American Bandstand 1968 - Surf City, Jan & Dean

It's the summer of '68, as we go back to the 11th anniversary show and the kids dance to Jan & Dean’s #1 hit. Brian Wilson, of The Beach Boys, wrote the opening verse and chorus of the song in ’63 and believing he would never finish it due to being busy working on “Surfin’ USA”, gave the song to his friends Jan & Dean who then completed it. “Surf City” was the first surf song to become a #1 hit.
Dancers: As we approach the end of season 11, there are a lot of new faces here. Bandstand staples Frank Vanderpuil, Famous Hooks and Don Sanuskar can all be seen between 2:02-2:07 and Eddie Sanchez (‘68 Dance Contest) at 2:34. Mid 1968 is an interesting year for fashion. The girls’ skirts are getting shorter and the boys clothes are somewhere between the buttoned-down look of ’67 and the groovier, “mod” look of ’69.
The final picture at the end of the song is, as Dick mentions, John Zacherle. Dick nicknamed him “the cool ghoul” when they worked together in Philadelphia. John recorded a top 10 novelty record, “Dinner with Drac” (#7) in 1958. He was also well known in New York and Philadelphia as a TV horror host, broadcasting horror movies as his ghoulish character “Roland”. He went on to host a teen dance show, also in character as Roland, in Newark, called “Disc-O-Teen” from ‘64-’67.
The jingle in the “Summer Blonde” commercial is based on the Van Dyke Parks song “Come To The Sunshine” made (kinda) famous by Harper’s Bizarre in 1967. (#37)
…..And while the “Surf City” mentioned in the song is a mythical place with “2 girls for every boy”, there are 2 California cities that claimed to be the real “Surf City”, Santa Cruz and Huntington Beach. In 1991 Dean Torrence moved to Huntington Beach and said that was the city he and Jan were thinking about when they wrote the song. After a long legal dispute, settled finally in 2008, Huntington Beach retained the rights to legally be called “Surf City, USA”.
Airdate: August 17, 1968