In celebration of their latest release, Cherry Noir, Grey Goose turned the Park Avenue Gansevoort Hotel into Hotel Noir. Hosted by Kelly Rowland (dressed in a red Camen Marc Valvo dress and white Givenchy shoes) and musically entertained by DJ A-Trak, attendees enjoyed themselves as they sipped signature drinks like My Cherry Amour, Cherry Sling, and Midnight Highball. Guests mingled in rooms adorned with red, velvet curtains, vintage photo booths and secret VIP suites where one could run into singer Estelle, NYC personality Legendary Damon, model Jessica White, Basketball Wives Jennifer Williams, model Andre Douglas, Angie Martinez, Kenny Burns, and DJ Suss-One.
Kelly Rowland in Carmen Marc Valvo
Model Andre Douglass
Guest in a stunning brocade jacket
Afterward, some guests journeyed downtown to party at Mr. H at the Mondrian Hotel. Revelers partied the night away to selections from DJ MOS and DJ Kiss, and danced alongside songstresses Estelle and Wynter Gordon and models Bantou and Sambala.
DJ Kiss and Estelle
NYC Mixologist-Extraordiniaire Noel with models Bintou and Sambala
Guest, Marlene Tapper (NYC Councilman Ruben Wills' Director of Operations), Nigel Barker, Mike Ruiz, Camille Evans (Inspired In New York, founder), international fashion muse Sandi Bass, and Maria McDonald (international model and founder of Covergirls For Change)
This past Tuesday evening, New Yorkers gathered at the Toro Lounge in Tribeca’s Smyth Hotel for the seventh installation of Inpsired In New York, honoring MIKE RUIZ, world-renowned photographer, TV personality, former model, actor, spokesperson, creative director and director and NIGEL BARKER, acclaimed photographer, filmmaker, former model, author and philanthropist. Camille Evans, founder of Inspired In New York, opened the event and was followed by remarks from Maria McDonald (creator of Covergirls For Change) and international fashion muse Sandi Bass, who both spoke about their commitment to Nelson Mandela’s 46664 Campaign.
Immediately afterward, actress Juli Piechovski (of ABC’s Don’t Trust That B in Apt 23) introduced honoree Nigel Barker. Of his long list of credits and accolades, Nigel stated that his involvement with America’s Next Top Model gave him “a platform where people would listen to him.” He continued, “as much as I can say to you, with a photograph, you can tell a story that’s far more powerful.”
Guest, Honoree Mike Ruiz, and his partner Martin Berusch
Next, photographer Mike Ruiz was given a touching introduction by his life-partner, Martin Berusch. Mike spoke passionately about HIV-awareness, including getting tested, speaking about safe sex with your partner, and fighting the negative stigma of the disease. He stated that it is “incredible to be honored for something that is my duty.”
Both honorees were presented with proclamations from New York City Councilman Ruben Wills. UrbanPopLife congratulates both men on being visionaries in their craft as well as global ambassadors for humanity.
Studio view with Town and City (60 x 40 inches) and White Obelisk (60 x 40 inches). Ink, watercolor and acrylic on paper over metal, 2012.
Opening Reception: May 4th, 6 – 9 pm
Y Gallery is pleased to present Various Small Lots by Ryan Brown, his second solo show at the gallery. The drawings and photographs in this series conjure a suggestion of an object which may have been but is no longer present. The large drawings adopt the format of the art auction catalog as a metaphor for the exhausted, expired and re-contextualized original. The rectangular images within the neutral space of the jagged picture frame serve as familiar strangers that one recognizes but remain anonymous. Monumental in scale yet seemingly delicate in nature the deteriorating pages appear to be either on the verge of becoming trash or historical treasure. Brown employs a wide range of methods and mediums in order to transform the material from new to old thus mimicking the aging effects of time.
The photographs offer a curious semi-historical glimpse into the creative process. If the drawings imply the afterlife of the authentic original, the photographic stills seem to witness its place of origin. Brown stages and reenacts these quintessential artist studio shots that further emphasize a dislocation of time and provide little information as to the identity of the artist. Various Small Lots balances the tensions of conflicts of opposites vis-a-vis representation, abstraction, present, absent, real, imaginary, willful, accidental, not by tranversing the space between but by resting at the point where they converge.
Ryan Brown was born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania in 1977. He studied Fine Arts at SVA (School of Visual Arts) in New York. After graduating with honors in 2006 he was invited to participate in the European Exchange Academy in Beelitz, Germany. Ryan Brown has participated in multiple solo and group exhibitions including “Peekskill Project” organized by The Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art; “Ex-Libris” at Adam Baumgold Gallery; “Bibliomania”, at The Visual Arts Center of NJ; “In and Outside Writing“ at Voorkamer – Belgium; “Homeness”, “Domestico” and “Borders”, his first solo show- at Y Gallery; among others. He lives and works in New York and will participate in “Storytellers” at The Stenersen Museum, (Oslo) in 2012.
Y Gallery
165 Orchard Street
at Stanton
info@ygallerynewyork.com / 917 721 4539 www.ygallerynewyork.com
“Vestibule” is a site-specific installation by Debra Priestly which alludes to the gift and fragility of time, space and memory. Miniature paper houses and other familiar objects appear and disappear amongst delicate organza forms. This installation is in the John Davis Gallery Carriage House Project Space, a rustic open elevator shaft. It can be viewed from the first, second and third floors and measures approximately 30 x 5 x 5 feet.
Exhibition: May 24 – June 17, 2012
Reception: Saturday May 26, 6-8 PM
Chip Simone Tattoo Back, Worcester, 2010 Archival pigment, printed 2012, edition of 10 11 x 17 inches 009269
I stopped by Steven Kasher Gallery on a whim about two weeks ago during on my recent gallery tours. Lately I’ve been pretty busy creating my own work, so I have not had much time to view the work of my peers and artists whom I look up to. This particular Saturday was much like most of my recent Saturdays, full of work with a small amount of time set aside to get some fresh air. I wandered into Steven Kasher Gallery for what I thought would be a brief 5-10 minute walk through and ended up falling through the looking glass in to a wonderful world of color and arresting imagery created by a talented photographer named Chip Simone.
Mr. Simone’s work is full of life and possess a “weight” that commands your full attention, yet vibrant in a way that pleases the senses and causes the eye to rejoice in the appreciation of texture, color, light and life captured by Mr. Simone’s passionate eye.
I’m no art critic, I just know what I like. In short, the work is a visual feast and a must see in my humble opinion.
Check out the following post for full details.
Oh and by the way, Christiona the young lady who walked me through the show and shared work by some of the galleries other artists is a wonderful soul. The Steven Kasher Gallery is clearly a space that values great art, good people and creating a welcoming environment in which to view beautiful work by talented artists. I encourage you to visit soon and often. I know I will.
Chip Simone Vamp, Atlanta, 2005 Archival pigment, printed 2012, edition of 10 11 x 17 inches 009268
Chip Simone Midway in the Rain, Atlanta, 2004 Archival pigment, printed 2012, edition of 10 11 x 17 inches 009284
Chip Simone Tattoo Back, Worcester, 2010 Archival pigment, printed 2012, edition of 10 11 x 17 inches 009269
Steven Kasher Gallery is honored to present Chip Simone, the first exhibition by the artist outside of the American South in over 20 years. The exhibition presents over 40 digital color photographs made in the last decade. It follows the extraordinary 2011 exhibition The Resonant Image: Photographs by Chip Simone at the High Museum of Art, and is accompanied by the book Chip Simone Chroma (Nazraeli Press, 2011).
Simone’s work is a unique confluence of two traditions, the American modernist photographic tradition epitomized by his teacher Harry Callahan, and the new digital street photography that has only recently burst out. Simone brings together the studied constructedness of the mid twentieth century New Vision with the nanosecond quick captures made possible by the digital photographic revolution. He is one of the first photographers to make wholly satisfying digital prints, prints both monumental and full of quicksilver 21st century perceptions.
Simone is a street photographer. He describes his method: “I explored the city. Sometimes I walked, but more often I rode a bicycle and traced eccentric routes through the prosaic urban landscape hoping to see it for the first time. I lurched along, trusting happenstance and serendipity, wishing for epiphanies and praying for the sliver of light or queer shadow that fell just so and transformed the ordinary into the extraordinary.”
Simone describes his roots: “I grew up in an Italian-American community known as Shrewsbury Street, a working class neighborhood of three-decker tenements in Worcester, Mass. I mention this because Shrewsbury Street profoundly influenced how I see and what I photograph. Surviving on the street called for sharp reflexes and a quick wit, which was excellent preparation for becoming a photographer. Shrewsbury Street was filled with eccentric Runyonesque characters that talked with their hands and their fists: laborers and bookies, wise guys and butchers, with names like Teddy Rags and Nicky Show-Show. Men wore fedora hats and topcoats and hung out in front of all- night diners. Women cussed like men. They waited tables or did piece work in necktie factories. They wore seamed nylons, cheap perfume and furs that were sometimes stolen. It was a vulgar and textured place, full of broken language and rough edges. These were the people who I saw on the street every day, the ones who taught me how laugh out loud and to see with all my heart, and I still celebrate them in my pictures.”
Since 1966 Simone’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and in France. His photographs were exhibited at the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. In 1985 The French Ministry of Culture exhibited his work at the Chapelle De La Sorbonne in Paris, The Refectoir Des Jacobin in Toulouse and The Centre D’Action Culturelle in Angouleme.
Simone’s photography can be found in scores of museums and private collections worldwide. Simone’s work currently resides in the permanent collections of High Museum of Art, Sir Elton John Collection, Museum of Modern Art, NYC, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Corcoran Gallery, Washington DC, Worcester Historical Museum, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Harry Ransom Center for the Humanities and more.
Chip Simone is being presented at Steven Kasher Gallery in conjunction with a second exhibition Vivian Maier: Unseen Images, a first hand look at the artist’s never before developed work.
Chip Simone and Vivian Maier: Unseen Images will be on view from April 12 through May 26, 2012.
Steven Kasher Gallery is located at 521 W. 23rd St., New York, NY 10011.
Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm.
For the first time in New York, three of the late Brazilian avant-garde artist Hélio Oiticica’s rarely-seen multi-sensorial installations of color: Penetrável PN1 (1960); Penetrável Filtro (1972); and Penetrável PN28 “Nas Quebradas” (1979), will be on view at Galerie Lelong. Oiticica’s invention of the Penetrável (Penetrable) series brought a new dimension to the artist’s work, allowing him to create built environments and develop outdoor installations such as the well-known Magic Square series. Oiticica’s Penetrables are considered among the first art installations, and have not been credited enough for their contribution to early conceptual art. Hélio Oiticica: Penetrables opens to the public on Saturday, May 5, 2012 from 6 to 8 pm. The artist’s brothers, César and Cláudio Oiticica, who direct the Projeto Hélio Oiticica in Brazil will be present.
One of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, Oiticica investigated color in space in a cohesive, continuous oeuvre until his untimely death in 1980. He began with the Grupo Frente, Sêco, and Metaesquema drawings, and then liberated his painting into space with series entitled Bilateral, Relevos Espaciais, Bólide, Núcleo, Penetrável, and Parangolé. Not only are the Penetrables a natural progression in Oiticica’s own work, but also within the continuum of the art historical canon. Oiticica avowed, “It is not a matter of copying Mondrian, but of blazing the trail for a painting of pure color, space, time and structure.” Furthering this notion of bringing painting into real time and space, in 1961, Oiticica wrote about the Penetrables:
“Here, color exudes both the decorative and the architectural…so as to become purely aesthetic and intensely experienced [vivenciada] or purely aesthetic in the sense of a heightened experience. They are like movable frescos on a human scale except that (most importantly) they are penetrable.”
What makes the Penetrables stand out amongst Oiticica’s body of work is the viewer’s involvement as a participant and “discoverer of the work.” Oiticica’s first free-standing Penetrable, Penetrável PN1, is a small corridor of bright yellow-hued sliding panels which the participant can move to activate the work. One of the largest Penetrables, Penetrável Filtro takes the concepts of PN1 to a grander scale through a labyrinthine structure. Penetrável Filtro allows the participant to wander through multiple corridors and curtains of green, blue, yellow, and orange, ending the experience by drinking the final color in a glass of orange juice. Created the year before his death, Penetrável PN28 “Nas Quebradas” guides the participant over a gravel path through an architectural structure made of wood, brick, and yellow panels with a jute roof. Here, Oiticica takes inspiration from the shantytowns, or favelas, of Rio de Janeiro, and achieves ones of his primary goals of fusing art and life, providing “vivências” (experiences). Although the Penetrables were created in the 1960s and 1970s, the physical experience of engaging in and with the works activates them in the present moment.
Hélio Oiticica’s installation Cosmococa CC1 (1973/2010), made in collaboration with Neville D’Almeida , is featured in the exhibition Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color and Space, organized and previously exhibited by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. until May 13th. His famous installation Tropicália (1967) is currently being exhibited in From Revolt to Postmodernity (1962-1982) at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. Oiticica’s work was presented in the major international arts festival Europalia in Belgium in 2011, and in the São Paulo Biennial in 2010. The solo traveling exhibition Hélio Oiticica: Museu É o Mundo was presented at the Fundação Itaú Cultural in São Paulo and the Paço Imperial and Casa França-Brasil in Rio de Janeiro in 2010. In 2007 and 2008, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Tate Modern, London presented the landmark retrospective Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Color.
The gallery is located on West 26th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues in Chelsea.
Dick Clark the world’s oldest living teenager passed away earlier today. Best known for his television franchises American Bandstand, New Years Rockin Eve and the American Music Awards, his legacy will live on as long as people still love music and celebrate New Years Eve.
Rest well Mr. Clark. You, Don Cornelius & Casey Kasem were the first 2 inspire my LOVE of music & musicians. Your contributions will be remembered.
Here’s a few great moments from American Bandstand.
Richard Wagstaff “Dick” Clark (November 30, 1929 – April 18, 2012) was an American game-show host, radio and television personality, and businessman. He served as chairman and chief executive officer of Dick Clark Productions, which he sold part of in recent years. Clark was best known for hosting long-running television shows such as American Bandstand,[3] five versions of the game show Pyramid, and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
Clark was long known for his departing catchphrase, “For now, Dick Clark…so long,” delivered with a military salute, and for his youthful appearance, earning the moniker “America’s Oldest Teenager.”
Clark suffered a significant stroke in late 2004. With speech ability still impaired, Clark returned to his New Year’s Rockin’ Eve show on December 31, 2005/January 1, 2006. Subsequently, he appeared at the Emmy Awards on August 27, 2006, and every New Year’s Rockin’ Eve show through the 2011/2012 show.
Early life, education and early career
Clark was born and raised in Mount Vernon, New York, the son of Julia Fuller (née Barnard) Clark and Richard Augustus Clark. His only sibling, older brother Bradley, was killed in World War II. His career in show business began in 1945 when he started working in the mailroom of WRUN, a radio station owned by his uncle and managed by his father in Utica, New York. Clark was soon promoted to weatherman and news announcer.
Clark attended A.B. Davis High School (now A.B. Davis Middle School) in Mount Vernon and Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, and was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Phi Gamma); he graduated in 1951 with a degree in business.
Radio and television
After graduating from high school in 1947, Clark started as an office worker at WRUN-AM in Rome, NY. Almost immediately, he was asked to fill in for the vacationing weatherman, and within a few months he was announcing station breaks. His quick rise may have been helped by the fact that his uncle owned the station and his father managed it.
While attending Syracuse, Clark worked at WOLF-AM, then a country music station. He returned to WRUN for a short time where he used the name Dick Clay.
He went back to his given name and went to work for WFIL, a radio and affiliated television station in Philadelphia. The station decided to follow the trend of announcers playing records over the airwaves. The television station aired a show called Bandstand, an afternoon teen dance show. Clark was given the job as host and replaced Bob Horn.
Clark began his television career at station WKTV in Utica, and was also subsequently a disc jockey on radio station WOLF in Syracuse. His first television-hosting job was on Cactus Dick and the Santa Fe Riders, a country-music program. He would later replace Robert Earle (who would later host the GE College Bowl) as a newscaster.
Clark was principal in pro broadcasters operator of 1440 KPRO in Riverside, California from 1962 to 1982. In the 1960s, he was owner of KGUD AM/FM (later KTYD AM/FM) in Santa Barbara, California.
American Bandstand
In 1952, Clark moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, more specifically to Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, and resided within the Drexelbrook Community where he was neighbors with Ed McMahon. There he took a job as a disc jockey at radio station WFIL. WFIL had an affiliated television station (now WPVI) with the same call sign which began broadcasting a show called Bob Horn’s Bandstand in 1952. Clark was a regular substitute host on the show and when Horn left, Clark became the full-time host on July 9, 1956. The show was picked up by the ABC television network, renamed American Bandstand, and was first aired nationally on August 5, 1957. On that day, Clark interviewed Elvis Presley.
Clark also began investing in the music publishing and recording business in the 1950s. In 1959, the United States Senate opened investigations into payola, the practice of music-producing companies paying broadcasting companies to favor their product. Clark was a shareholder in the Jamie-Guyden Distributing Corporation, which nationally distributed Jamie and other non-owned labels. Clark sold his shares back to the corporation when ABC suggested that his participation might be considered as creating a conflict of interest. In 1960, when charges were levied against Clark by the Congressional Payola Investigations, he quietly divested himself of interests and signed an affidavit denying involvement. Clark was not charged with any illegal activities.
Unaffected by the investigation, American Bandstand was a major success, running daily Monday through Friday until 1963, then weekly on Saturdays until 1987. In 1964, the show moved from Philadelphia to Hollywood, California. Charlie O’Donnell, a close friend of Clark’s and an up-and-coming fellow Philadelphia disc jockey, was chosen to be the announcer, a position he held for ten years. O’Donnell also announced on many 1980s versions of Clark’s Pyramid game show; he continued to work with Clark on various specials and award shows until his death in November 2010.
Clark produced American Bandstand for syndicated television and later the USA Network, a cable-and-satellite-television channel, until 1989. Clark also hosted the program in 1987 and 1988; David Hirsch hosted in 1989, its final year. American Bandstand and Dick Clark himself were honored at the 2010 Daytime Emmy Awards.
A spin-off of Bandstand, Where the Action Is, aired from June 27, 1965 to March 31, 1967, also on ABC.
Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve
In 1972, Clark produced and hosted Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, the first of an ongoing series of specials still broadcast on New Year’s Eve. The program has typically consisted of live remotes of Clark in Times Square in New York City, counting down until the New Year ball comes down. After the ball drops, the focus of the program switches to musical segments taped prior to the show in Hollywood, California. The special is live in the Eastern Time Zone, and it is delayed for the other time zones so that they can ring in the New Year with Clark when midnight strikes in their area.
ABC has broadcast the event on every New Year’s Eve since 1972 except in 1999 when it was preempted for ABC 2000 Today, news coverage of the milestone year hosted by Peter Jennings. In the more than three decades it has been on the air, the show has become a mainstay in U.S. New Year’s Eve celebrations. Before then, Guy Lombardo (a.k.a. “Mr. New Year’s Eve”), along with his big band orchestra, the Royal Canadians, had long been the main draw for New Year’s Eve broadcasts for radio and, later, for television (on CBS). Watching the ball in Times Square drop on Clark’s show was considered an annual cultural tradition for the New Year’s holiday for the last decades of his life.
Twice, Clark was not able to host his show. The first time happened at the end of 1999, going into 2000, due to ABC 2000 Today. However, during that broadcast, Clark, along with ABC News correspondent Jack Ford, announced his signature countdown to the new year. He was a correspondent, according to the transcript of the broadcast released by ABC News. Ford had been assigned to Times Square during the broadcast, and thus, Clark’s role was limited. Nevertheless, he won a Peabody Award for his coverage. The second time happened at the end of 2004, as he was recovering from his stroke; Regis Philbin substituted as host. The following year, Clark returned to the show, although Ryan Seacrest served as primary host. From 2005 to 2011, Clark co-hosted New Year’s Rockin Eve with Seacrest, with his speech improving each year, and his post-stroke role improved each year (the last three years found him splitting time evenly with Seacrest in the half-hour leading up to the ball drop.)
Before Pyramid, Clark had two brief runs as a quiz-show host, presiding over The Object Is and then Missing Links. On Missing Links, he replaced his former Philadelphia neighbor and subsequent TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes co-host, Ed McMahon, when the game show switched networks from NBC to ABC; NBC replaced Missing Links with Jeopardy!.
Clark later became host of The $10,000 Pyramid, which premiered on CBS March 26, 1973 (the same day as The Young and the Restless). The show — a word association game created and produced by daytime television producer Bob Stewart — moved to ABC from 1974 to 1980, during which time the top prize was upgraded to $20,000. After a brief 1981 syndicated run as The $50,000 Pyramid, the show returned to CBS in 1982 as The New $25,000 Pyramid, and continued through 1988, save for a three month break. From 1985 to 1988, Clark hosted both the CBS $25,000 version and a daily $100,000 Pyramid in syndication. His daytime versions of Pyramid won nine Emmy Awards for best game show, a mark that is eclipsed only by the twelve won by the syndicated version of Jeopardy!. It also won Clark three Emmy Awards for best game show host.
Clark would return to Pyramid as a guest in later incarnations. He was a guest during the Bill Cullen version of The $25,000 Pyramid (not to be confused with the incarnation Clark himself hosted). During the premiere of the John Davidson version in 1991, Clark sent a pre-recorded message wishing Davidson well in hosting the show. In 2002, Clark played as a celebrity guest for three days on the Donny Osmond version.
Radio programs
Clark also had a long stint as a top-40 radio countdown show host. He began in 1963, hosting a radio program called The Dick Clark Radio Show. It was produced by Mars Broadcasting of Stamford, Connecticut. Despite his enormous popularity on American Bandstand, the show was only picked up by a few dozen stations and lasted less than a year. The show proved to be ahead of its time, becoming one of the earliest attempts at radio syndication.
On March 25, 1972, Clark hosted American Top 40, filling in for Casey Kasem. Several years later, Clark would become one of AT40′s most enduring rivals. In 1981, he created The Dick Clark National Music Survey for the Mutual Broadcasting System. The program counted down the Top 30 contemporary hits of the week in direct competition with American Top 40. Clark left Mutual in 1986, and Charlie Tuna took over the National Music Survey. Clark then launched his own radio syndication group; the United Stations Radio Network, or Unistar, and took over the countdown program, “Countdown America”. It ran until 1994, when Clark sold Unistar to Westwood One Radio. The following year, Clark started over, building a new version of the USRN and a new countdown show: “The U.S. Music Survey”. He served as its host until his 2004 stroke.
Dick Clark’s longest running radio show began on February 14, 1982. “Rock, Roll & Remember” was a four hour oldies show named after Clark’s 1976 autobiography. The first year, it was hosted by veteran Los Angeles disc jockey Gene Weed. Then in 1983 voice over talent Mark Elliot co-hosted with Clark. By 1985, Clark hosted the entire show. Pam Miller served as producer. Each week, Clark would profile a different artist from the Rock and Roll era. He would also count down the top four songs that week from a certain year in the 1950s, 1960s or early 1970s. The show ended production when Clark suffered his 2004 stroke. However, re-runs continue to air in syndication and on Clark’s website “dickclarkonline.com”.
Beginning in 2009, Clark merged elements of “Rock, Roll and Remember” with the syndicated oldies show, “Rewind with Gary Bryan”. The new show was called “Dick Clark Presents Rewind with Gary Bryan”. Bryan, a Los Angeles radio personality, serves as the main host. Clark contributed profile segments.
Other television programs
At the peak of his American Bandstand fame, Clark also hosted a 30-minute Saturday night program called The Dick Clark Show (aka The Dick Clark Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show). It aired from February 15, 1958, until September 10, 1960, on the ABC television network. It was broadcast live from the “Little Theater” in New York City and was sponsored by Beech-Nut Gum. It featured the rock stars of the day lip synching their hits, just as on American Bandstand. However, unlike the afternoon Bandstand program which focused on the dance floor with the teenage audience demonstrating the latest dance steps, the audience of The Dick Clark Show (consisting mostly of squealing girls) sat in a traditional theater setting. While some of the musical numbers were presented simply, others were major production numbers.
The high point of the show was the unveiling with great fanfare at the end of each program, by Clark, of the top ten records of the coming week. This ritual became so embedded in popular culture that to this day it is satirized nightly by David Letterman. In the 1986 comedy-drama Peggy Sue Got Married, Kathleen Turner’s character after being transported back to the spring of 1960 is supposedly watching American Bandstand on television. The clip used in the movie, however, is actually of the Dick Clark Saturday night show, because the teen age audience is not dancing but sitting in a theater. In addition, members of the audience were wearing the “IFIC” buttons based upon the Beech-Nut Gum advertising slogan of the late 1950s (“It’s FlavorIFIC”). Beech-Nut sponsored the Clark Saturday night show and sponsored the top 10 countdown board on American Bandstand.
From September 27 to December 20, 1959, Clark hosted a thirty-minute weekly talent/variety series entitled Dick Clark’s World of Talent at 10:30 p.m. on Sunday nights on ABC. A variation of producer Irving Mansfield’s earlier CBS series, This Is Show Business (1949–1956), it featured three celebrity panelists, including comedian Jack E. Leonard, judging and offering advice to amateur and semi-professional performers. While this show was not a success, during its nearly three month duration, Clark was one of the few personalities in television history on the air nationwide seven days a week. Clark has been involved in a number of other television series and specials as producer and performer. One of his most well-known guest appearances was in the final episode of the original Perry Mason TV series (“The Case of the Final Fadeout”) in which he was revealed to be the killer in a dramatic courtroom scene. In 1973, he created the American Music Awards show, which he produces annually. Intended as competition for the Grammy Awards, in some years it gained a bigger audience than the Grammys due to being more in touch with popular trends.
Clark attempted to branch into the realm of soul music with the series Soul Unlimited in 1973. The series, hosted by Buster Jones, was a more risqué and controversial imitator of the then-popular series Soul Train and alternated in the Bandstand time slot. The series lasted for only a few episodes. Despite a feud between Clark and Soul Train creator and host Don Cornelius, the two would later collaborate on several specials featuring black artists.
He hosted the short-lived Dick Clark’s LIVE Wednesday in 1978. In 1984, Clark produced and co-hosted with Ed McMahon the NBC series TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes. The series ran through 1988 and continued in specials hosted by Clark (sometimes joined by another TV personality) into the 21st century, first on NBC, later on ABC, and currently on TBS (the last version re-edited into 15-minute/filler segments airing at about 5 A.M.). Clark and McMahon were longtime Philadelphia acquaintances, and McMahon praised Clark for first bringing him together with future TV partner Johnny Carson when all three worked at ABC in the late 1950s. The “Bloopers” franchise stems from the Clark-hosted (and produced) NBC “Bloopers” specials of the early 1980s, inspired by the books, record albums and appearances of Kermit Schafer, a radio and TV producer who first popularized outtakes of broadcasts.
For a period of several years in the 1980s, Clark simultaneously hosted regular programs on the 3 major American television networks: ABC (Bandstand), CBS (Pyramid) and NBC (Bloopers) and in 1993, he hosted Scattergories. In 1990 and 1991, he hosted the syndicated television game show The Challengers, which only lasted for one season. In 1999, along with Bob Boden, he was one of the executive producers of Fox’s TV game show Greed, which ran from November 5, 1999, to July 14, 2000, and was hosted by Chuck Woolery. At the same time, Clark also hosted the Stone-Stanley-created Winning Lines, which ran for six weeks on CBS from January 8, 2000 – February 12, 2000.
Clark did a brief stint as announcer on The Jon Stewart Show, in 1995.
From 2001 to 2003, Clark was a co-host of The Other Half with Mario Lopez, Danny Bonaduce, and Dorian Gregory, a syndicated daytime talk show intended to be the male equivalent of The View. Clark also produced the television series American Dreams about a Philadelphia family in the early 1960s whose daughter is a regular on American Bandstand. The series ran from 2002 to 2005.
