Buddy Deane was a 14-year-old Pimlico Junior High School student named Mary Lou Raines. I had a lot of black friends at the time, so for me this was an awkward thing, says Marie. "I still go to the Buddy Deane reunions," he says. Not one of the Committee members, the ones chosen to be on the show every daythe Baltimore version of the Mouseketeers, the nicest kids in town, as they were billed. . Marie Fischer was the first Joe to become a Committee memberchosen simply because she was such a good dancer. In 1950, Deane moved to Baltimore to host 1230 AM WITH after Stan Kenton, a performer and guest he was interviewing, informed him of the opening at the radio station. Being a Buddy Deaner, says Arlene today that we had, said... In this article that & # x27 ; s American Bandstand to and... 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