Dear Kim,
Have you seen this article before? I thought it would be the best way to respond to your comment about Meg or Roxanne moving to Los Angeles when "American Bandstand" moves there.
Steven
I found this story from the Philadelphia Daily News (URL:
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television/3899460.htm) about
how "American Dreams" will deal with the "American Bandstand" 'challenge' of
the show leaving Philadelphia in 1964.
Fudging facts to make fiction make sense
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - The walls of the "American Dreams" design offices at Sunset
Gower Studios are covered with snapshots of Philadelphia homes and storefronts,
some contemporary, some historical, all assembled in an effort to make a
Hollywood soundstage appear like the real deal.
But reality and fiction live side by side in the Philadelphia of the NBC family
drama, whose production designer, Phil Toolin, has gone to considerable trouble
to duplicate the look of 1963 Philadelphia, even as his bosses are cheerfully
fudging history.
After Toolin toured Philadelphia neighborhoods in the vicinity of the old
WFIL's West Philadelphia studio, where "American Bandstand" was made, he
eventually decided that the main characters, the Pryors, whose daughter Meg and
her best friend, Roxanne, will be dancers on the show, most likely lived in
Overbrook. The set house, which was moved from Vancouver, where the show's
pilot was shot, was reassembled on a Sunset Gower soundstage, the image of
another house close by to mimic the tight space of many of the city's building
lots, Toolin said.
Inside, a period bathroom is floored with linoleum that even at close range
looks like very old tile.
And a ministreet that contains Jack Pryor's business was inspired, Toolin said,
by a WHYY (Channel 12) documentary, "Things That Aren't There Anymore."
But for all the effort to show things the way they used to be, "American
Dreams" creator Jonathan Prince has allowed himself one big boo-boo.
"The one game that we're going to play really hard and fast with the facts is
that [while the show opens in November 1963], 'Bandstand' did leave
Philadelphia in '64," Prince said.
In Prince's dreams, "American Dreams" lasts long enough to take his two
16-year-old "Bandstand" dancers to high school graduation, at which point he'll
have them follow the show to Los Angeles, creating a bicoastal dynamic for the
family drama.
Because 18-year-olds couldn't dance on "Bandstand," he'll have one of the
characters get a job on the show, he added.
"Bandstand will always be important. The reason we have to keep 'Bandstand' in
for the two-season lie is that if it moved to L.A. in '64, Megan and Roxanne
can't be on it," he said.
