The 1957 Isetta BMW video by me below (though brief and not professional) was taken at an auto show at Johnny Carson Park in Burbank, California on Sunday June 13, 2010. I couldn't believe my good fortune to see this rather rare automobile like Kenny Rossi and Arlene Sullivan won in a dance contest on American Bandstand (see lead picture). So I grabbed my pocket camera and started shooting. It's not high quality video, but it's fun to see this.
I am sure we fans of Early American Bandstand have great memories we can share of the various dance contests--who entered, who won, the prizes awarded, etc. The dance contests always drew some of the largest TV audiences for the show. In reading the magazines for that time, I have often run across tidbits of the dances and the prizes.
In reading the fan magazines of the 50s/60s, you would often see comments about the dance contests and the prizes. I'll share one of those with you from a Janet Hamill article in "16 Magazine." It was written: "Probably the most outstanding memory I have was winning third prize in Dick's National Slow-Dance Contest. I entered with Tex Connors and we won a movie projector, movie camera, a set of encyclopedias, and a trip to New York. The trip to New York entitled us to attend Dick Clark's birthday party and meet his famous guests, Bobby Darin, Connie Francis, and Frankie Avalon!" Well, even though the prizes of the 50s can't compete with the millionaire style prizes of reality shows today, we of the 50s sure thought they were fantastic prizes to win. And as if winning once wasn't enough, Janet and Tex went on the following year to enter the fast dance contest and took home a 14-foot-long boat with motor How about those for prizes.
What do you recall the regulars winning? And you Regulars, let us hear from you about your take-home loot from prizes. Although the prizes then don't compare with being made an instant millionaire today on some reality shows, we of the 50s thought those prizes were quite grand!
The topic of another upcoming blog post will be the gifts that the Regulars received from their admiring fans who also sent tons of fan letters to them.
It's amazing how one Bandstand topic tends to lead to another...so I'll be coming back to the original topic of winning prizes on the dance contests...so stay tuned for tidbits to be added here as we go along down memory lane.
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