If that headline doesn’t catch your attention, I have no hope for you.
But on occasion, when I’m in a bit of a creative funk, or I need to understand that not every person on a dance show has the skills of someone who just finished a three-month run in a summer stock production of Fame – I’ll pull this clip off YouTube and watch it for about three minutes.
Let me give you the background. Top of the Pops was a wildly successful British dance and music show, and in addition to the usual cast of trained dancers on the program, sometimes the show would have guest dancers – in this instance, a group of normal, everyday college kids.
And boy oh boy, when you see their dance styles and grooves from 1971 … um … hoo boy.
And the track they’re dancing to is a fuzz-guitar remake of the Archies’ bubblegum classic “Sugar Sugar,” as performed by Jonathan King under one of his many pseudonyms – in this case, credited to the name Sakarin. Clever, I guess.
Have a look at this. Try to even describe some of these dance styles. The one brunette with the white T-shirt and black belt who does that weird “push-down” move with her arms, the girl with the checkerboard blouse who clearly says “That’s me!” when the cameras focus on her, the couple of male dancers who look like they’re practicing dance steps and counting off each move with “1 and 2 and 3 and 4…”
Meanwhile, you get a recap of the Top 30 songs in the UK in 1971, including a photo of a six-man band named Dawn (which was actually Tony Orlando and some female session musicians at the time, and NOBODY in that photo looks like Tony Orlando OR like a female session musician).
Oh, and I should note that later in the broadcast, the kids danced to another track, an Irish jig / rock track, “Jig-a-Jig,” by a band called East of Eden. Some of the dancers shake on the floor like they’ve been possessed by demons; the brunette with the black belt keeps dancing her “pull-down-arms” dance throughout, while one girl apparently decides the cameras would notice her if she danced on the main stage while wearing just her panties.
I kid you not, people. She’s right there in the frame below, she’s the girl on the left.
What, you think the British were scandalized about that? Come on, this is a country that brought us Benny Hill.
And now you’ve got two songs stuck in your head for the rest of the day.
You’re welcome. 😀
Chuck The Writer 