This Iowa 1958 Teen Dance Show is Like Opening a Time Capsule
I have found a video that is practically the Iowa version of Back to the Future. It's a new share of a 1958 Iowa teen dance show and it really is like opening up a time capsule and looking at a completely different type of world.
Timeless Television just dropped this very retro show on YouTube. I don't know how to describe it other than it's like watching the TV show Happy Days, but for real if it happened here in Iowa.
I did some investigative work to track down what this show was and found The Video Beat which has it on DVD. Here's how they describe the show:
The dress code is relaxed and girls are wearing skirts, bobby sox and saddle shoes. Some of the boys are wearing "cat clothes" (baggy pants, skinny belts and slick sports jackets). Other boys are in shirts and sweaters. There are even a couple of pompadours.
The show was called "Seventeen". It was apparently filmed in Ames, Iowa featuring rockabilly music. The bubble gum blowing contest was a highlight. Iowa State University shared an episode showing it was originally aired on WOI-TV Channel 5.
"Seventeen" even featured some of the first video footage of young Iowans performing the latest dance craze "The Stroll".
Everyone was just so dang polite back in those days. The haircuts were clean as a whistle and you didn't see any scandalous clothing. It almost makes me want to find a DeLorean and hit 88 miles per hour on I-380 to see if we can go back to a very different kind of Iowa.