Dance Party Usa / Dancin on Air Family
Facebook Flame Wars, Legal Action, and "Death Threats": Dancin' on Air'south Family Feud Boils Over
After an unlikely — and maybe unwatched — online revival earlier this yr, 1980s cast members and the producer of the iconic Philly Television dance show are fighting similar you lot wouldn't believe.
Some of the "Dancin' on Air" and "Trip the light fantastic Party Us" regulars from the 1980s are none too happy with producer Michael Nise, inset right, who counters that they're but bitter.
Next week marks the 30th anniversary of the debut of the once nationally popular, Philly-set teen dance bear witness Trip the light fantastic Political party USA. The evidence was a spinoff ofDancin' on Air — something of a neon-and-Members-Only-wearing little cousin to American Bandstand — which itself turns 35 afterwards this year.
If you were a tween, teen, or immature developed — or the parent of one — in Philadelphia in the '80s, y'all are no doubt familiar with Dancin' on Air. It premiered on Channel 17 in October 1981, eventually got syndicated in 1986, and morphed into Dance Party United states of america, which became a huge striking for cable's and so-fledgling U.s. Network. Both shows were shot in Philly and, similar predecessor Bandstand, featured teens from the area. While many of the dancers were simply kids lucky enough to make it for the tapings, others became "regulars" whose performances earned them a degree of local fame.
Simply the shows weren't just a bunch of young Gen Xers dancing in leg-warmers and hilarious-in-hindsight hairdos. The programs featured performances past some very big names, including Will Smith in his Fresh Prince days, Duran Duran, Stevie Wonder, the New Kids on the Cake, Nine Inch Nails, and Madonna, in what was reportedly her very first television set advent. It'south hard to remember a time when Madonna was so clothed and when kids in Philadelphia danced like this:
Dancin' on Air ran until 1987, and Dance Party USA continued until 1992. Decades afterward, the regulars are all grown up and pushing 50. One of them remains a household name today: South Jersey native Kelly Ripa, who declined to annotate for this article. Merely by the mid-'90s, with the shows all just forgotten past your average television viewer, the other regulars had settled into relatively quiet lives far from from the spotlight.
The invention of social media enabled a few of them to rekindle their renown through Facebook fan pages, where they post memories, photos, and where-are-they-now updates to their followers, which number a chiliad or more than in certain cases. Others mail similar content on their personal Facebook profiles. And now Facebook is where tensions between the regulars and the producer of the show, Mike Nise, have flared upward in a big, big mode since January, when Nise launched a new, online version of Dancin' on Air.
You'd retrieve that the people behind two programs that go along to occupy a weird little niche of Philadelphia'south collective consciousness might be popping a few Champagne bottles — or at to the lowest degree a six-pack of wine coolers — together to mark a momentous ceremony. But the familiar faces from the shows — and the producer behind it — aren't doing much celebrating at all. Instead, they're locked in a contentious fight over their memories and the shows' very legacy.
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Heather Day as "Princess" in her "Dancin' on Air" Days, left, and in her fettle studio today.
HEATHER DAY IS the 45-twelvemonth-old owner of Manayunk's Awakenings Pole Fitness, where she teaches women how to grind and gyrate their way into better health. Simply in the '80s, she was known as Princess, a Dancin' on Air regular who wound up hosting Dance Party USA late in its run. On the phone from her home in Montgomery County (she declined to tell us exactly where she lives, explaining that she'due south had stalkers), Day says none of the regular dancers were paid, which was fine with her, because information technology was so much damn fun. (Every bit host, she says, she fabricated $55 per day for 12-60 minutes tapings.)
Here'due south Day every bit Princess introducing Nine Inch Nails, in a performance we can only imagine Trent Reznor has blocked out completely:
Like many of her peers from the show, Day has held onto VHS and even Betamax tapes from the broadcasts, recorded at dwelling house by friends and family excited to come across their Princess on Idiot box. And like the other personalities, she has shared clips from her personal show highlights on her Facebook fan page. Many of the clips shared past Day and the others were shot with a prison cell phone from a Tv screen. High-def they are not.
Recently, the videos shared past Twenty-four hours and several other regulars we spoke with started disappearing from Facebook, with letters from the site explaining that the clips in question were in violation of United states of america copyright law. Some regulars study that their Facebook pages have been suspended later on repeated infractions, and one says that her entire YouTube channel — which she says also included videos of her kids — was removed.
The copyright claims have come up from a Philadelphia-based entity known as Omni 2000 Inc. And who is the CEO of that production visitor? None other than Mike Nise, the shows' producer.
"They're stalking our Facebook pages," says Mean solar day, referring to Nise and his acquaintance at Omni, Chrystel Eberts. Twenty-four hour period claims that even behind-the-scenes videos shot by friends on their own hand-held VHS cameras have been yanked offline. "These videos are harmless. They used people, and now they are stabbing united states in the backs. It's little. They're being jerks."
Regulars like Bobby Catalano, Lillian Narodowski, Liz Jacobs, and Romeo Rex tell the aforementioned kind of stories.
Before the videos are pulled down, the regulars say, Nise'due south squad downloads them and posts them on Omni's own page, Dance Party United states of america/Dancin' On Air, which goes out of its way to say that it is "the only official group" commemorating the shows.
Recently, Narodowski, a 46-twelvemonth-erstwhile mother of ii and licensed manicurist, took to her Facebook fan folio to claiming Nise:
Well Well Omni 2000 and Mike Nise,
I got a notification that I am along with a few other regulars, somehow infringing on YOUR rights….since when is MY image and MY personal videos an infringement on you??…
Too alienating just about everyone that showed upwardly for you daily and didn't receive a single penny and made your show possible, and the success it was, How exercise you even feel right about this? You lot are putting a bad gustation in anybody's mouth, including the thousands of viewers that y'all brag nearly daily that tuned in, that enjoy the memories just like those who were a part of information technology…
It'south very unfortunate that this is the mode you want to leave a legacy to anybody that loved and appreciated that time in our life.
But I'one thousand lamentable Mr. Nise, if it wasn't for all those people that journeyed each and every solar day to the studio… Honestly, you wouldn't of had a show if information technology wasn't for us….
YOU NEEDED The states TO MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!
Lillian Narowodoski on Dancin ' On Air (left) and in a more recent photograph (right).
However, information technology's not merely videos on Facebook that have been targeted past Nise and his coiffure. A few years back, Romeo Male monarch and other regulars decided to host an alumni party at Dave & Buster'southward that would double as a breast cancer benefit, considering i regular had recently been diagnosed with the disease.
Left: Romeo Rex with a fan circa 1986. Right: Rex in a recent photo with one-time Trip the light fantastic toe Party USA regular Terry DeSanto McNulty.
Rex and the others formed a group chosen Dancin' Party Alumni. Co-ordinate to Rex, the benefit did non plan to charge access and rather sought to raise funds through silent auctions and other fundraising efforts. Nise'southward Bala Cynwyd chaser sent King a cease-and-desist alphabetic character, claiming that Dancin' Party Alumni's logo and other aspects of the group and event infringed upon Nise's rights.
"They don't let us to bask our past," observes King, who works as an emcee with Huntingdon Valley's All Around Amusement, a company he cofounded. "It all unfortunately comes down to money — equally if nosotros're making any on anything. Merely, actually, what they don't understand is that nosotros are the only ones keeping information technology relevant."
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THOUGH THE REGULARS say they have been hearing complaints from Nise and Eberts for a while, things certainly ramped upward after the January debut of a newly produced series of Dancin' on Air episodes for the website of cablevision channel Fuse. Nise and Eberts are backside that show, though they were merely nominally involved with a reality show, Saturday Morning Fever, that followed the exploits of the show'southward host and six of the dancers, and actually aired on the network.
Afterward a handful of episodes, the last of which streamed in early March, Nise says he's not sure that the new show volition continue. He's more than interested in working on a new concept that he wouldn't tell u.s.a. more about that will, in his words, "put Dancin' on Air and Dance Party The states to residuum."
Fifty-fifty though information technology doesn't sound like the new Dancin' on Air has much of a hereafter, if information technology ever did, Nise and Eberts both say that they don't want to dilute the make with all of these "unofficial" Facebook pages and shares. "When at that place are 50 sites that say 'Dancin' on Air,' how are you lot supposed to know where to go?" asks Nise.
Eberts wasn't effectually back when the original shows were on the air. Nise hired her for some other goggle box product he was involved with in the late '90s, and she's been with him ever since — just just professionally, says Nise, contradicting the suspicions of some of the regulars. In whatever event, it's clear that Eberts is calling a lot of the shots these days.
"She's very involved," says Nise. "She's my right-mitt adult female. She's protecting me from lawsuits and all that kind of stuff. She has a good legal mind."
"We ain these videos," says Eberts, who goes on to confirm that she has, indeed, been downloading the footage shared by the regulars so reporting information technology. "The new dance show is targeting the millennials and the teens and tweens, and they aren't interested in this '80s stuff, so we don't want to alienate them.
"I have been called a terrorist and gotten a lot of nasty messages and even decease threats from some regulars, only these people need to go a life. They're upset that Michael got a new Goggle box bear witness about millennials and that nobody is interested in 40-somethings. It'south a personal vendetta."
Merely with Nise's doubts that the new show will even go along, and now that he's set his sights on a new mystery production, why bother? Why brand enemies out of your old, one time-loyal friends, most of whom worked for free or next to nothing?
"It could exist that they're disappointed in their own lives," Nise offers when we ask for his reaction to the bad feelings cropping up among the group. "They used to telephone call me their 'Idiot box dad.' Now, in that location are perhaps 10 people out there who missed their take chances for fame. But instead of trying to trounce the states, they should join united states of america."
Nise says he's told all of the regulars directly: Instead of sharing the clips on your personal Facebook pages, share them on my official page. He likewise points to a licensing understanding he fabricated a decade ago with a company chosen Historic Films, which he says is the only entity other than Omni that's immune to share and distribute even a single frame of content from the old shows.
"They desire to collect and control everything," says Heather Day.
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IN THE Finish, information technology doesn't sound similar Nise and his former "Tv set kids" are going to be reconciling or collaborating on anything again someday presently, and certainly not in time for this week's 30th ceremony ofDance Political party USA.
Talk of a 30th issue did recently come up upward on Facebook (where else?), and the since-deleted thread devolved into name-calling and i fan accusing Nise of beingness the one backside all this disharmonize. Nise asked the fan for an apology, and the fan said he wouldn't apologize for being passionate.
Nise'due south response is pretty indicative of where things are at in this bizarre earth of never-quite-famous Tv personalities, and it simply goes to show you how Facebook makes all of us — no matter our historic period — human activity similar nosotros were in high school again, and not in a good way.
"Hitler had passion," wrote Nise. "Genghis Khan had passion. ISIS has passion, simply that'southward no justification for bad behavior, threatening lives and bodily injury, or creating websites. What's the real trouble here?"
Nise says he actually wasn't the ane to write that message, explaining that Eberts handles a lot of their social media, including some posts on his own Facebook profile.
"All these people are just bitter and being driven past ego, and frankly, I'm getting really annoyed with it," Nise tells u.s.a. from his Fairmount apartment on a recent Sabbatum morning time. "When yous're in the spotlight, everybody thinks you lot have a ton of money, and everybody wants some of it. Only I don't have nothing. It's all gone."
Nise sounds sorry for a moment, reflecting on it all. Just then he perks up and says that he is very excited about the upcoming, every bit-yet-unnamed and every bit-notwithstanding-unwritten project.
"I'm not going anywhere," he promises. "The kids, they desire u.s.a.."
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Source: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/04/10/dancin-on-air-dance-party-usa/
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