motd Sat April 21, 2012 - Dick

[Guest guest]

ON THE

BANDSTAND!

Saturday, 21 April 2012

50 years ago at our house on St. Louis Street

in New Orleans, after the Saturday morning cartoon

shows were over, there was only one show for me to

watch. And come on, back then, just about every

teenager in America was glued to ABC-TV on Saturday

mornings watching America's #1 dance show. American

Bandstand! And the host of that show was

America's ageless teenager himself, Mr. Dick

!

How many musical groups and

solo singing sensations launched their careers on American

Bandstand?

Oh my goodness, how many musical groups and solo

singing sensations launched their careers on American

Bandstand? Let me name a few. The Beach

Boys, The Five, Petula and

even Madonna! Just looking at that lineup

of music's superstars, you can see that Dick and American

Bandstand spanned

several generations. The show, the stars, the hits, Bandstand was a musical

bookmark for so many of our lives, including

mine! When it came to introducing America to

the latest, hottest, hippest music, the journey didn't

start without an appearance on American

Bandstand.

So here you have this overweight kid from New Orleans

watching the show, probably with a bag of potato chips

at his side. (Yeah, that would have been me. LOL.)

But there I was, watching American

Bandstand never

even dreaming of the influence Dick would have

on my life...and not just from watching him on TV.

When I moved to Los Angeles way back in the 70's, one

of my first jobs was working as a waiter at a famous

Beverly Hills restaurant called Derrick's. The

restaurant was a favorite spot for many of Hollywood's

biggest celebrities and Dick was one of them.

He became one of my regular and most favorite

customers. Oh how I loved making him laugh.

Apparently, Dick saw something in me. He said to me,

during one of his visits, that I was going to be famous someday. Can

you imagine how that made me, that former fat kid from

New Orleans feel?

Dick had me on

American Bandstand to perform one

of the numbers from my workout album, REACH!

When America did get to know me better on The

Show, I released my first

workout record called Reach.

(That was before the days of VHS and DVD.) And, talk

about dreams coming true, Dick had me on American

Bandstand to

perform one of the workout numbers from my album! In

my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined

actually being a guest on American

Bandstand when I was watching the show back in

New Orleans. Talk about dreams coming true!

When I had my night time TV show, Here's

, Dick was one of my guests. The

two of us did a bit where we dressed up as Sonny &

Cher. It was hysterically funny and, me...as Cher?

Oh, I was so cute. I'm sure Cher must have been at

least a little jealous! LOL.

Dick became a television icon. He produced a

number of TV and game shows, including the$20,000

Pyramid, on which I was a guest. (It later

became the $100,000

Pyramid. See what a little inflation can do?

LOL.) I was a guest on a number of Dick's TV shows

and boy, did he ever produce a long list of them.

And for how many years did we welcome New

Year's Eve on New York City's Times Square with Dick

as the host? Hey, New Years's Eve wasn't New Year's Eve

without him!

America has lost more than

a great TV entertainer and producer, we've also lost a

dear friend.

I'm all sentimental today because, I'm sure you all

know, Dick passed away on Wednesday. America

has lost more than a great TV entertainer and

producer, we've also lost a dear friend. For over 50

years, we welcomed Dick into our homes. And

this great man also had a special place...in my

heart!

He was one of the kindest human being I've ever

known. Never the "star", Dick was more like the

regular guy who

treated everyone he met with respect and friendship.

In fact, that would be one of the secrets to his

success. (Make it one of yours!)

This morning at Slimmons, my class and I will share

our memories of Dick . Then we'll get up to

start sweatin' on this Saturday Morning, just like I

did 50 years ago back in New Orleans. We'll be

sweatin' and dancing away and I know we would have

looked great doing it on...American Bandstand!

Love,