10 forgotten musical variety shows of the 1960s

Going to a go-go with the Shin-diggers and more.

Image: The Everett Collection

Dick Clarke created an empire out of his popular musical variety shows, starting in the 1950s. But between American Bandstand's roaring 1950s premiere and Soul Train's stirring 1971 debut, the 1960s introduced a slew of similar shows, designed to make the kids want to get up and dance.

These shows weren't just obsessed with pop songs, but also tapped into folk, country and rock. Some featured house bands that were home to giant talents, from Glen Campbell to Paul Revere and the Raiders. Others relied on the energy of their go-go dancers, like The Shin-Diggers seen in the photo above. Whatever the format, there was no lack of hit songs driving these shows to persuade teens to tune in week after week. 

Below, we've danced back through music TV history to unearth 10 forgotten musical variety shows that convinced '60s viewers that tapping their toes was better than touching the dial, any day of the week.

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1. Hootenanny

 

Before Jack Linkletter went on to host parades and pageants like Miss America, he was the host of a 1963 folk-twinged variety show called Hootenanny. The idea of it was to travel the show from college campus to campus and show lots of shots of the kids clapping, singing and enjoying the show.

It became an instant hit, becoming the No. 2 most popular show in the nation, but the craze died down just as fast when the folk format, which saw legendary musical guests like Flatt & Scruggs, Judy Collins and The Carter Family appear on the show, fell out of favor with young audiences. They tried broadening the music, but they couldn't stop the ratings from slumping. So Hootenanny ran for two seasons before ABC cancelled it during the third season after the British Invasion shifted the culture significantly from folk to rock.


Image: YouTube

2. Shindig!

 

Once ABC decided Hootenanny was out, Shindig! was in. Disc jockey Jimmy O'Neill co-created and hosted ABC's groovy prime time dance jam. The Shin-Diggers, the requisite dance crew, were choreographed by David Winters — who also led the dancers for the rival Hullabaloo. Glen Campbell, Leon Russell and Billy Preston were formidable names cutting their teeth in the house band. Shindig! took outings to England, and was best remembered for its Beatles appearances. 

Image: YouTube

3. Hullabaloo

 

NBC's entry into the musical variety show field came in 1965 and had a bigger budget, positioning the network to potentially rival ABC hits like Shindig! and American Bandstand. That meant nifty prop sets (like, say, The Mamas and the Papas singing amidst a bunch of bathtubs and pipes) and a rotation of celebrity guests to handling the hosting, acts like Sammy Davis, Jr. and Petula Clark.

The Hullabaloo Dancers even had a choreographer with Broadway clout. The party went down mostly inside 30 Rock's Studio 8H — the same room that would eventually house Saturday Night Live


4. The Music Scene

 

Here's another flashback from ABC that did not get the runtime it deserved. The Music Scene only aired for half a season, despite combining hugely talented comedic hosts like David Steinberg and Lily Tomlin with major acts like James Brown, Janis Joplin and Stevie Wonder. No, the downfall of The Music Scene wasn't the substance of the show, but the commercial viability of its audience. It seems the show's audience was deemed too young to appeal to advertisers, so The Music Scene only lasted one fleeting fall in 1969. 


Image: YouTube

5. The Roger Miller Show

 

The Roger Miller Show is another flash in the pan musical variety show that only survived one fall season in the 1960s. By 1966 when his show premiered, Roger Miller had significantly blown up through huge hits like "King of the Road" and "Do-Wacka-Do." He started his own show by performing his new hit "Husbands and Wives." With songs rooted in humor as much as country guitars and appearances on more popular variety shows that exhibited his onscreen charm, you'd expect that Miller would've been riveting with his own show, but the Nielsen ratings did not agree. It was cancelled after the final episode aired on December 26, 1966.

Image: rogermiller.com

6. Five Star Jubilee

 

It's likely you remember Ozark Jubilee, also known as Jubilee USA, but far fewer will recall the country variety show's short-lived spin-off, Five Star Jubilee. That's because it was only around for one year in 1961. Following practically an identical format as Jubilee USA, the variety show notably featured country giants as hosts like Tex Ritter and "Mister Country" Carl Smith. It also featured the TV debut of country singer Barbara Mandrell, turning up as a pipsqueak with considerable pipes at only 12 years old.  

Image: springfieldlittletheatre.org

7. Where the Action Is!

 

The American Bandstand spin-off Where the Action Is! ran on ABC from 1965 to 1967. Created by Dick Clarke, it initially featured Paul Revere and the Raiders as the house band and invited major pop stars to come onstage to lip-synch their hits in front of a dancing teenage studio audience. Some episodes focused on one big act (like James Brown, The Four Seasons or Herman's Hermits), but most episodes cycled between three different artists, resulting in a long list of pop stars and rockers to be discovered in the show's brief but comprehensive run.


8. Hollywood A Go Go

 

This syndicated series out of L.A. remains the most obscure, but it stands up next to its network competition. The Gazzarri Dancers, regulars at the Gazzarri's nightclub on the Sunset Strip, shook and twisted throughout the performances. Host Sam Riddle would go on to emcee The Groovy Show for the same network, KHJ-TV. 


9. Upbeat

 

Originally called The Big 5 Show, Upbeat was a local Cleveland show that premiered in 1964, but grew to air nationally in syndication from 1966 to 1971. It always started out with one of the studio musicians from the house band, Dave C and the Sharptones, calling out, "Hey, let's go with the Upbeat show" before launching into the show's theme song.

Like most musical variety shows, they also had go-go dancers to rally up the audience for big acts that appeared like The Rolling Stones, The Monkees, Chubby Checker, Steve Wonder and The Who. Upbeat was especially great for piling on their lineups of amazing musicians for every single episode. 

Image: YouTube

10. Kraft Summer Music Hall

 

Kraft Music Hall was a popular series of musical variety shows starting in the 1950s and lasting into the 1970s, stemming from a popular radio show that began airing in 1933. The legacy there is long, but the best years are most often ascribed to Perry Como's reign as host from 1959 to 1967. When they began, these special broadcasts would alternate on your TV schedule with Kraft Suspense Theater, which meant you'd get to hang out in Kraft Music Hall during that time about once a month. Eventually, Como's popularity allowed the show to go back to airing weekly.

That's likely why Kraft Summer Music Hall was slotted in to replace The Andy Williams Show during that show's summer hiatus in 1966. It wasn't Como hosting then, but if you tuned in weekly, you were greeted by singer/actor/game show host John Davidson. The summer version also regularly featured comedian George Carlin, who was at that point shifting from his clean-cut act to the darker humor he's now known for.

 Image: YouTube

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21 Comments

RedSamRackham 37 months ago
* American Swingaround was a country music Shindig knock-off! ☺
Wufferduck 37 months ago
Somebody spell Dick Clark’s last name wrong. There is no E.
JoeSHill 37 months ago
ABC-TV's "SHINDIG!" (1964-1966) was The Top Rock Variety series. created by its host, Jimmy O'Neill, this show was pretty much a live rock jukebox, and the better of all the musical variety shows, including its NBC counterpart, "HULLABALOO"! "SHINDIG!" ran for 86 shows and even traveled to Great Britain and Honolulu, and its last episode had featured Dick & Dee Dee in costume, singing Lou Christy's "Lightning Strikes", as the ABC variety series, the casualty of the network's 1965-66 ratings shake up was replaced by the debut of "BATMAN". Leon I. Meril was the executive producer of this series for Selmur Productions, Selig J Seligman's production company, which was founded in 1961, and was responsible for Quinn Martin's "THE NEW BREED" (1961-62), and "COMBAT!" (1962-1967), along with ABC"s "GENERAL HOSPITAL" soap opera (1963-66), "THE YOUNG MARRIEDS" (1964), "MICKEY" (1964-65), and GARRISON'S GORILLAS" (1967=1968), Selmur Productions last TV series before it became a motion picture unit for ABC in 1968. Jimmy O'Neill also appeared in an episode of ABC's "THE FLINTSTONES" in 1965, in "Shinrock Presents" as "Jimmy O'Neillstone". In 1991, Rhino Home Video officially released "SHINDIG!" on VHS, but it was a great disappointment because it was heavily edited. among the regulars on "SHINDIG!" was Donna Loren, Glen Campbell, Sonny and Cher, The Blossoms, The Righteous Brothers, Bobby Sherman, and a particular dancer, that wore thick-rimmed eyeglasses named Carolyne Shelly, who later played "The Metron" being on NBC's "STAR TREK" in the episode, "Arena" in 1967. Jimmy O'Neill passed away in 2013, and Selig J Seligman, the founder of Selmur Productions, died on June 20, 1969.
RedSamRackham JoeSHill 37 months ago
* Shindig eventually cut to 2 weekly half hour episodes until they were replaced by BATMAN in 1966! ☺
EricFuller 40 months ago
The films "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" and "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood" mentions Hullabaloo. There's a movie called "There Goes My Baby". In that movie one of the characters auditions to be a dancer on Shindig.
JohnPerry 49 months ago
Just realized....the only time todays kids ever sae Shindig.....it was The Flintstones episode that featured "Shinrock"....with "Jimmy O'Neillstone"....and "The Beau Brummrlstones"
ChapSchoon 52 months ago
How About Lloyd Thaxton or Happening '68? There may have been a Happening '67 0r '69 as well.
RedSamRackham ChapSchoon 37 months ago
* It's Happening hosted by Paul Revere & Mark Lindsey! ☺
MovieFan 52 months ago
In 1965 I was nine or ten, so my memory of these shows is a bit vague. I remember getting home from school and watching Where The Action Is because it aired immediately after the vampire soap, Dark Shadows. Both shows were popular with older kids like my sister and her friends. I seem to remember the opening song to Where The Action Is being sung to a tune similar to Palisades Park, very upbeat, fast tune. The lyrics were something like "Oh Baby come on, let me take you where the action is." After watching the clip provided for this show, I am confused. I remember Paul Revere and The Raiders. I don't remember the opening segment at all. Am I getting it mixed up with a different show?
Abeja MovieFan 52 months ago
Thank you for sharing! I had a similar experience to what you describe. Being single digit age in the late 60's, I recall my older siblings and I dashing to the TV after school to watch a teen music show that began with a lot of teens running, and there was hula hooping on a huge jungle gym. I cannot find any images or video to clarify. I recall the "Where the Action Is" song being the theme, but I am not positive. Do you recall a Teen TV show with that type of intro??
ToddHuber MovieFan 49 months ago
Freddy Cannon -Where The Action Is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOsD7Wdsc_k
mdit21 52 months ago
I have episodes from "Hullabaloo," "Shindig!" and "Shivaree" (not mentioned). I love these shows because they captured an era in terrific music!

...and yes, these episodes I have do contain the performances of my favorite all time group.




The photo shows the ladies performing the tune "Eight Days A Week" on "Shindig!"
Josie92 52 months ago
The video clips here are awesome. Found myself tapping my feet to the beat! I especially liked Hullabaloo dancers. Good times!!
Cyn_Finnegan 52 months ago
The last name of the host of American Bandstand was C-L-A-R-K, no "e" at the end.
Arlene 52 months ago
I'm of that era and I wouldn't think of missing Hullabaloo and Shindig.
Brought back a lot of good memories. They sure don't make shows like that anymore.
pellinigroup 52 months ago
The Music Scene was programmed against Laugh-In and was a 45 minute show, designed to keep kids from watching its competition. The follow-up program was The New People and tried to capitalize on the 60s theme of trying to make a better world through new, youthful leadership. Both failed- they could not top the Laugh-In juggernaut.
Karen 52 months ago
If you list Kraft Summer Music Hall, then also mention The Hollywood Palace. I recall rotating hosts each week but mostly the King Sisters and Eddy Arnold.
Jon Karen 52 months ago
Bing Crosby hosted THE HOLLYWOOD PALACE more than anyone else, more than a dozen times over its 6+ year run.
Tlor 52 months ago
Of all the great songs of Paul Revere and the Raiders they have them singing Money which wasn't even their song! that clip was so bad it wasn't even worth adding to the site so grain. The show wasn't on prime time it was around 4pm in the afternoon. Dario is right its Clark not Clarke. It was a fun show to watch, I also remember Kraft Summer Music Hall, such nice things to watch when the world wasn't so nice.
TheDavBow3 52 months ago
What I've seen, I really like "Shindig" and "Hullabaloo". Also "Where The Action Is" with Paul Revere and the Raiders and future Raider, Keith Allison. Can't forget about "Shivaree", a "Shindig" wannabe. All so super very cool!!!!
Dario 57 months ago
To the staff at MeTV: it's "Dick Clark," not "Dick Clarke."
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