Dance Fever

Dance Fever
Dance Fever
Genre Musical variety
Created by Merv Griffin
Presented by Deney Terrio (1979–1985)
Adrian Zmed (1985–1987)
Narrated by Freeman King (1979–1980)
Charlie O'Donnell (1980–1987)
Country of origin United States
Language(s) English
No. of episodes 234[1]
Production
Executive producer(s) Merv Griffin
Camera setup Multi-camera
Running time 22–24 minutes
Production company(s) 20th Century Fox Television
Anthony Productions
Merv Griffin Enterprises
Distributor 20th Television
Broadcast
Original channel Syndication
Audio format Monaural
Original run January 13, 1979 (1979-01-13) – September 5, 1987 (1987-09-05)

Dance Fever is an American musical variety series that aired weekly in syndication from January 1979 to September 1987. The series was created and produced by Merv Griffin and written by Tony Garofalo.

Deney Terrio hosted the series until September 1985, where he was replaced by Adrian Zmed. The show's announcer for the first two years was Freeman King until September 1980 where he was replaced by Charlie O'Donnell.

During Terrio's tenure as host, the show's theme was performed by a musical team called Triple "S" Connection.

Format

Each week, four dancing couples competed for a weekly cash prize of $1,000; Each couple performed their dance routine for a total of two minutes and the celebrity judges scored them anywhere between 70 and 100 points. The couple with the highest total score were the winners and advanced into the next round of competition. In the event of a tie, one set of celebrity scores was dropped in an effort to decide a winner; every fifth week was a Semi-Final show where those winning couples from the last four weeks compete for $5,000.

At the end of a 25-week competition, the five semi-final winners all came back to face off in the show's annual Grand Prix Finals for cash and prizes worth over $25,000 which included two brand new cars (one for each member of the winning dance team). In September 1984, the grand prize package was raised to $50,000.

Each week except for the year-end Grand Prix Finals, the show also featured a segment in which some of the top Disco, Pop, or R&B artists of the day would perform their latest hit.

References

  1. ^ The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present. Ballantine Books. 2003. pp. 274. ISBN 0-345-45542-8. 

External links