1958-59 ‘Oh Boy!’ ABC Television

PJ Riverdale (2020YTcomm) Good basically transplanted “Oh Boy” intact and revived it as “Shindig” for the US market. It is reported that ATV/ Good attempted to sell ” Oh Boy” to American networks and to that end kinescoped episodes were sent to the US. For whatever reason, the show was not picked up. One can speculate that the US Rock N Roll market on TV was already well served primarily by programs hosted by Dick Clark plus local spinoffs. Clark’s name has not been mentioned as him being the obstacle to Oh Boy’s release in the US, but one could see that his “Saturday Night Show” may have been his response to ” Oh Boy”. More likely, there was NO interest in the US for UK bands until January 1964. There are many stories of giant UK acts and hits that absolutely could not get any footing in the US. Even the Beatles’ initial releases were flops and not originally released by Capitol/EMI until after February 1964 in the US. But, Good’s time had come due to the high level of interest by broadcasters to jump on a burgeoning teen music market and by July 1964, him being British didn’t hurt. With Dick Clark now widening his scope as a program packager outside of music, shows like “Shindig”, “Shivaree”, “Hollywood A Go Go”, “The Lloyd Thaxton Show” and finally, “Hullabaloo”, which threw a lot of money at production to only look like a corporate rip off of “Shindig”. By Shindig’s second season, Good was gone from it and in re watching episodes, one can feel ” something” is different although the staging and pacing remained the same. The funny irony for US viewers of “Shindig” is while it looked like nothing else had on US TV in 1964, its presentation and pacing had already been put in place with “Oh Boy”. With “Oh Boy”,Good had it right the first time. We, in the US had to catch up with him.

Good basically transplanted “Oh Boy” intact and revived it as “Shindig” for the US market. It is reported that ATV/ Good attempted to sell ” Oh Boy” to American networks and to that end kinescoped episodes were sent to the US. For whatever reason, the show was not picked up. One can speculate that the US Rock N Roll market on TV was already well served primarily by programs hosted by Dick Clark plus local spinoffs. Clark’s name has not been mentioned as him being the obstacle to Oh Boy’s release in the US, but one could see that his “Saturday Night Show” may have been his response to ” Oh Boy”. More likely, there was NO interest in the US for UK bands until January 1964. There are many stories of giant UK acts and hits that absolutely could not get any footing in the US. Even the Beatles’ initial releases were flops and not originally released by Capitol/EMI until after February 1964 in the US. But, Good’s time had come due to the high level of interest by broadcasters to jump on a burgeoning teen music market and by July 1964, him being British didn’t hurt. With Dick Clark now widening his scope as a program packager outside of music, shows like “Shindig”, “Shivaree”, “Hollywood A Go Go”, “The Lloyd Thaxton Show” and finally, “Hullabaloo”, which threw a lot of money at production to only look like a corporate rip off of “Shindig”. By Shindig’s second season, Good was gone from it and in re watching episodes, one can feel ” something” is different although the staging and pacing remained the same. The funny irony for US viewers of “Shindig” is while it looked like nothing else had on US TV in 1964, its presentation and pacing had already been put in place with “Oh Boy”. With “Oh Boy”,Good had it right the first time. We, in the US had to catch up with him.