I saw the show as a vehicle to make something of myself, remembers Joe. The guys who wore sport coats with belts in the back from Lees of Broadway (10 percent discount for Committee members), pegged pants, pointy-toe shoes with the great buckles on the side, and drape (greaser) haircuts that my parents would never allow. Before long I started getting lots of fan mail: I think youre neat. Mr. Deane's salary . And Divine said, What drag queen would allow themselves to look like this?'. But it went something like this: Buddy Deane was an exclusively white show. Some fifty years later, the mindset is STILL the same. Buddy Deane was the host of a Baltimore dance show that ran on TV from 1957 to 1964 six days a week. But most have settled down to a very straight life. Waters took inspiration from the real-life Buddy Deane Show, a local dance party program that ran from 1957 to 1964 in the Maryland area. It was the top-rated local TV show in Baltimore and, for several years, the highest rated local TV program in the country. Although WJZ-TV, owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting (now CBS since January 2, 1995), was an ABC affiliate, the station "blacked out" the network broadcast of American Bandstand in Baltimore and broadcast the Deane program instead, reportedly because Bandstand showed black teenagers dancing on the show (although black and white teenagers were not allowed to dance together until the show was moved to California in 1964). 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. Youre in Baltimore. 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. Maybe that was a good choice because Divine was 40 then., She played against-type, certainly. That really hit home then., He adde, That scene where Tracy and [Link] are making out outside and the homeless guy walks up the street singing, that is exactly true. 'The Buddy Deane Show' was over . The story also locates racial prejudice in a single character, Velma Von Tussle (played in the live musical by Kristin Chenoweth), which enables the other white characters to remain largely innocent bystanders to the discrimination faced by the programs black teenagers. 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. Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. My heart would have broken in two if I couldnt have gone on. Finally, Helen quit Mergenthaler (Mervo) trade school, at the height of her fame. Marie Fischer was the first Joe to become a Committee memberchosen simply because she was such a good dancer. Then we made up on camera.. Some do remember a handful of kids getting high on cough medicine. This Committees committee, under the watchful eye of Arlene, chose new members, taught the dance steps, and enforced the demerit system, which could result in suspension or expulsion. Although the Committee was a valuable promotional tool for WJZ at the time, and belonging was a full-time job, no one (except teen assistants) was paid a penny. The Buddy Deane Show was a teen dance television show, created by Zvi Shoubin, hosted by Winston "Buddy" Deane (1924-2003), and aired on WJZ-TV (Channel 13), the ABC affiliate station in Baltimore from 1957 until 1964. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. The Buddy Deane Show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers. Evanne and her brother run the John Brock Benson Dance Studios, in Pasadena, and have a line of dancers who appear at clubs all over the state. I was with this guy named Jeff. To be selected you had to bring a character reference letter from your pastor, priest, or rabbi, qualify in a dance audition, and show in an interview (the Spotlight) that you had personality. At first the Committee had a revolving membership with no one serving longer than three months. The first stars I could identify with. Id get letters saying, If you show up at this particular hop, youre gonna get your face pushed in. Even racists like it, Waters said in his opening remarks. Mary Lou laughs at the memory of doing a pimple medicine spot on camera. In 1942, Deane enrolled at Cornell University in New York. Now a receptionist living near Towson with her husband and two grown children, Arlene remains fiercely loyal, organizing the reunions and keeping notebooks filled with the updated addresses, married names, and phone numbers of my kids. She met Winston J. The Buddy Dean Show was the inspiration for the "Corny Collins Show" in the 2007 musical. Black teens were only allowed to dance on the show one day per month. A big strong line!) up the hill to the famous dance party set, the one that now houses People Are Talking. 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.. I even won the twist contest with Mary Lou Raines (one of the queens of The Buddy Deane Show) at the Valley Country Club. http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/03/how-madison-line-dance-got-its-name-and.html, http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/03/al-brown-and-ray-bryant-madison-records.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Deane_Show, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairspray_(2007_film), http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2015/06/timeline-for-cultural-use-of-saying.html, https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/on-hairsprays-25th-anniversary-buddydeane-committee-looks-back/2013/01/17/a45a1cc2-5c23-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html, http://theurbandaily.com/2011/06/01/black-music-moment-96-short-lived-integration-of-the-buddy-deane-show/. . You learned how to be a teenager from the show. Some of the old Committee kept up with the times and made the transition with ease. In 1958 the Buddy Deane Show lost support from the Baltimore City Board of Education due to it's segregation policies, and in 1964 it went off the air instead of choosing to integrate. I wanted to go, but my parents wouldnt let me. It was maddening: the Mashed Potatoes, the Stroll, the Pony, the Waddle, the Locomotion, the Bug, the Handjive, the New Continental, and, most important, the Madison, a complicated line dance that started here and later swept the country. The protesters wanted the races to mix. Why not do The Deane Show on TV again? The Buddy Deane Show was a teen dance television show, created by Zvi Shoubin, hosted by Winston "Buddy" Deane (1924-2003), and aired on WJZ-TV (Channel 13), the ABC affiliate station in Baltimore from 1957 until 1964. It was even in the papers. Buddy Deane, a native of Pine Bluff, was one of the first radio hosts to understand the appeal of Rock n' Roll in its infancy, the host of a popular 60s teen dance show, the inspiration for a film and musical character in Hairspray, and so much more. Actor: Hairspray. (They gave her a diamond watch at the last reunion.) 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. Once I was off the show for a while, and they said I had joined the nunnery, says Helen, laughing. Based loosely on the 1988 film by John Waters, Hairspray centres on Baltimore teen Tracy Turnblad (Carmel Rodrigues), who in 1962 wants nothing more than a chance to dance on the local pop music TV. We got out of the limousine and there was a huge crowd that went crazy when Divine jumped out, and it was such an exciting night, Waters said. Perhaps the highest bouffants of all belonged to the Committee member who was my personal favorite: Pixie (who died several years later from a drug overdose). Or the Bob-a Loop? Sometimes youd wrap your hair at night. They sent cakes on my birthday. "I told him I thought it was terrible," Melva Lee Scruggs said about the "Buddy Deane Show." . The Buddy Deane Show was a highly visible regional program that asserted a racially segregated public culture. Oh, my God, its Evanne! Autograph books, cameras, this is what they lived for. The show featured only white kids dancing, so Scruggs wrote him a letter in the fall of 1958 to . He was one of the first disc jockeys in the area to regularly feature rock and roll. 1957, it was a huge success as it was portrayed in the musical. Buddy noticed my eyes staring and said, Do the same eyes. And the camera got it. Kathy went even further. By what name was The Buddy Deane Show (1957) officially released in Canada in English? [1], Deane's dance party television show debuted in 1957 and was, for a time, the most popular local show in the United States. Ninfa O. Barnard Special to The Commercial So there you have it. Im still a fana Deaner groupie. Perhaps the last thing 2016 needs is a star-studded, light-hearted musical endorsement of colorblindnessthough, viewed holistically, Hairspray is more than that. I even named some of the characters in my films after them. It was broadcast for two hours a day, six days a week and featured local teenagers dancing to their favorite music played by live bands. Winston "Buddy" Deane was a broadcaster for more than fifty years, beginning his career in Little Rock, Arkansas, then moving to the Memphis, Tennessee, market before moving onto Baltimore . At just 10 years old, he and a friend set up their own radio station in a chicken coop that belonged to Deane's mother. Jul 24, 2017 - Explore Bruce Clarke's board "Buddy Dean Show", followed by 154 people on Pinterest. Clip from Shake, Rattle, and Roll: The Buddy Deane Scrapbook From 1996 to 2003, he hosted dance events in Baltimore, Pennsylvania and aboard cruise ships. Theatre producer, Margo Lion, saw a television broadcast of the film in 1998 and started to conceive it as a stage musical. Not a real one. In 1957, Deane was chosen by former WITH associate Joel Chaseman to host "The Buddy Deane Show," a dance show for teenagers on WJZ-TV Channel 13. The racial integration of a take-off of the show, dubbed The Corny Collins Show, provides the backdrop to the 1988 John Waters film Hairspray. In a long list of reasons why we find it difficult to wait for freedom, King writes: When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she cant go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. The black cops would stop us and say: This isnt Greenwich Village, you know. SOUL! I used to lie in bed at my parents house, and there was an African-American community up the street and they went by singing along to the radio. The Best Picture Race Got a Lot More Confusing This Week, Tom Cruise Made the Rounds This Week, but Other Oscar Nominees Got More Applause Than Top Gun: Maverick, These Oscar Categories Are the Hardest to Predict, Translating the Unconscious Into Images: The Cinematography of Bardo, Poker Face Takes Viewers on a Cross-Country Road Trip Without Leaving New York, Why TR Looks Different from Every Other Movie of 2022, The 50 Best Movies of 2022, According to 165 Critics from Around the World, All 81 Titles Unceremoniously Removed from HBO Max (So Far), 10 Shows Canceled but Not Forgotten in 2022. The regulars . The "Corny Collins Show" in Hairspray is loosely based on the Baltimore teen dance program called the "Buddy Deane Show." One Baltimore woman fought to get black teens on the popular show back in 1958. Both entities launche. Jones). I had trunks of it. sively white show. Waters would rush home . Arguably the first TV celebrities in Baltimore. . Joel Chaseman, also a DJ at WITH, became program manager of WJZ-TV when Westinghouse bought it in the mid-50s. This move would have been a footnote in the annals of television if not for the director and Baltimore native John Waters, whose 1988 film Hairspray offered up an alternate history, with its fictional Corny Collins Show and rose-tinted, lets-all-dance-together ending. A devoted fan of the Buddy Deane Show, Waters drew on this history to write and direct the original film version of Hairspray. Everywhere we went, people would say Theres Mary Lou. I wondered if she had just been released from the penitentiary.. Advertisement. This assessment proved true when on Aug. 12, 1963 a group of black and white kids stormed the stage of "The Buddy Deane Show" and danced together. His running joke with listeners was that he ran the town from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. until the city's real mayor took over. Six days a week and often two hours a day, Buddy Deane and his Committee Members--the privileged regular teen dancers . The information used was obtained from WJZ. In Little Rock, white teens went from protesting integration at Central High School to dancing in the afternoon on Steves Show. But Hairspray also resonates for at least one of the same reasons it did in the 80s: It shows how seemingly innocent moments in popular culture were also sites of struggle over who was worthy of being a counted as a somebody in America. And none are bitter. Still, as an historian of the television era that Hairspray so lovingly recreates, I believe the story also presents a more nuanced vision of how popular culture helped to educate white and black teenagers about racial hierarchies. Although he never appeared on Deane's show, Waters attended high school with a "Buddy Deaner" and later gave Deane a cameo in the film, in which Deane played a TV reporter who tried to interview the governor who was besieged by integration protesters. Everybody wanted to kick a Buddy Deaners a, says Gene, recalling thugs waiting to jump Deaners outside the studio. Thank you for including me as one of the Buddy Dean family. From 1957 to 1963, only white teens were allowed to attend the weekday broadcasts of the Buddy Deane Show, with the exception of one Monday each month when black teenagers filled the studio (the so-called Black Monday). On the show you were either a drape or a square, explains Sharon. The Buddy Deane Show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers. Buddy Deane was the host of a Baltimore dance show that ran on TV from 1957 to 1964 six days a week. [2], https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Buddy_Deane_Show&oldid=1101079819. As Marie puts it, The rewards were so great emotionally that you didnt have to ask for a monetary award., Many had difficulties dealing with the void when the show went off the air. "How 'The Buddy Deane Show' really went off the air is the white kids crashed Negro Day to integrate it. . He was 16 at the time of filming. Committee members included Mike Miller, Charlie Bledsoe, Ron Osher, Mary Lou Raines, Pat(ricia) Tacey, and Cathy Schmink. Was it really twenty years ago? 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. We used to go to stand in front of Reads Drugstore, and people would ask for our autograph.. Its fairly neat, commercialized, and revisionist portrayal of 1960s Baltimore sharply contrasts with the current messy, national discussion of identity politicsa disjunction that could prompt new audiences to reevaluate their assumptions about how racism operates. 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. Nicknamed "Buddy" as a child, Deane . The Buddy Deane Show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers. . Other vices were likewise eschewed. Soon after, he and his family moved to Memphis, Tenn. 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. And who could forget those great ads for the plastic furniture slipcovers that opened with the kids jumping up and down on the sofa and Royal Parker screaming, Hey kids! [citation needed]. So the rules were bent a little; the big ones, the ones with the fan mail, were allowed to stay. Girl Scout leader, very active in my kids school. Mary Lou is still a star. Hairspray encourages its audience to take the fight to integrate a teenage TV show seriously, but it does so through songs, dances, and costumes that celebrate and satirize the 60s. He was so happy. The Buddy Deane Show was a teenage dance party, on the air from 1957 to 1964. But I was never a Deaner. producers hope this story of interracial unity will be appealing to television audiences in 2016. Ladies and gentlemen, the nicest kids in town!. Sources: www.IMDB.com -- Buddy Deane Biography; www.OzNet.com - A Collection of Articles About Buddy Deane; www.Variety.com -- Winston J. 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. "How 'The Buddy Deane Show' really went off the air is the white kids crashed Negro Day to integrate it. I had to get up there on time. It ran two hours a day, six days a week. as its newest live-television musical adaptation. The movie was eventually turned into a musical by the same name. Once a month the show was all black. The Funtown reference is powerful because it captures one of the ways that Jim Crow segregation and white supremacy played out for children and teenagers. While he wasnt on the committee, Waters occasionally danced on the show as a guest. BLACK MUSIC MOMENT #96: Short-Lived Integration Of The Buddy Deane Show. Im the biggest ham. Although she denies being conscious of the camera, she admits, I did try to dance up front. Buddy could take his seat beneath the famous Top 20 Board, and the tension would build. I was able after a while to afford some clothes from Lees of Broadway (whose selection of belted coats and pegged pants made it the Saks Fifth Avenue of Deaners). The Buddy Deane Showwas a teen dancetelevision show, created by Zvi Shoubin, hosted by Winston "Buddy" Deane(1924-2003), and aired on WJZ-TV(Channel 13), the ABCaffiliate station in Baltimorefrom 1957 until 1964. 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. The main thing was your hair was flat, the antithesis of Buddy Deane, she says, chuckling. Over lunch at the Thunderball Lounge, in East Baltimore, Kathy remembers, I could never get used to signing autographs. I had always studied dance, and I wanted to go on [the show]. 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. And direct the original film version of Hairspray have settled down to a very straight life this. O. Barnard Special to the famous dance party, on the show one day per month thing was your was. Started getting lots of fan buddy deane show negro day, were allowed to stay said, do the same name Scruggs wrote a... Air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers air from 1957 1964... Taken off the show ] on Steves show, cameras, this is what they lived for because! [ the show as a stage musical straight life and say: this isnt Village... 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