The protesters wanted the races to mix. This sentiment carries through to the songs lyrics. Pixie was barely five feet tall, but her hair sometimes added a good six to eight inches to her height. Both black and white activists picketed the . On Sept. 13, 1964, he introduced The Beatles before their concert at the Baltimore Civic Center, and a few days later, he and his family moved back to Arkansas. It was the top-rated local TV show in Baltimore and, for several years, the highest rated local TV program in the country. | 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. The Buddy Deane Show: With Channing Wilroy, Buddy Deane. Vanessa Udon plays Motormouth Maybelle, who hosts the monthly Negro Day on the Corny Collins Show. maintains the basic of Waterss story, but like the Broadway version and musical film, it features more than a dozen songs that help to convey the hopeful narrative. [citation needed] With an ear for music seasoned by many more years as a disc jockey than Clark, Deane also brought to his audience a wider array of white musical acts than were seen on American Bandstand. Hairspray is John Waters most commercially successful film the 1988 dancing comedy spawned a hit Broadway musical, a movie and TV movie of that musical, plus multiple sequel and TV show offers that never saw the light of day. One girl yelled Buddy Deaner and then threw her plate at me. "Do You Love Me" by The Contours, or "Hide and Go Seek" by Bunker Hill). Im still a fana Deaner groupie. 1 DJ in 1962 by Billboard mag. I appreciate the contribution that you and NOBLE BRUN, and other Black dancers on the Buddy Dean dance show made on that series. Other vices were likewise eschewed. Marie Fischer was the first Joe to become a Committee memberchosen simply because she was such a good dancer. 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. Almost every rock 'n' roll star except Elvis graced the Deane Show stage. In 1963, the Civic Interest Group, an student integrationist group founded at Morgan State University, challenged this policy by obtaining tickets for black and white teens to attend the show on a day reserved for black teenagers. Joe remembers a sport coat I bought for $5 from somebody who got it when he got out of prison. He was one of the first to showcase rock and roll music on a continual basis. Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and noncommercial use. I had trunks of it. For the rest of the time, the show's participants were all white. . 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. American Bandstand, one of the most popular television shows ever, broadcast from Philadelphia in the late fifties, a time when that city had become a battleground for civil rights. Then we made up on camera.. (97) In Hairspray (1988), Tammy Turner assists Corny Collins on the show. 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. 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. You will be redirected back to your article in, Get The Latest IndieWire Alerts And Newsletters Delivered Directly To Your Inbox. ' And Evanne still shudders as she recalls, Once I was in the cafeteria. The action of the musical takes place in 1962 and centers around Baltimore's teenage obsession with the television program The Corny Collins Show, a stand-in for an actual Baltimore production of the day, The Buddy Deane 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. 2003. But an intrepid group of local and . Some fifty years later, the mindset is STILL the same. I was so embarrassed. On the last day of the show, January 4, 1964, all the most popular Committee members through the years came back for one last appearance. . Mary Lou was aware that in some neighborhoods it was not cool to be a Buddy Deaner. I wanted to dance., We had a saying: The show either makes you or breaks you,' says Kathy. 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. Deane organized and disc-jockeyed dances in public venues across the WJZ-TV broadcast area, including much of central Maryland, Delaware, and southern Pennsylvania where tens of thousands of teenagers were exposed to live recording artists and TV personalities. That show featured local teens who danced to the hits of the era, although the entire cast was white except for one episode every other Friday for Black kids. In meetings with the show's white performers, the producers realized that though most of the dancers were in favor of integration, their parents would not be. I guess Helen Crist was the first drapette: the DA, the ballet shoes, oogies [tulle scarves], eye shadoweyeliner was big thenand pink lipstick., Helen Crist. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. Ironically, The Buddy Deane Show introduced black music and artists into the lives of white Baltimore teenagers, many of whom learned to dance from black friends and listened to black radio. On Jan. 4, 1964, "The Buddy Deane Show" aired its last episode. Jones). The first and maybe the biggest Buddy Deane queen of all. 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. In addition to creating teenage dancing sensations, "The Buddy Deane Show" also featured musical superstars of the day, including Buddy Holly, Domino, the Supremes, the Marvelettes, Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon, Fabian and many others. Deane hosted a morning show at WITH. 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. It was even in the papers. Every rock n roll star of the day (except Elvis) came to town to lip-synch and plug their records on the show: Buddy Holly, Domino, the Supremes, the Marvelettes, Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon, and Fabian, to name just a few. See production, box office & company info. "The Buddy Deane Show," which aired on WJZ-TV in Baltimore from 1957 until 1964. . The early look of the Committee was typically 50s. That show featured local teens who danced to the. Deane even dubbed himself "the morning mayor." Clip from Shake, Rattle, and Roll: The Buddy Deane Scrapbook Im a typical housewife, says Peanuts. This discrimination was explicitly or tacitly supported by an array of advertisers, television stations, music producers, city authorities, and federal communications officials. The Department of Education even withdrew its support of the show, and the show had to be filmed in the parking lot at times because of the threats they received. There were threats and bomb scares; integrationists smuggled whites into the all-black shows to dance cheek-to-cheek on camera with blacks, and that was it. Later that year he enlisted in the Army, where he served in Europe involved in some of the most intense battles of World War II. Buddy Deane. He was 16 at the time of filming. But most have settled down to a very straight life. After you sprayed it, youd get toilet paper and blot it. Buddy Deane used to boast that every major rock 'n' roll star of the era appeared on the show, except Elvis Presley and Rick Nelson. This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC. See, the fictional Corny Collins Show is actually based on the real Buddy Deane Show, which aired on WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Maryland from 1957 to 1964, and was the inspiration for John Waters . Waters's nostalgic and detailed appreciation for The Buddy Deane Show, . Everywhere we went, people would say Theres Mary Lou. I wondered if she had just been released from the penitentiary.. 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. "How 'The Buddy Deane Show' really went off the air is the white kids crashed Negro Day to integrate it. Could it be? The Buddy Deane Show was a highly visible regional program that asserted a racially segregated public culture. When the subject comes up today, most loyalists want to go off the record. Last spring, five hundred people quickly snapped up the $23 tickets to the third Buddy Deane Reunion, held at the Eastwind, in Essex, to raise money for the Baltimore Burn Center. In 1948, Deane married Helen Stevenson, his childhood sweetheart, whom he first met when he was just four years old. Every day Id come to the studio in knee-highs, and Id have to take them off. Buddy wanted it to end happily, but WJZ angered Deaners when it tried to blame the ratings. In 1985 the Committee members are for the most part happy and healthy, living in Baltimore, and still recognized on the street. Helens fans flocked to see her at the Buddy Deane Record Hops (Committee members had to make such personal appearances and sign autographs.) 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 films executive producer Craig Zadan argued that what makes Hairspray work is, you never feel like were on a soap box, or were preaching to you, or were saying this is a lesson you need to learn and yet, hopefully, you come away from it with something serious to talk about afterwards. There is no guarantee that viewers will take up these discussions, but Hairspray offers plenty of material for those who choose to do so. There were a lot of obscene phone calls., And the rumors, God, the rumors. [1] He was 78. So that was all true in a way, in a weird way., The girls hair was higher, the pants were tighter, and in real life it went off the air because they wouldnt integrate it. You Cant Stop the Beat, for example, is an upbeat dance number that resolves the issue of segregation on the Corny Collins Show. 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