Is this one of our elders dancin' back in 1964?

Actually, I think Bobby Banas is straight.

We've had threads on this clip before. There's always a debate on who's the better dancer: the guy in the front (who apparently choreographed the bit), or the guy just behind him who is trying to make the moves look a little more elegant.

Tears have been shed over this.

They have much better anti-seizure medication now.

Here's a better, longer clip.

[quote]Actually, I think Bobby Banas is straight.

Who ARE you?

He's 82. Well into elder-gay, if he is gay.

Bobby was Broadway chorus boy and played a Jet in the movie of West Side Story.

Is this safe?

I dance like that (when I dance).

I prefer the Safety Dance, thank you.

R4, I have seen some interviews of Bobby Banas and he comes off more Bob Fosse than Tommy Tune. Never slept with him. Do you know for sure or are you just guessing?

Was this on TV in the afternoons like on Hairspray?

r10, do you think Bob Fosse was exclusively heterosexual?

The only surprising thing is Judy even misses a cue where all she has to do is stumble off. You figure she'd get that one.

R12, I think Fosse identified as heterosexual. That is good enough for me.

No, r11. It was clearly an evening primetime variety show.

Bobby Banas was great and turned up everywhere - with Marilyn in LET'S MAKE LOVE, in WEST SIDE STORY, in MARY POPPINS.

He seems to be straight - at least he married a woman and had a son.

He's on Facebook still, and actively posting. He's now 81.

But in the Judy clip, he looks all cool-hip-wild-fuck-me chorus boy gay! And THAT'S a compliment.

Bobby Banas was a naturally gifted dancer and a force of nature. His dancing of the Nitty Gritty is simply amazing, he made the dance his own.

The fabulous Bobby Banas dance clips! Celebrate!

He makes dancing the Nitty Gritty look difficult and hard work and he's wooden. He just knows the moves.

That's not the sign of a good dancer.

OP you are an elder. You can tell because you seem very familiar with "nitty gritty". WTF is that?

If Banas is the one in the front, he looks like he's having seizures, like a typical white boy trying too hard to dance to R&B. Now the white guy in the back is much cooler.

[quote]OP you are an elder. You can tell because you seem very familiar with "nitty gritty".

Oh for fuck's sake: I was a long ways yet from even being born when Shirley Ellis recorded "The Nitty Gritty" and yet [italic][bold]I[/bold][/italic] know what it is.

Do you somehow not understand that old audio and video recordings exist that younger people can listen to and watch? Or are you just exceptionally mentally retarded?

[quote]OP you are an elder. You can tell because you seem very familiar with "nitty gritty". WTF is that?

Did you read the title...and still you can't work out 'WTF" the Nitty Gritty is?

You're SO stupid.

R20, forever young and unwanted. A cunt.

And they laughed at ME?

Getting Right Down to the Nitty Gritty…with Bobby Banas!

I didn't know there had been debates about it R2. I thought while watching it that the guy in front was probably doing the dance right as it probably required the dancer to be loose and free flowin'.

The guy behind looked stiff. Like he knew what moves to do but didn't have the capacity to let it all hang out (baby!)

Thanks, R26...well found indeed.

Interesting about the dance:-

[quote]Yes, it was my choreography and my own interpretation of the song. Peter Gennaro was the choreographer for Garland, but he had to go to New York that week for some reason and his assistant didn’t have any idea what to do with the tune, so the director asked me to come up with a dance and that was the result.

LOL @ R13

@[R19]. If you have missed the fact that Banas is the only reason that this old television clip is still popular then you're the one that's missing something. Co-choreographer Banas (look it up) makes this exciting by following his own star. Rigid adherence to 'the rules' seldom makes for great art. Expanding on or stepping outside of them often does.

For about 20 years loved going dancing. What a feeling, what a high and release. Then my body aged and I aged out of feeling comfortable in clubs. Oh well. In a different world I would have figured out a way to dance into my elder years. There used to be dance halls, public ballrooms in cities.

R19 does not follow dance and is applying the standards of dancing in 1940s MGM musicals to other forms of dance.

The version on R4 is not the actual dance. Some shots are reused and reframed to stretch it out to the length of the recorded version of the song. But it is not what was actually danced.

[quote][R19] does not follow dance

r32 does not follow 60s dance.

I [bold]do in fact follow 60s dance[/bold] and he is stiff and wooden.