Nicknamed "Buddy" as a child, Deane developed an early love for radio. As you can see from the December thread my question concerning African Americans was totally dismissed by the Committee member who was speaking. [citation needed] In several instances, the show went on location to the Milford Mill swim club on the westside of suburban Baltimore County. Once I was off the show for a while, and they said I had joined the nunnery, says Helen, laughing. The regulars . Oh, my God, its Evanne! Autograph books, cameras, this is what they lived for. 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. Pancocojams showcases the music, dances, language practices, & customs of African Americans and of other people of Black descent throughout the world. The musical is based on John Waters' 1988 campy movie of the same name. 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. He left behind his wife, Helen Stevenson Deane; his three daughters, JoEllen, Dawn, and Debbie and their families. Advertisement. "How 'The Buddy Deane Show' really went off the air is the white kids crashed Negro Day to integrate it. When the subject comes up today, most loyalists want to go off the record. 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. Every day after school kids would run home, tune in, and dance with the bedpost or refrigerator door as they watched. The Buddy Dean Show was the inspiration for the "Corny Collins Show" in the 2007 musical. As with the drapes and squares of the previous decade, she explains, there were two classes of people thenDeaners and Joe College. 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. I was aggressive. 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. Originally an all-white teen show with a monthly "Negro . 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. 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. Nicknamed "Buddy" as a child, Deane . 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. The film would spawn a 2002 Broadway musical adaptation starring Harvey Fierstein and Marissa Jaret Winokur, and a 2007 film adaptation of the musical starring John Travolta and Nikki Blonsky. 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. The Buddy Deane Show was a teen dance television show, similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand, that was created by Zvi Shoubin and aired on WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Maryland from 1957 until 1964.The show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unable to integrate black and white dancers. Ninfa O. Barnard wrote this article for explorepinebluff.com. Mary Lou was aware that in some neighborhoods it was not cool to be a Buddy Deaner. Committee members included Mike Miller, Charlie Bledsoe, Ron Osher, Mary Lou Raines, Pat(ricia) Tacey, and Cathy Schmink. Before long I started getting lots of fan mail: I think youre neat. The Buddy Deane Show was over. 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. 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. 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). The inspiration for this movie was born out of an afternoon teen dance show, The Buddy Deane Show, which aired on Baltimore's WJZ-TV from 1957-1964 until it was taken off the air because the owner did not want to integrate. At first I was so shy I hid behind the Coke machines., But Evanne used to come right home and head for the TV. From then on, all bare shoulders were covered with a piece of net. He got a great review in The New York Times. My mother wanted me to go, she took me down to the tryouts. You could throw her down on the ground, and her hair would crack, recalls Gene. Unlike the tensions that followed the real integration of the Buddy Deane Show, Waterss Hairspray ends with the protesters triumphing. Buddy Deane was the host of a Baltimore dance show that ran on TV from 1957 to 1964 six days a week. So I gave it the happy ending that we had, Waters said. I remember it well, recalls Evanne. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. I used to get death threats on the show. Mary Lou laughs at the memory of doing a pimple medicine spot on camera. 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. When Mary Lous husband gave me the long and complicated directions to their home on the phone, he ended with And there you will find, yes, Mary Lou Raines. He later confided that when he first started dating her, he had no idea of her early career. Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. "Hairspray" will continue at East Ridge High School through April 23. 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 . Im a typical housewife, says Peanuts. Motormouth Maybelle, a fictional black deejay and civil-rights activist played in the NBC version by Jennifer Hudson, sings: You cant stop today as it comes speeding down the track / Child, yesterday is history and its never coming back / Cause tomorrow is a brand new day and it dont know white from black. In the films narrative, this utopian vision of a colorblind future solves the problem of segregation and racial injustice. Even doing commercials was expected. The Deane Show was marketed to a predominantly white audience, but due to integration efforts and the civil rights movement of the time the show first had Black dancers appear once a month then once a week. From 1964 to 1984, Deane hosted a show and owned KOTN-FM and KOTN-AM radio stations at Pine Bluff. 'The Buddy Deane Show' was over . 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/. 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. Hairspray is firmly rooted in 1960s America, but it offers both sophisticated and (tellingly) simplistic ways of understanding racism today. You had to wear nylons. | . 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. You Cant Stop the Beat, for example, is an upbeat dance number that resolves the issue of segregation on the Corny Collins Show. It's not just about police brutality. It was similar to Philadelphia's American Bandstand. It was so painful. In December 1963, producers at Baltimores WJZ-TV cancelled the Buddy Deane Show rather than integrate the popular teen dance program. Every day Id come to the studio in knee-highs, and Id have to take them off. The Buddy Deane Show was a teenage dance party, on the air from 1957 to 1964. From 1996 to 2003, he hosted dance events in Baltimore, Pennsylvania and aboard cruise ships. She was the one of the biggies who refused to be on the Board (they had power; a liked because of it). When that little red light came on, so did my smile, she says, laughing. 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. 'Buddy Deane' really did have "Negro day" once a month -- it was called worse in some neighborhoods in Baltimore. Participants dressed in "country" style, and danced to country and western music as well as pop. I had always studied dance, and I wanted to go on [the show]. They all thought all the girls were pregnant by Buddy Deane, remember several. 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. Vanessa Udon plays Motormouth Maybelle, who hosts the monthly Negro Day on the Corny Collins Show. I was totally star-struck and had as much fun that night as I did at the Cannes Film Festival. 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. The first and maybe the biggest Buddy Deane queen of all. [1], As with many other local TV shows, little footage of the show is known to have survived. All Rights Reserved. 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. The movie was eventually turned into a musical by the same name. . 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. Many top acts of the day, both black and white, appeared on The Buddy Deane Show. Mr. Deane hosted a crowd of exuberant teens, who danced to the music of live rock bands, including many name acts. Black and white together on local TV. 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. 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 racial integration of a take-off of the show, dubbed The Corny Collins Show, provides the backdrop to the 1988 John Waters film Hairspray. The Buddy Deane Show was taken off the air because home station WJZ-TV was unwilling to integrate black and white dancers. Buddy wanted it to end happily, but WJZ angered Deaners when it tried to blame the ratings. We are kind of like Ozzie and Harriet, says Gene Snyder as Linda nods in agreement. The main thing was your hair was flat, the antithesis of Buddy Deane, she says, chuckling. John Waters, a Baltimore filmmaker and Deane Show fan, loosely based "The Corny Collins' Show" in his movie "Hairspray" on Deane's show. My parents didn't talk much about racism, and as a result I grew up learning to love everybody. If I have one regret in life, its that I wasnt a Buddy Deaner. In 1948, Deane married Helen Stevenson, his childhood sweetheart, whom he first met when he was just four years old. Not show biz, Arlene answers, hesitating, but the record biz, the people. Waters's nostalgic and detailed appreciation for The Buddy Deane Show, . This page was last edited on 29 July 2022, at 06:25. I'm sure they could have reached out to me via these posts, but did not. I had trunks of it. The television news reporter covering the Corny Collins Show in the film sums up the climactic scene: Youre seeing history being made today. There were a lot of obscene phone calls., And the rumors, God, the rumors. . With the rising pressures of integration, the producers decided that the show must either be integrated or canceled. From 1957-1965, Deane was chosen as host of WJZ-TV, Baltimore's "The . The whole day on the show was devoted to me.. You learned how to be a teenager from the show. 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. Im still a fana Deaner groupie. MPT did a segment which included interviews with former African American dancers who appeared on the show. Its host was Winston "Buddy" Deane (1924-2003), who died in Pine Bluff, Arkansas after . The school tried to throw me out before. The show designated every other friday to their black dancers, similar to "Negro Day" on the Corny Collins Show. It ran two hours a day, six days a week. They just wanted to know if you were real. 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. 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). Counter to host Dick Clark's claims that he integrated American Bandstand, this book reveals how the first national television program directed at teens discriminated against black youth during its early years . 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.. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. I even named some of the characters in my films after them. Jones). This sentiment carries through to the songs lyrics. 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. 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. C. Fields in drag.), This movie is the only radical movie I ever made because it snuck in mid-America. You werent one of them anymore. Outsiders envied the fame, especially if they lost their steadies to Deaners, and many were put off by boys who loved to dance. Mary Lou was the last of the Buddy Deane superstars, true hair-hopper royalty, the ultimate Committee member. 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