Not show biz, Arlene answers, hesitating, but the record biz, the people. I thought I was running the world, so they developed a Board, and the Committee began governing itself. Being elected to the Board became the ultimate status symbol. I saw the show as a vehicle to make something of myself, remembers Joe. 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. August 8, 2022 at 3:55 a.m. Like many couples, Joe and Joan met through the show and became an item for their fans. IndieWire is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! [citation needed] In several instances, the show went on location to the Milford Mill swim club on the westside of suburban Baltimore County. 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.. Pauline Kael praised him. (The rave appeared in The New Yorker, where Kael said it was really Divines movie, calling him W. I had to get up there on time. 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. I was so embarrassed. It was a real kick! Her fame even brought an offer to join the circus. 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. In December 1963, producers at Baltimores WJZ-TV cancelled the Buddy Deane Show rather than integrate the popular teen dance program. BLACK MUSIC MOMENT #96: Short-Lived Integration Of The Buddy Deane Show. That's what really happened, and the show shut down." 3. This Article is related to: Film and tagged Divine, Hairspray, IFC Center, John Waters. 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. by When the show ended, Deane moved back to Arkansas,. You cant do this. I remember once we all got arrested at the drive-in for underage drinking, and the black kids didnt get out and the white kids did. Performances begin at 7 p.m. On Negro day a group of black and white kids staged a similar sneak attack on the Buddy Deane Show. Every day after school kids would run home, tune in, and dance with the bedpost or refrigerator door as they watched. There were a lot of obscene phone calls., And the rumors, God, the rumors. Buddy Deane was the host of a Baltimore dance show that ran on TV from 1957 to 1964 six days a week. Maybe ''The Buddy Deane Show,'' the teen-dance-party that ran on local television in Baltimore from 1957 to 1964 and inspired ''Hairspray,'' was the only wholesome obsession that ever led to one . 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). Buddy himself, the high priest, returned for the event. Sources: www.IMDB.com -- Buddy Deane Biography; www.OzNet.com - A Collection of Articles About Buddy Deane; www.Variety.com -- Winston J. The show's format mirrored Philadelphia's "American Bandstand." 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. Though black and white . The information used was obtained from WJZ. Deane hosted a morning show at WITH. Buddy Deane was the host of a Baltimore dance show that ran on TV from 1957 to 1964 six days a week. The Deaners didnt mind. Mary Lou, the Annette Funicello of the show, was the talk of teenage Baltimore. Also, read the comments in that same excerpt about the series only wanting "attractive" teenagers as featured dancers. Some fifty years later, the mindset is STILL the same. Joel Chaseman, also a DJ at WITH, became program manager of WJZ-TV when Westinghouse bought it in the mid-50s. Because Buddy Deanes competition was soap operas, the budding teenage romances were sometimes played up for the camera. The 1988 John Waters film, newly adapted into an NBC live musical, presents a view of racial discrimination thats by turns nave and enlightening. Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. 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It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. offered an unfiltered, uncompromising celebration of Black literature, poetry, music, and politics, capturing a critical moment in culture whose impact continues to resonate today. Then we made up on camera.. That was our whole social life, being a Buddy Deaner, says Gene. But most have settled down to a very straight life. The Deane program set aside every other Friday for a show featuring only black teenagers. 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. Theyd stand outside my home. So the rules were bent a little; the big ones, the ones with the fan mail, were allowed to stay. "Buddy" Deane was a broadcaster for more than 50 years, beginning his career in Little Rock, Arkansas, then moving to the Memphis, Tennessee market, before moving on to Baltimore, where he worked at WITH radio. But it went something like this: Buddy Deane was an exclusively white show. 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. I was aggressive. It was called The Waverly Theater back then, and Waters, looking dapper in a purple pinstriped suit, recalled that night as one of the last times he saw his friend and muse Divine before his death. Every week she had a different dothe Double Bubble, the Artichoke, the Airlifteach topped off by her special trademark, suggested by her mother, the bow. 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. Ladies and Gentleman . Deane also held dances at various Maryland American Legion posts and National Guard armories which were not taped or broadcast on television. Friday, February 24, 2023. Checking back with the studio, no one had information concerning footage of African American dancers. He was 16 at the time of filming. Yeah it was Cosenel, says Joe. MPT did a segment which included interviews with former African American dancers who appeared on the show. And none are bitter. My mother used to pick me up after school to make sure nobody hassled me., The adoring fans could also be a hassle. Another royal Deaner couple who met on the air and later married was Gene Snyder and Linda Warehime. Deane even played a small role in the movie, which premiered to moderate success but went on to become a cult classic. In 1942, Deane enrolled at Cornell University in New York. It's not just about police brutality. An then there was teased hair, replacing the 50s drape with a Buddy Deane look that so pervaded Baltimore culture (especially in East and South Baltimore) that its effect is still seen in certain neighborhoods of this great Hairdo Capital of the World. 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). So the NAACP targeted the show for protests. I wanted to join the circus., Two other ponytail princesses who went on to the Buddy Dean hall of fame were Evanne Robinson, the committee member on the show the longest, and Kathy Schmink. Joanie, whose mother wanted me to be a child star, hit the show in early 57 at age 13 (you had to be 14 to be eligible, but many lied about their ages to qualify), followed a few months later by Joe, 17. 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 Buddy Dean Show was the inspiration for the "Corny Collins Show" in the 2007 musical. Debuting at a mere 11 years of age, taking three buses every day to get to the show, wearing that wonderful white DA (created by her hairdresser father), and causing the first real sensation. The protesters wanted the races to mix. You Cant Stop the Beat, for example, is an upbeat dance number that resolves the issue of segregation on the Corny Collins Show. He also left the Army in 1948 and began his radio broadcast career at KLXR station in North Little Rock. . Here is the new video celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Buddy Deane Show and the former Catonsville Community College (now CCBC). In Baltimore, Maryland in the year 1962, Tracy Turnblad and her best friend, Penny Pingleton, audition for The Corny Collins Show, a popular Baltimore teenage dance show (based on the real-life Buddy Deane Show). I was a square. When I get depressed, I dont go to the psychiatrist, I go to the jeweler, she says. 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. Deane also played songs that other disc jockeys, including Dick Clark, refused to present to mostly white teen TV audiences because the acts sounded "too black" (e.g. Racism is passed down from one generation to the next. Vanessa Udon plays Motormouth Maybelle, who hosts the monthly Negro Day on the Corny Collins Show. It was a fluke. While other radio hosts thought rock 'n' roll music was just a passing trend, refusing to play it in favor of pop songs, Deane played rock 'n' roll music on a regular basis. It was difficult with your peers, recalls Peanuts. and later on, growing up, it was a definite blow: reality. I still have a whole box of fan mail, says Evanne. I couldnt be bothered with education. And they all came together on the Buddy Deane Show, Baltimore's legendary teen dance show. 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. The Buddy Deane Show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers. Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! For many young people, being blocked from swimming pools, skating rinks, or dance shows like the Buddy Deane Show would be one of their first exposures to what King calls the feeling of forever fighting a degenerating sense of nobodiness.. Deane died in Pine Bluff, Arkansas on July 16, 2003, after suffering a stroke. Hundreds of thousands of teens learned the latest dances by watching Committee members on the show, copying their personal style, and following their life stories and interactions. It ran two hours a day, six days a week. Everywhere we went, people would say Theres Mary Lou. I wondered if she had just been released from the penitentiary.. Not a real one. With the nation in a divisive place, he argued, viewers are looking for entertainment that can be really healing. The New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani saw a similar dynamic at play when Hairspray, the musical, debuting shortly after 9/11, won over fans: Hollywood and Broadway producers have decided [what] Americans want is nostalgiathe logic being that people in times of trouble will gravitate toward comfort entertainment that reminds them of simpler, happier times [such as] the candy-colored Broadway musical Hairspray., Hairsprays history of race in America suggests that racism is an issue of attitudes rather than of policies. Everybody wanted to kick a Buddy Deaners a, says Gene, recalling thugs waiting to jump Deaners outside the studio. Several local art contests were also held on the show, with viewers submitting their own art work. 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