We have a telegram, Buddy would shout almost daily, for Mary Lou to lead a dance, and the cameraman seemed to love her. [citation needed] In several instances, the show went on location to the Milford Mill swim club on the westside of suburban Baltimore County. 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. Print Headline: Buddy Deane Show was huge hit for young viewers in the late 1950s, Copyright 2023, Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC. C. Fields in drag.), This movie is the only radical movie I ever made because it snuck in mid-America. All rights reserved. He just didnt understand., But some have dealt with the problems in good humor. From 1957-1965, Deane was chosen as host of WJZ-TV, Baltimore's "The . When I get depressed, I dont go to the psychiatrist, I go to the jeweler, she says. This weekly time slot became known as "Special Guest Day" by the Deane Show's white performers and "Black Monday" by Baltimore's Black teens. The Deaners didnt mind. The best little jitterbugger in Baltimore. Mary Lou was aware that in some neighborhoods it was not cool to be a Buddy Deaner. Rather than integrating, the show was canceled. John Waters wrote the screenplay under the title of White Lipstick, with the story loosely based on real events.The Corny Collins Show is based on the real-life Buddy Deane Show, a local dance party program which pre-empted Dick Clark's American Bandstand in the Baltimore area during the 1950s and . Baltimore teenagers rushed home to catch the show daily to listen to the popular music, watch their favorite dancers, copy their style and learn the new dances that were introduced almost every week. At her appearances at the record hops, kids would actually scream when youd get out of the car: Theres Mary Lou! Most are happily married with kids and maintain the same images they had on the show. On August 2, 1924, Winston Joseph Deane was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I got a little power-crazed, admits Joe. On the other, Hairspray Live! His childhood nickname was Buddy. Im the biggest ham. Although she denies being conscious of the camera, she admits, I did try to dance up front. The Deane program set aside every other Friday for a show featuring only black teenagers. However, unlike during the song "The New Girl in Town" where the Dynamites get there song stolen by 3 committee members, the Buddy . I havent seen her since we made the movie, said Waters. offered an unfiltered, uncompromising celebration of Black literature, poetry, music, and politics, capturing a critical moment in culture whose impact continues to resonate today. 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. My mother used to pick me up after school to make sure nobody hassled me., The adoring fans could also be a hassle. She was the one of the biggies who refused to be on the Board (they had power; a liked because of it). as its newest live-television musical adaptation. Black teens were only allowed to dance on the show one day per month. [citation needed]. "Hairspray" is set in the 1960s and is based on a TV show called "The Buddy Deane Show," which featured Baltimore-area teenagers dancing to popular music but was canceled in 1964, after the . Mary Lou laughs at the memory of doing a pimple medicine spot on camera. 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. Image Credit: OzNet.com Winston Joseph Deane was born on August 2, 1924, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Once a month the show was all black. Nationally, American Bandstand blocked black teens from entering the studio during its years in Philadelphia, despite host Dick Clarks claims to the contrary. No matter how progressive we become, there will always be those who will still hang on to the tradition of hate. One time I was going with this guy, and he was dancing with this guest I didnt like, says Evanne. Why? Id wonder. She wasnt even a fan of the show. In 1942, Deane enrolled at Cornell University in New York. Im still a fana Deaner groupie. From 1964 to 1984, Deane hosted a show and owned KOTN-FM and KOTN-AM radio stations at Pine Bluff. 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. Buddy Deane was the host of a Baltimore dance show that ran on TV from 1957 to 1964 six days a week. Unlike the tensions that followed the real integration of the Buddy Deane Show, Waterss Hairspray ends with the protesters triumphing. 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. three, two, one. John Water's himself said that in his movie, he "gave it the happy ending that it didn't have". Thank you for including me as one of the Buddy Dean family. Some fifty years later, the mindset is STILL the same. The early look of the Committee was typically 50s. The Committee, initially recruited from local teen centers, was to act as hosts and dance with the guests. Only white teens became members of the elite Committee the Buddy Deane equivalent of the Mouseketeers. 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. "If you first appeared on The Buddy Deane Show then you could not appear on The Dick Clark Show," Deane said. 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. My mother wanted me to go, she took me down to the tryouts. You are out of here. Hairspray, which started as a camp film with a modest $2.7 million budget, grew into a popular and commercially successful Broadway musical and movie. Influencers: Profiles of a Partnership 2022, How to Pitch Stories and Articles to IndieWire, John Waters Shares His 10 Favorite Films of 2022, 'Peter Von Kant' Tops List, John Waters to Write and Direct 'Liarmouth' from His Own Novel, Quentin Tarantino's Favorite Movies: 50 Films the Director Wants You to See, Oscars 2023: Best Animated Feature Predictions. The show featured only white kids dancing, so Scruggs wrote him a letter in the fall of. The very first day on the set, I didnt recognize Divine, the filmmaker said. 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. [2], https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Buddy_Deane_Show&oldid=1101079819. THE BUDDY DEANE SHOW John Waters based The Corny Collins Show on The Buddy Deane Show, a daily Baltimore dance party show that was very popular throughout the late Fifties and early. My parents didn't talk much about racism, and as a result I grew up learning to love everybody. 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. Integration ended The Buddy Deane Show. As you can see from the December thread my question concerning African Americans was totally dismissed by the Committee member who was speaking. Deane even dubbed himself "the morning mayor." 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. Buddy himself, the high priest, returned for the event. 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/. The buddy dean show debuted on Sep. 9. 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. Originally an all-white teen show with a monthly "Negro . Deane died in Pine Bluff on July 16, 2003, after experiencing complications caused by a stroke. 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. I was Tracy, said Waters. The big garage-type door they remember would open, and theyd all pile in, past George and Mom, the Pinkerton guards who used to keep attendance, and crowd into Arlenes office to comb their hair, confide their problems, and touch up their make-up. They just wanted to know if you were real. 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. There are other socio-cultural comments in various YouTube comments threads about the Madison dance. Waters would rush home . In the beginning, there was Arlene. 'Buddy' Deane; www.WashingtonPost.com -- The Messy Truth of The Real 'Hairspray.' Everywhere we went, people would say Theres Mary Lou. I wondered if she had just been released from the penitentiary.. I was totally star-struck and had as much fun that night as I did at the Cannes Film Festival. 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. It was a family: Buddy was the father, Arlene was the mother.. This man approached me, telegrammed me, showed up at the show. Hairspray movie was inspired by this show and was based off of the the events but unlike the movies, instead of the show being integrated, it was cancelled. Almost every rock 'n' roll star except Elvis graced the Deane Show stage. Material from the Associated Press is Copyright 2023, Associated Press and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Joel Chaseman, also a DJ at WITH, became program manager of WJZ-TV when Westinghouse bought it in the mid-50s. Buddy noticed my eyes staring and said, Do the same eyes. And the camera got it. Kathy went even further. 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. Another royal Deaner couple who met on the air and later married was Gene Snyder and Linda Warehime. It ran two hours a day, six days a week. Black History Month . Sometimes youd wrap your hair at night. Once I was off the show for a while, and they said I had joined the nunnery, says Helen, laughing. 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! Buddy offered to have three or even four days a week all black, but that wasnt it. It aired for two and a half hours a day, six days a week. MPT did a segment which included interviews with former African American dancers who appeared on the show. Here is the new video celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Buddy Deane Show and the former Catonsville Community College (now CCBC). I was aggressive. . The star system was born. Jul 24, 2017 - Explore Bruce Clarke's board "Buddy Dean Show", followed by 154 people on Pinterest. 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. Checking back with the studio, no one had information concerning footage of African American dancers. Many parents and local officials were angry. Deane fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was awarded a Purple Heart during his time in the Europe. Jones). Oh, black teens could dancejust not with the white kids. . 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. The black cops would stop us and say: This isnt Greenwich Village, you know. By representing this realityin bubble-gum, technicolor clarityHairspray does something that pure documentation, at times, cant: It makes a difficult part of a nations history accessible (and entertaining) to millions of viewers. Even racists like it, Waters said in his opening remarks. 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 rivalry with Dick Clark meant that Deane urged all his performers not to mention American Bandstand or visits to Clark in Philadelphia. 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. It was even in the papers. The show featured only white kids dancing, so Scruggs wrote him a letter in the fall of 1958 to . . Theyd stand outside my home. But it went something like this: Buddy Deane was an exclusively white show. Plot. "Hairspray" will continue at East Ridge High School through April 23. Im Joe, too. There was a change in the works., Part of that change was the racial integration movement. I had a lot of black friends at the time, so for me this was an awkward thing, says Marie. SOUL! producers hope this story of interracial unity will be appealing to television audiences in 2016. and later on, growing up, it was a definite blow: reality. I still have a whole box of fan mail, says Evanne. You are watching the "Buddy Deane Show." "The Buddy Deane Show" defined a new generation of rock & roll as well as dance on television in the late 1950s. I wonder if that applied to Black males as well as White males. Once a Deaner, always a Deaner, as another so succinctly puts it. Buddy Deane. The more hair spray, the better. The first big stars were Bobbi Bums and Freddy Oswinkle, according to Arlene, but no matter how big anyone got, someone came along who was even bigger. Joe Cash and Joan Teves became the shows first royalty. The Buddy Deane Show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers. 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.". Waters: We used to go to the hotel and hed say, Come in, and hed be in bed with a cleaning woman smoking pot., It was Tracy saying to Link: Please dont look at my legs without the benefit of nylons.. Joe Cash has Jonas Cash Promotions, in Columbia and Silver Spring.. (my own promotional firmwe represent Warner Brothers, Columbia, Motown85 percent you hear in this market)and Active Industry Research, in Columbia (a research firmIm chairman of the board). So the NAACP targeted the show for protests. 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. . Buddy Deane was the host of a Baltimore dance show that ran on TV from 1957 to 1964 six days a week. In 1948, Deane married Helen Stevenson, his childhood sweetheart, whom he first met when he was just four years old. 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. Weve been searching for her for years, even Ricki Lake couldnt find her when she had her TV show., John Waters and members of the original cast of Hairspray. 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. The Buddy Dean Show was the inspiration for the "Corny Collins Show" in the 2007 musical. It suggests a way of understanding race that allows viewers to disavow bigotryframed in the story as the belief that white and black Americans should live in separate sphereswithout acknowledging, confronting, or seeking to overturn the actual structures of discrimination. In 2003, "Hairspray" went on to sweep the 57th Annual Tony Awards, winning a total of eight awards. Every day after school kids would run home, tune in, and dance with the bedpost or refrigerator door as they watched. Went something like this: Buddy Deane show was taken off the show featured only white teens became members the. 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