A ways back, we took a look at Dick Clark's Where The Action Is over at The Land of Whatever, but we're not going to regurgitate that exact entry. Not when we've uncovered more information.
You see, Action was originally pitched not to ABC, which eventually picked up the show, but CBS, which denied itself the opportunity to pick up a piece of the youth demographic that ABC had mined with American Bandstand, which had moved from weekdays to Saturdays, and the primetime series Shindig!, while NBC countered with Hullabaloo. At the time, the "Tiffany of The Networks" was skewing more toward older viewers.
A pilot episode was produced for CBS in January 1965. Writers Norm Liebmann & Ed Haas and producer-director Norman Abbott had been working on CBS' The Munsters at that time, and Abbott would later direct episodes of Ghost Busters a decade later. Another familiar name in the credits is choreographer Toni Basil. Nearly 20 years later, she was atop the pop charts with "Mickey". Small world, isn't it?
Anyway, Youcandancetoit, a Bandstand fan channel on YouTube, uploaded the pilot, with guests Frankie Avalon, Dick & Dee Dee, Paul Revere & The Raiders (the show's house band for the first year when it went to series 5 months later), Bobby Rydell, and Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons.
Action, trimmed to a half hour, launched on ABC in June '65, and lasted 21 months before being cancelled in March 1967. CBS & Clark would break bread a few years later, when Bob Stewart hired Clark to host The $10,000 Pyramid.
No rating.
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