"As a dance group, Pan’s People have always had ‘something to say’. And this, I hope, shows in our dancing." (Flick Colby, Top Of The Pops Annual 1974)
So while there was clearly no need for the BBC to mention it at the time or anything, Pan's People ended eight years of Pops service at the end of April 1974. The idea of an in-house dance troupe is very much a hangover from 1960s letting it all hang out extravaganzas from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In downwards, with a hefty dose of British variety tradition of giving it a go - most of the more literal interpretations were such because Colby was only given a few hours to drill the girls in their moves. That kind of making do and mending is what led to a good amount of the classic Pan's People routines - Get Down, Monster Mash, all those.
The rest of them are when they weren't wearing much clothing and, y'know, home masturbation. Sorry, had to be said.
With all that ungainfully in mind, here's five belters of little regarded routines of theirs we found where the choreography is basically being interpreted on the hoof.
Fan service first, as the 1975 Christmas Top Of The Pops calls upon the girls to enact both the depths of the season and the sunkissed nature of reggae (admittedly reggae in the Paul Nicholas sense - hey, maybe this is what he meant all along). Typically Tropical were, by the way, two white men from north London.
From the same show, DLT does his act before the girls become intergalactic air traffic controllers to Space Oddity. That the following year saw Bowie retreat from pop commerciality Station To Station's release is perhaps not coincidental.
Sly And The Family Stone's Runnin' Away is on There's A Riot Goin' On, an album famously recorded in the depths of Sly's darkest urges, even sounding burnt out as a result of Sly's compulsive overdubbing. To a TOTP audience, this is reflected in prancing round a department store. The pointing at big shoes bit especially get across the message of the death of the Sixties liberation dream.
"Philadelphia? Why, that's in America, and they have majorettes there, so..." Wonder if those specific flags have any greater meaning.
And some quintessential Flick uncertainty - Pan's Labyrinthine, if you will - as CSO makes a break for the border and Papa Was A Rollin' Stone finds handclaps becoming its major instrument. Look at her, she really understands that sentiment.
5 comments:
possibly like most kids of my generation, the pan's person that stood out to me was the blonde (unlike her colleagues, she even had a name - babs), but like the others, i felt her face wasn't really her fortune. i also always used to get the two dark-haired girls mixed up (were they related?)
i would guess that their agenda was to fill in the gaps and dance to anything where the artistes concerned weren't available to appear in the flesh on TOTP for whatever reason (which meant most americans for a start, and of course promotional videos were still in their infancy)... the glam acts that i was heavily into usually turned up, so PP seemed to get lumbered with the more mature boring stuff rather than the likes of "blockbuster", "tiger feet", and "cum on feel the noize", which is probably one reason why i generally never had that much time for them...
they also released a couple of singles which might interest some:
http://www.45cat.com/artist/pans-people
i did come across a copy of "club lido" a while back but despite being released at the height of disco it did little for me i'm afraid...and hadn't they stopped long before then anyway? (out of interest it was co-produced by steve coe who later had success with the monsoon indipop crossover)...
regarding the "philadelphia freedom" video: i was going to mention that like the village people, pan's people is usually mispronounced (by us brits anyway) with the emphasis on the second word... but in the intro noel edmunds actually pronounces it properly! and not only that, at the end he displays some unexpected depth of musical knowledge informing the viewers about reg and the walrus employing the same string arranger (gene page). arrggh - at this rate i might have to revise my opinion of the man as an obnoxious self-aggrandising airhead (of course the producer could have told him what to say ha ha)... oh yes, perhaps your remarks on the flags are in jest rather than genuine puzzlement, but if not then can i mention (hopefully without stating the bleedin' obvious?) that a couple have a bell on them so are presumably making reference to the liberty bell which is of course to be found in philadelphia (and liberty means freedom as well)...
one more thing on this entry: so far all the 1976 episodes aired on BBC4 have featured only one DJ presenter, but i notice that for the "xmas" edition of 1975 (as seen here a couple of times), the beeb really pushed the boat out and gave us lucky people not one but two top DJ's! of course by the early 80's DJ double-acts had become the norm on TOTP, and i have to say i preferred it that way as they could indulge in some self-deprecating banter that all added to the fun...
Many thanks for the Sly Stone clip, which I was fruitlessly searching for on YouTube just the other day, having been bewitched by Dee Dee's lovely smile when it was shown on TOTP2 well over a decade ago. It is Dee Dee in the red, isn't it? She looks lovely in it anyway. In the bit on 35 seconds when they prance in front of the Carmen Rollers stand, I think she looks a bit like Tina Fey.
Oh, also, can anyone spot the continuity error in the Runnin' Away clip at 1:25?
Picking up on the dual hosts, in fact all the double Christmas editions had joint hosts - 1976 had DLT and Noel on Christmas Day and Tony'n'Jimmy (the latter of whom won't appear on this run until the end of this month and then only four more times til Christmas) on Boxing Day. Regular shows with two hosts came in on occasion for a short period from August 1980 with a guest co-presenter - Elton John, Kevin Keegan Russ Abbot, even BA Robertson had a go - but it wasn't until 1983 that two presenters per show became the norm, a Michael Hurll initiative. (In fact the idea of dancers was phased out in 1983 too, though they'd been background back-up for a while by then)
It astonishes me how so many recall and still enjoy Pans People with fondness. They, along with Ruby Flipper, Legs and Co and ulp... Zoo were plain awful. Whenever I watch these old TOTP's as soon as the dancers are announced I skip to the next track, regardless of whatever song they're frugging to is good or not. I found them embarrassing back in the day and more so now. Of course many will defend them as being "harmless fun" and despite their function on the show, they do lower the tone of the shows elevating them into pure tackniess... as if DLT, Jimmy Savile, Noel and co weren't tacky enough.
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