In Memoriam: Dick Clark, 1929-2012

For now . . . so long.  Dick Clark, the "eternal teenager," died today at age 82. Another sad milestone for those of us who remember when record players, transistor radios, and just three TV channels were our only electronic links to the larger world.

Sometimes I sort of wish I'd been born ten years earlier, so I could have seen and enjoyed the whole progression from the fifties into the sixties - the first song I ever remember hearing on the radio was the Everly Brothers' "Dream, Dream, Dream," when I was a wee child on a road trip with my mama, and that must have been about 1959.

By the time I was 5 or 6, I was occasionally asking my parents to buy me a record - of course I mean a 45 - of things I heard the maid or the babysitter listening to. "Purple People Eater" was one that I played the wires off of, got a big kick out of that. I also liked "Splish, Splash" a lot, very amusing little ditty. And I was a great little Twist-er when that was big.

When I was in elementary school, some of the newest school buses had a built-in radio system, and I very clearly remember riding home listening to songs by the Beach Boys and the Four Seasons that way. And then, of course, the Beatles, which I couldn't get enough of, me and about fifty million other kids.

American Bandstand was just always there, every Saturday - I think it came on about noon, or maybe 11 a.m. since we lived in the Central time zone. I remember watching it lots of times, though I'm sure if it interfered with my favorite cartoons, the cartoons would have been my first choice. And for many years, it seemed as if Bandstand would just go on forever, and Dick Clark too.

But nothing does. Still, the memories are good, and in the end maybe that's all that can be said about any of us. We hope. Here's a clip that will bring back some memories for you, a quick review of hits from the fifties into the early seventies, from a 1982 special (the whole thing is viewable on YouTube, this is just part II):



And I know my truckbuddies will enjoy this little segment with the Village People from 1978:




Trivia:  Clark got his start in television hosting a country music show as Cactus Dick and the Santa Fe Riders. Ouch!

TV Legends: Dick Clark

It's just come to my attention that Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve is now forty years old.  My God . . . where does the time go?  When you are young, the future seems to stretch out ahead to an infinite distance; but when you are old, you realize the road was not a very long one at all:  more like a few blocks down a wide, busy boulevard.  Which is why you should certainly enjoy your youth while you have it for that wonderful moment.  Don't be an asshole, but don't be a monk, either.  You will certainly live to regret either one.

Your Head Trucker hasn't watched television for nearly twenty years now - by deliberate choice, though I have rented plenty of videos, and now use Netflix - so it really hadn't occurred to me to wonder whether Dick Clark was still doing the New Year's Eve show.  I just pulled up a tape of this year's program, and was shocked - I had no idea he had had a stroke.  But God bless him, he's still keeping on keeping on, a real trouper.

Here's a short clip from a long interview with Clark in 1999 at the Archive of American Television, where he discusses the creation of the show, back in 1972:




(Confidentially . . . I still miss Guy Lombardo.  Anyone else remember the Royal Canadians?)