Hullabaloo

What a sight to see Little Joe come out on the stage and sing. And not bad at that. It was more fun though to see Paul Revere and the Raiders, Mamas and Papas, and Jackie De Shannon. Jackie. Good Lord. Back in high school I thought she was the hottest ticket in town. I must have been looking out the wrong side of my eyes, cause this girl is not a bit pretty. I watched this show many times way back there and I must say it is not as much fun now as it was during those long, hot Houston summers of the mid-60's. But still a lot of fun. Jackie, where did you go?

This was my favorite show when I was a teenager. I just Loved the dancers.

This is actually a review of a retrospective special of this show as hosted by Peter Nooone of Herman's Hermits. He intros many of the acts that appeared on the show during its two season run. If not him, then many of the show's guest hosts in vintage clips do it. By the way, because many of the tapes are now lost, most of the clips are black-and-white kinescopes and not the color video originally presented. Anyway, the most exciting of the performances involved the show's dancers, usually female, shaking up a storm like during The Young Rascals' "Good Lovin'" or Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made for Walkin'" which also has the bizarre sight of giant boots on stage. In some other performances, those dancers are standing still whether as mannequins or, as in The Byrds' "The Times, They Are A-Changin'", as hunters about to aim! Since this aired on PBS, there were also pledge breaks that had interviews with the producer, choreographer, one of the dancers, and Leslie Gore who performed on the show though no clips of any of her songs were shown except as a snippet. Overall, this was quite an enjoyable special but it left me wanting more. Maybe there are some individual eps somewhere here online...P.S. During the Trini Lopez segment where he sang "If I Had a Hammer", my mom reminisced about seeing him in concert with Dad as her date when they lived in Chicago. They happened to have a couple of his albums at the time.

I was 7 in 1965 but already totally into the music scene. It feels like I am going back once again to my happy childhood when I watch this DVD Hullabaloo Vols. 1-4. I am hoping to get my hands on the other 2 DVDs -- volumes 5-8 and 9-12. Hullabaloo wasn't as sophisticated as many music shows I also watched around this time and later (such as Solid Gold, American Bandstand, Soul Train, Don Kirschner's Rock Concert, and Midnight Special), but Hullabaloo still entertains! The writers WERE a bit corny and a lot of unnecessary hamming it up was thrown in between musical segments. But, this was the mid-1960's don't forget. For example, there's some klunky comedic play between Jerry Lewis (the telethon guy) and his son Gary Lewis (of the Playboys) I personally can do without. But that's the beauty of DVD - just press that "16x speed up" button on your remote!

Of particular interest are the British bands which were featured on segments from London hosted by Brian Epstein. Brian doesn't really do much, just kind of sways to the music and looks appreciative. But I especially love those British bands! It's a real treat to see Denny Laine of the original Moody Blues' lineup singing, one of my all-time favorite songs, "Go Now". This performance is included in the special features section of the DVD, so one might miss it. I'm pretty sure it is also included in the VHS version on volume one. I, of course, loved a lot of the music by the subsequent assemblage of the Moody Blues without Denny Laine. But never any as much as the song he wrote, "Go Now". He also went on to other fame in Wings. I still find I like HIS Wings' songs better than Paul McCartney's! I would buy this DVD for that one Denny Laine performance alone!

Another segment on the show was called "Tops of the Pops" where that episode's guests would sing shortened versions of 5 (other performers') top-rated songs of that time period. Even then, I always cringed when listening to these covers, however brief they were! I laugh to see that I still cringe at hearing them! They're fun to watch though, or skip ahead through them if you must!

Other great performances I like to watch over and over are The Mamas and the Papas singing "California Dreamin'", Marvin Gaye singing "Ain't That Peculiar" and Barry McGuire singing "Eve of Destruction", along with many, many others. You get more of your money's worth when you buy the DVD as you get 7 complete episodes, plus 18 bonus individual performances on a double-sided DVD. If you get the videos they each only have one episode.

Warning!: Your kids might freak out when they see the black and white episodes on the TV screen as my two little boys did! They thought they'd somehow get blamed for breaking the TV! Now they can't believe how deprived my childhood was! TV without color, imagine that!

Additional Warning!!!: You might throw your back out trying to outdo the Hullabaloo go-go dancers doing all the crazy dances we used to do! No wonder I was so skinny back then -- that dancing was a REAL aerobic workout! I'll just skip the mini skirt and go-go boots this time around though!

I also saw Woody Allen live on another Hullabaloo episode - at about the same time. that is apparently not covered in this discography. It was in 1963 or 1964 - televised in Boston - with Jack Linkletter as host. Stars were The Chad Mitchell Trio as headliners; other guests included Leon Bibb and The Big Three (female singer was a then "unknown" Cass Elliot, who later would join The Mamas and Papas) and another folksinger - Joe Washington?. Woody Allen was the lone stand-up comic, honing his craft as a neurotic, under-sized. Jewish New Yorker whose observations were pointed and funny. He talked about dating, growing up, education. and the world around him. Ties then were about 1" wide.