Dance Fever

rdf:langString Dance Fever

rdf:langString

rdf:langString Anthony Productions

rdf:langString January Enterprises

rdf:langString Merv Griffin Enterprises

rdf:langString Merv Griffin Productions

rdf:langString United States

rdf:langString Merv Griffin

rdf:langString Musical variety

rdf:langString English

rdf:langString Dance Fever

rdf:langString Dance Fever is an American musical variety television series that aired weekly in syndication from January 1979 to September 1987. The series was technically created by Merv Griffin but his agent Murray Schwartz actually conceived the idea of a pilot which piggybacked on a special Merv Griffin Show salute to the movie Thank God It's Friday which would feature top disco dancers from 8 cities competing for a title. Casablanca Records had already paid for the set, so a pilot could be produced at a significant reduction. Merv's vision was to have frequent Griffin guest Deney Terrio as the host, and celebrities would dance with professional disco dancers. (In a sense, it was very similar to Dancing with the Stars.) But pilot show producer Ernest Chambers had no success convincing the stars who were approached to consent to the format. They were afraid they would look bad. On the Sunday prior to the show, director Dick Carson suggested since they already had the dancers for the Thank God It's Friday salute, to select the top four couples from that show and have them compete on the pilot with celebrities as judges. "Nobody's ever going to see this thing anyway." Within a couple days, Sherman Hemsley, Barbi Benton, and Herve Villechaize were secured as the judges. After the Thursday night Griffin/Thank God It's Friday special was taped, show staffers and Paul Gilbert were dispatched to lure the top four finishers to participate in the next night's pilot production, but keep it a secret. That didn't happen, but despite some acrimony among the dancers, not helped by a one-night stand between a couple of dancers that caused a rift, the pilot was produced and ended up being sold. Another long-time Griffin staffer, Paul Abeyta, produced the show's first two seasons which were written by Tony Garofalo. Later seasons were produced by Paul Gilbert. Deney Terrio hosted the series until September 1985, when he was replaced by Adrian Zmed. Diane Day and Janet Jones were Motion (Terrio's regular backup dancers). The show's announcer for the first two years was Freeman King until September 1980 when he was replaced by Charlie O'Donnell who was the announcer on another Griffin show, Wheel of Fortune. During Terrio's tenure as host, the show's theme was performed by a musical team called Triple "S" Connection.