This one's from the TV show, Shivaree, which was one of those dance party thingies from the sixties that some of us watched just to see the dancers wiggle. The date is September 11, 1965 and you'll also be watching Ted Cassidy, who played Lurch on The Addams Family, introducing what was perhaps the least popular dance craze of the day. I have the feeling that not one human being on the planet ever actually did this dance if they weren't being paid to do it in this number on this show.
Cassidy was an interesting guy. Hanna-Barbera used him often for voices (and occasionally for on-camera parts in their productions of that nature). When I worked for Bill 'n' Joe, I used to see him around the halls all the time. It was difficult to not notice the guy. One time, I was running somewhere for some reason and he came out of a doorway and we darn near collided. It felt like I'd just barely run into the Empire State Building. I'm 6'3" and not used to being around folks who are substantially taller than I am.
He was looking for his wife who was somewhere nearby and I couldn't resist. I actually said, "Did she leave you in the lurch?" even though it didn't make a whole lot of sense and I'm sure he'd heard such remarks many times before. Still, he laughed the deepest, lowest-register chuckle I've ever heard in my life.
At the time, Mr. Cassidy had an odd gig. He was doing the roars for Godzilla for the Saturday AM cartoon series about everyone's fave gargantuan reptile. He'd come in every week or so and just roar into the microphone as the director told him, "Okay, Ted…now in this one, you just stepped on a hot dog stand…now, you're swatting away attack planes…"
That was in the first season of the show. Cassidy passed away before production started on Season #2 and Hanna-Barbera did auditions to find a "sound-alike" who could match the roar. Dozens of actors "read" (roared) for the part and they'd tentatively selected another very tall person, a friend of mine named Stanley Ralph Ross. Then it suddenly dawned on someone at H-B that they had hours on tape of Ted Cassidy roaring. Why not just use that? After all, it wasn't like the writers were writing new, innovative roars for Godzilla. So Stanley didn't get the odd gig. They used Cassidy's old recordings and paid his estate. Stanley complained that Ted Cassidy, dead, was getting more work than he was, alive.
Here's Ted Cassidy performing a dance that even I could do but won't. Thanks to Ken Plume for telling me about this clip…
