He was one of the first to showcase rock and roll music on a continual basis. Over lunch at the Thunderball Lounge, in East Baltimore, Kathy remembers, I could never get used to signing autographs. Oh sure, if you were Joe College [pre-preppie], you just didnt do The Deane Show. Did you ever tum into a Joe College? I ask innocently. Actor: Hairspray. A devoted fan of the Buddy Deane Show, Waters drew on this history to write and direct the original film version of Hairspray. The "Buddy Dean Show" was abruptly cancelled. I used to get death threats on the show. (97) Everywhere we went, people would say Theres Mary Lou. I wondered if she had just been released from the penitentiary.. "How 'The Buddy Deane Show' really went off the air is the white kids crashed Negro Day to integrate it. Deane died in Pine Bluff, Arkansas on July 16, 2003, after suffering a stroke. The musical is based on John Waters' 1988 campy movie of the same name. 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. Im Joe, too. There was a change in the works., Part of that change was the racial integration movement. . Yes, I miss it very much. "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. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. His childhood nickname was Buddy. 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/. NBCs Hairspray Live! Mary Lou laughs at the memory of doing a pimple medicine spot on camera. The Buddy Deane Show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers. 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. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. Participants dressed in "country" style, and danced to country and western music as well as pop. On August 2, 1924, Winston Joseph Deane was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. But it went something like this: Buddy Deane was an exclusively white show. On the show you were either a drape or a square, explains Sharon. 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. 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. And because a new dance was introduced practically every week, you had to watch every day to keep up. Deane also held dances at various Maryland American Legion posts and National Guard armories which were not taped or broadcast on television. Pancocojams showcases the music, dances, language practices, & customs of African Americans and of other people of Black descent throughout the world. 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. So there you have it. I still believe that footage is out there somewhere. With the rising pressures of integration, the producers decided that the show must either be integrated or canceled. . He got a great review in The New York Times. 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. [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 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 . I'm sure they could have reached out to me via these posts, but did not. Vanessa Udon plays Motormouth Maybelle, who hosts the monthly Negro Day on the Corny Collins Show. 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. And if you dared to dance the obscene Bodie Green (the Dirty Boogie), you were immediately a goner. Not a real one. Mr. Deane hosted a crowd of exuberant teens, who danced to the music of live rock bands, including many name acts. [1], As with many other local TV shows, little footage of the show is known to have survived. I am here and on FB as well as NOBLE BRUN in the event the footage can be located. Black teens were only allowed to dance on the show one day per month. Friday, February 24, 2023. 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. 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. Every day Id come to the studio in knee-highs, and Id have to take them off. The introductory essay in Dick Clark's American Bandstand (1997) is illustrative in this regard. And none are bitter. 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. The Buddy Deane Show was a show from the late 50's to the mid 60's. The show was a teen dance television show, similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. The Corny Collins Show, it turns out, was lifted almost literally from the extremely popular Buddy Deane Show, Baltimore's answer to Dick Clark's American Bandstand. The 1988 John Waters film, newly adapted into an NBC live musical, presents a view of racial discrimination thats by turns nave and enlightening. [citation needed] In several instances, the show went on location to the Milford Mill swim club on the westside of suburban Baltimore County. 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. I was honored, touched by it all.. Some kids on the show went a little nuts, with stars in their eyes; they thought they were going to go to Hollywood and be moviestars.. 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. It was difficult with your peers, recalls Peanuts. Clip from Shake, Rattle, and Roll: The Buddy Deane Scrapbook He also left the Army in 1948 and began his radio broadcast career at KLXR station in North Little Rock. For example, Carole King appeared on the show playing her single "It Might as Well Rain Until September", nearly a decade before she burst to popularity with her landmark 1970 album, Tapestry. Joe remembers a sport coat I bought for $5 from somebody who got it when he got out of prison. In 1984, he sold the station to a local college but bought it back in 1996. WJZ's show aired from 1957 to 1964 and was popular among Baltimore teens, promoting dances like the twist, mashed potato, and the Madison. I havent seen her since we made the movie, said Waters. Helens fans flocked to see her at the Buddy Deane Record Hops (Committee members had to make such personal appearances and sign autographs.) Could it be? When I became of age to understand it all I became motivated to make a difference. The Buddy Deane Show was over. The more hair spray, the better. Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! On the one hand, the storys feel-good conclusion implies that colorblindness is the silver bullet that ends racial discrimination, that good intentions and individual acts of bravery are enough to bring about harmony. 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. 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. If "The Buddy Deane Show" didn't exactly end happily (canceled in 1964, it never did integrate the dancers), Waters remains a fan. This Article is related to: Film and tagged Divine, Hairspray, IFC Center, John Waters. Sources: www.IMDB.com -- Buddy Deane Biography; www.OzNet.com - A Collection of Articles About Buddy Deane; www.Variety.com -- Winston J. Almost all dancers wore swim wear and beach attire, with music provided by WJZ-TV. One girl yelled Buddy Deaner and then threw her plate at me. 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. The main thing was your hair was flat, the antithesis of Buddy Deane, she says, chuckling. 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. Material from the Associated Press is Copyright 2023, Associated Press and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 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. The Buddy Deane Show was over. He was one of the first disc jockeys in the area to regularly feature rock and roll. . Several local art contests were also held on the show, with viewers submitting their own art work. My mother wanted me to go, she took me down to the tryouts. Im still a fana Deaner groupie. 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. Romance was one thing; sex was another. If you leaned on one side, the next day youd just pick it out into shape. The buddy dean show debuted on Sep. 9. That's what really happened, and the show shut down." 3. In 1950, he moved to Baltimore to WITH. You learned how to be a teenager from the show. The show featured only white kids dancing, so Scruggs wrote him a letter in the fall of 1958 to . 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. After the screening, he was joined by Michael Musto and original cast membersLeslie Ann Powers (Penny Pingleton), JoAnn Havrilla (Prudence Pingleton), and Holter Graham (I.Q. Why not do The Deane Show on TV again? Thats what really happened, and the show shut down.. 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. Unlike the tensions that followed the real integration of the Buddy Deane Show, Waterss Hairspray ends with the protesters triumphing. It was horrible/ says Joe. (They gave her a diamond watch at the last reunion.) The Deaners didnt mind. Most are happily married with kids and maintain the same images they had on the show. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll, sponsored by Matt Palumbo's MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN for Friday shows that 46% of Likely U.S. BLACK MUSIC MOMENT #96: Short-Lived Integration Of The Buddy Deane Show, Jun 1, 2011 By TheUrbanDaily Staff. I remember it well, recalls Evanne. All of those dances were real, they were real dances, we didnt make any of them up and two were cut out. The show's format mirrored Philadelphia's . Mary Lou, the Annette Funicello of the show, was the talk of teenage Baltimore. producers hope this story of interracial unity will be appealing to television audiences in 2016. three, two, one. January 4, 1964. Rather than integrating, the show was canceled. The best little jitterbugger in Baltimore. 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 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. Here is the new video celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Buddy Deane Show and the former Catonsville Community College (now CCBC). Racism is passed down from one generation to the next. Museum Day; Art; Books; Design; Food; Music & Film; Video; Newsletter; Travel. Ladies and Gentleman . 'Buddy Deane' really did have "Negro day" once a month -- it was called worse in some neighborhoods in Baltimore. Waters based the main storyline and "The Corny Collins Show" on the real-life "The Buddy Deane Show" and racial events surrounding it. This discrimination was explicitly or tacitly supported by an array of advertisers, television stations, music producers, city authorities, and federal communications officials. How Actress Rachel Hilsons Baltimore Roots Influence Her Work Today, The Mount Vernon Virtuosi is Much More Than a Chamber Orchestra, Jen Michalski Discusses New Short Story Collection The Company of Strangers. 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 very first day on the set, I didnt recognize Divine, the filmmaker said. Once a Deaner, always a Deaner, as another so succinctly puts it. Buddy Deane was the host of a Baltimore dance show that ran on TV from 1957 to 1964 six days a week. On the air before Dick Clark debuted, the show was a hit from the beginning, says Arlene today. From 1996 to 2003, he hosted dance events in Baltimore, Pennsylvania and aboard cruise ships. . Jones). . 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. 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 . 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. Why Europeans Dont Get Huge Medical Bills. Even doing commercials was expected. 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. I must have had ten different phone numbers, says Helen, and somehow it would get out. Not show biz, Arlene answers, hesitating, but the record biz, the people. I even named some of the characters in my films after them. Both black and white activists picketed the . So you cant imagine how excited I was when I finally got a chance to interview these local legends twenty years later. As well, a show was broadcast from a local farm in Westminster, Maryland. From 1964 to 1984, Deane hosted a show and owned KOTN-FM and KOTN-AM radio stations at Pine Bluff. At 21, I married a professional football player, Helen remembers, and he made me burn all the fan mail. Yeah it was Cosenel, says Joe. [citation needed]. 'The Buddy Deane Show' was over . Even racists like it, Waters said in his opening remarks. Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and noncommercial use. 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. August 8, 2022 at 3:55 a.m. 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. Deane hosted a morning show at WITH. I was a misfit. ', 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. On Jan. 4, 1964, nearly five months after the first -- and only -- day that black and white kids danced cheek to cheek on TV in WJZ's studios, Buddy Deane put "The Party's Over" on the record player. Get off that furniture!? Please read our Terms of Use or contact us. This article is among features at explorepinebluff.com, a program of the Pine Bluff Advertising and Promotion Commission. My mother used to pick me up after school to make sure nobody hassled me., The adoring fans could also be a hassle. 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. Ric Ocasek as the Beatnik cat; Pia Zadora as the Beatnik chick; Production. Some do remember a handful of kids getting high on cough medicine. . It aired for two and a half hours a day, six days a week. The show featured only white kids dancing, so Scruggs wrote him a letter in the fall of 1958 to . 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. 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. 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. In Hairspray (1988), Tammy Turner assists Corny Collins on the show. If I have one regret in life, its that I wasnt a Buddy Deaner. 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. Marie Fischer was the first Joe to become a Committee memberchosen simply because she was such a good dancer. Interviews with leading film and TV creators about their process and craft. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. He left behind his wife, Helen Stevenson Deane; his three daughters, JoEllen, Dawn, and Debbie and their families. On this day in 1979, Sweeney Todd first opened on Broadway . The Deane program was a segregated show: white and Black teenagers danced on separate broadcasts. But something unforeseen happened: The home audience soon grew attached to some of these kids. He was so happy. I appreciate the contribution that you and NOBLE BRUN, and other Black dancers on the Buddy Dean dance show made on that series. But most have settled down to a very straight life. The Buddy Deane show aired 6 times a week and had a dance committee just like in hairspray. You received demerits for almost anything: Chewing gum. You are history. 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). 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.. The producers of Diner wanted to include Buddy Deane footage in their film, but most of the shows were live and any tapes of this local period piece have been erased. There were a lot of obscene phone calls., And the rumors, God, the rumors. "The Buddy Deane Show," which aired on WJZ-TV in Baltimore from 1957 until 1964. . I even won the twist contest with Mary Lou Raines (one of the queens of The Buddy Deane Show) at the Valley Country Club. All Rights Reserved. They kept their figures, look nice, and are very kind people, says Marie in her lovely home on Falls Road before taking off for the University of Maryland, where she attends law school. and later on, growing up, it was a definite blow: reality. I still have a whole box of fan mail, says Evanne. If a guy had one beer, it was a big deal. On the other, Hairspray Live! Eating the refreshments (Ameches Powerhouses, the premiere teenage hangouts forerunner of the Big Mac), which were for guests only. (There was a token all-black program once a month on the show called "Negro Day" in the movie, a phrase that now drips with surreal period flavor but no black Committee, and the protests called for integrating the show.) Arguably the first TV celebrities in Baltimore. Other vices were likewise eschewed. Black History Month . The Buddy Deane Show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers. The night was full of delightful anecdotes, including these ten you may not have heard before. Ninfa O. Barnard Special to The Commercial Bill Haley and the Comets did their premier perf of "Rock Around the Clock" on Deane's show, and Deane was named the No. 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. You will be redirected back to your article in, Get The Latest IndieWire Alerts And Newsletters Delivered Directly To Your Inbox. 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. 1957, it was a huge success as it was portrayed in the musical. I was a square. 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 trunks of it. 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. 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. I got a little power-crazed, admits Joe. 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. IndieWire is a part of Penske Media Corporation. No matter how progressive we become, there will always be those who will still hang on to the tradition of hate.