Former American Bandstand dancer Tommy “Crazy Legs” Davis leaned in to examine the enlarged pictures on the walls in Studio B, looking for himself in the photos that captured the Philadelphia heyday of the rock-and-roll dance party hosted by Dick Clark.

Back then, Davis was a thin, 129-pound teenager from Roxborough with curly blond hair.

On Saturday, he was an older version of himself with less hair and a few more pounds but the same love for the TV show and Clark, who died Wednesday in Los Angeles at 82.

“My biggest thrill was dancing with Patti Page,” said Davis, 70, of Jenkintown, who was a regular on the show from 1955 to 1957. “Dick pulled me down from the bleachers.”

Davis was among the hundreds of formerAmerican Bandstand dancers and fans who flooded Studio B at the former WFIL-TV station – the original home of the dance program – to bop, stroll, and twist in Clark’s memory.

The building at 4548 Market St. now houses the Enterprise Center, a nonprofit group that helps minority and disadvantaged entrepreneurs start their own businesses. Studio B is rented out for events such as parties and wedding receptions.

The center opened for public tours Saturday because officials had received so many requests to visit the building since Clark’s death, said Della Clark (no relation), who is president of the center.

From the speakers, the sounds of Chubby Checker, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, and the Beatles provided music with good beats that were easy to dance to.

Arnold Jones, a retired bus driver from North Philadelphia, twirled Grace Short, who works in food service.

Jones, 69, danced on the show twice in the late 1950s. Short, 64, of West Philadelphia, was a regular in 1960 and 1961.

“I saw a few black dancers who I watched [on TV], so I figured the show was for anybody who wanted to come,” Short said.

At the show, she saw James Brown perform in person, and even danced with a white partner.

The first-floor studio is lined with plaques, posters, and other Bandstand memorabilia that the center obtained when Clark auctioned off some of his possessions in 2006.

The building, one of the first to be built as a television station, was the home of American Bandstand until the show moved to Los Angeles in 1964. It later housed WHYY Studios, but fell into disrepair when the public-TV station moved in 1979. MORE

PHILADELPHIA _ For seven years it was a hot spot of teenage American pop culture.

From 1957 until 1964, Dick Clark hosted “American Bandstand” at the West Philadelphia studios of WFIL-TV, where thousands of teens dreamed of appearing on the hit show.

But few actually got the chance to dance inside the nondescript building in the shadow of the Market-Frankford El at 46th and Market streets.

If you were one of those teens who yearned for your “Bandstand” moment, here’s your chance.

On Saturday between noon and 3 p.m. the current owners will open the former Studio B for three hours of tours, reminiscing, and perhaps, one last Twist on the dance floor.

“We’ll put on some music and let people have their moment,” said Jeff Wicklund of the Enterprise Center, a nonprofit business incubator which purchased the building in 1995. “We’re just trying to be good stewards of the ‘Bandstand’ legacy.”

***************************************************************

AMERICAN BANDSTAND STORE

American Bandstand Dancers Kenny, Arlene, Justine and Bob, American Bandstand Memorabilia, Collectables

***************************************************************

Fans of the show have flocked to the building, dropping off flowers and cards since Clark’s death on Wednesday, Wicklund said.

“There have been a lot of people coming through asking to take a few pictures in studio,” he said. “It’s fairly well preserved with photos, mementos and a mural on the wall.”

When the Enterprise Center bought the structure, it had been abandoned for almost 20 years. It’s now on the National Register of Historic Places. Wicklund said the Center has established an endowment to maintain the “Bandstand” studios, which now play host to private parties, high school proms, weddings and fashion shows.

To fund the endowment, the Center is asking for a $20 contribution for admission on Saturday.

“If you can help us out it would be great,” Wicklund said. “But we’re not going to turn anybody away who can’t afford it.”

___

(c)2012 The Philadelphia Inquirer

By Hollie McKay

Published April 18, 2012

FoxNews.com

Dick Clark, who died Wednesday at age 82, is widely — and legitimately — lauded as the man who made rock ‘n’ roll safe for mainstream America with the clean-cut image of “American Bandstand” upon its national premiere in 1957.

But four months before “Bandstand” made the jump from its previous status as a popular local show out of Philadelphia, a watershed moment in the generational divide between rock ‘n’ roll-loving teens and their fretful parents took place on, of all places, “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.”

On April 10, 1957, then-16-year-old Ricky Nelson, the youngest member of the popular clan introduced  each week as “America’s favorite family,” showcased his love for the music that was sending adults around the country into conniptions in the wake of controversial appearances by Elvis Presley, whose pelvic gyrations were viewed as lewd by hordes of grown-ups.

Ed Sullivan’s endorsement of Presley as “a real decent, fine boy” in 1956 helped calm some fears, but many in positions of authority remained wary, or outright hostile, after watching Presley on his first national appearance in January 1956 on “The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show,” then subsequently on “The Steve Allen Show” and then “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

After those shows, rock and TV remained a fitful marriage at best. When the music surfaced on “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” however, the landscape changed dramatically.

The Nelsons were as wholesome as could be. Millions of Americans, first on radio, then on television, heard and watched Ozzie and Harriet’s handsome young sons, David and Ricky, grow up before their eyes.

Ricky’s passion for rock ‘n’ roll was no mere plot device. Outside the show, like scads of other teens, he was lapping up the hits of Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and rock’s other originators.

On the “Ricky the Drummer” episode that predated “American Bandstand” going national, Ozzie Nelson, the show’s creative mastermind and director, let his son sing Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’ ” on the show, a song he had just recorded, reportedly to impress a date who was more enthralled with hearing Presley on his car radio than by being out with one of the stars of a hit national TV show.

The performance by “the irrepressible Ricky” that night not only showed him to be a convincing and charismatic performer, but Ozzie Nelson also made sure to include shots of the effect his son was having on doe-eyed teenage girls looking on adoringly from the dance floor.

Perhaps more crucially, he had the camera cut to the wings to show himself and Harriet looking on, beaming smiles of approval.

That moment certainly couldn’t have been lost on execs meeting Clark at ABC-TV — the same network that had Ozzie and Harriet — when he came to them with a kinescope of his “American Bandstand” show in hopes they might green-light it for the programming opening they had that summer. The equally wholesome-looking Clark made an excellent chaperon as America became more comfortable looking in on the dance parties its children were enjoying.

Ricky’s recording of “I’m Walkin’ ” became an instant hit — some accounts say it sold 500,000 copies the first week after the show aired, some put the figure as high as 1 million. In any event, the record entered the Billboard’s Top 100 sales chart within three weeks, peaking at No. 4 and spending 17 weeks in all on that chart — quickly demonstrating the power of television to expose new music by young recording artists.

Ricky Nelson followed with an even bigger hit, “A Teenager’s Romance,” which shot to No. 2, also before “American Bandstand” premiered on Aug. 5 that year.

Ricky was quickly dubbed a “teen idol” by Life magazine, in what is widely cited as the first use of the term as the focal point of popular culture in the 1950s was rapidly shifting away from adults toward adolescents and their music and fashion.

Suddenly, “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” had a breakout pop star on its hands, and the youngest Nelson continued to introduce new songs every few weeks on the show.

Some sponsors balked: Kodak reportedly threatened to pull its advertising if the show continued to include rock ‘n’ roll music. Ozzie’s response: “Well then, don’t be our sponsor.”

At one point in 1958, in a script written by Ozzie that took on the still-burning question –  “Is it the devil’s music?” — Ricky asks Harriet, “Mom, what do you think of rock ‘n’ roll?”

Her reply contained a hint of the widespread parental confusion over a style of music that wasn’t theirs, but she confessed that she could see how it was a natural way for teenagers to express themselves, concluding enthusiastically, “I’m not going to knock it, I’ll tell you that much!”

That pronouncement deflated the controversy swirling around rock ‘n’ roll in a big way. Ricky Nelson, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, became one of the most successful recording artists of the late ’50s and early ’60s — he charted 18 Top 10 hits from 1957 through 1963, when the British Invasion prompted a new batch of teenagers to forget about him and so many other early American rockers.

But by that point, rock ‘n’ roll was deeply integrated into the culture, and while meeting the Beatles and other new stars by way of television was still exciting, it was rarely as shocking or controversial as it had been a few years earlier.

If Dick Clark and “American Bandstand” made rock music safe for America, “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” deserves credit for making the world of television safe for “American Bandstand.”

RELATED:

Dick Clark dies; he introduced America to rock ‘n’ roll

Dick Clark: An indelible impact on American pop music

Dick Clark: ‘I idolized him’ Ryan Seacrest says of his mentor

– Randy Lewis

Photo from 1954 of the Nelson family en route to a vacation in Europe. Credit: Associated Press.