TV-a-Go-Go: Rock on TV from American Bandstand to American Idol

386 Pages·2005·3.6 MB·English

by  Jake Austen

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TV a-Go-Go
Rock on T V from
American Bandstand
to American Idol
Jake Austen
An A Cappella Book
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Austen, Jake.
TV-a-go-go: rock on TV from American Bandstand to American Idol / Jake
Austen.— 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-55652-572-9
1. Rock music on television. 2. Music television—United States—History
and criticism. I. Title.
PN1992.8.M87A88 2005
791.43’657—dc22
2005000514
Cover design: Rachel McClain
Cover images: Front cover photographs: American Bandstandand
Hullabalooimages copyright © Michael Ochs Archive.com; American Idol
image copyright © FremantleMedia Ltd.; televisions comks13413\Getty
Archives, LS015008\Getty Archives, LS018346\Getty Archives,
LS016154\Getty Archives, AA053793\Getty Archives
Interior design: Pamela Juárez
© 2005 by Jake Austen
All rights reserved
First edition
Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
ISBN 1-55652-572-9
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
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To my daughter Maiya, the most musical and
telegenic person I know; to my wife Jacqueline,
whose love and support makes all my work
possible; and to my parents, who obviously let me
watch too much TV growing up
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
1
Rock Around the Box
Proto TV Rock and the Order of St. Sullivan 1
2
Lip-Synch Traces
Dick Clark, Jack Good, and TV Dance Shows 25
3
Faking the Band
Keeping It Unreal with Monkees, Partridges, and Their Play Pals 51
4
The Hippest Trip in Town
Black-on-Black Music TV 79
5
Never Mind the Bollocks:
Here’s the Chipmunks!
Rock ’n’ Roll Cartoons 117
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6
Rock Concert
1970s TV Rock 137
7
BEEF BEEF BEEF BEEF BALONEY!
Punk Rock on TV 167
8
Video Vanguard
MTV, Music Videos, and the History of Rock ’n’ Roll on TV 193
9
Idol Bands Are the Devil’s Workshop
Rock ’n’ Roll Reality TV 217
10
Michael Jackson
Chronicle of a Life on TV 249
Appendix 1
International TV Rock 295
Appendix 2
Rock ’n’ Roll TV Guide 307
Source Notes 339
Index 353
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Acknowledgments
I would like to especially acknowledge Jack and Elaine Mulqueen, who have
inspired me profoundly, and also offer gratitude to the following folks whose gen-
erosity of time, talent, and resources made this book possible: Bob Abrahamian,
Chase Adams, Ben Austen, John Battles, Ken Burke, Art Fein, Gary Pig Gold,
Barbara Holt, Phil Milstein, Jim Newberry, James Porter, Domenic Priore, Jacque-
line Stewart, Nikki Stewart, Yuval Taylor, and the movers and shakers in the Soul
Train Yahoo group.
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Introduction
Ten years ago I found myself sitting in the Bartlett Hills Golf Club restaurant in
Bartlett, Illinois, a quaint suburban village forty-five minutes from Chicago. Jack
Mulqueen, a polite, soft-spoken, devoutly religious sexagenarian, was treating me
to the blandest meal I’d ever tasted. A friend of mine was writing an article about
Mulqueen and had asked me to go to his home to pick up some archival photo-
graphs. It seems that in the 1960s Mulqueen had produced a local dance show
called Kiddie-a-Go-Gothat featured preteens frugging, swimming, and ponying to
the hits of the day. After a pleasant afternoon enjoying Mulqueen and his wife
Elaine’s hospitality I headed home to the South Side of Chicago, my mission
accomplished. The photos were in hand, and to make my journey worthwhile
Mulqueen had thrown in a videotape of Kiddie-a-Go-Go.
At some time during the next week my wife and I popped the tape into the
VCR. My jaw dropped. Though the concept seemed simple—kids dance around—
the show was mind-blowing. Elaine (as “Pandora,” the mod harlequin) led a hoot-
enanny that was raw, ridiculous, and sublimely surreal. The dancers displayed both
the awkward self-consciousness and the total abandon that mark the start and fin-
ish lines of the pursuit of cool. The editing and camerawork were as instinctual,
imperfect, and dynamic as the best garage rock. The wide shots of the pint-size
terpsichoreans evoked a sense of both modernist kinetic artwork and stylized
ethnographic ritual. While the rigid formal aspects of television were all in place,
the energy of this show somehow fulfilled rock ’n’ roll’s promise of actual chaos
and, to a degree, danger (those children were swept up in hypnotic rites!).
This was possibly the best music-themed television show I had ever seen,
which meant that Mulqueen—that mild-mannered gentleman, a bespectacled
Bob Newhart look-alike—was one of the greatest rock ’n’ roll TV producers of all
time!
But that didn’t make any sense. This man was no rock ’n’ roller. Mulqueen isn’t
in Howard Stern’s demographic; he’s in Paul Harvey’s. So how could he be so good
at capturing the elusive spirit of American teenage music on the boob tube?
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