Hullabaloo owed its existence to another rock and pop music show, Shindig!, which had debuted on September 16 1964 on ABC. Seeing the success that ABC had with Shindig!, NBC developed their own rock and pop musical show called Hullabaloo. It is to NBC's credit that Hullabaloo differed a bit from Shindig!. While Shindig! had a regular host (deejay Jimmy O'Neill), Hullabaloo featured a different guest host each week. Among the guest hosts on Hullabaloo were Paul, Anka, Frankie Avalon, Petula Clark, Sammy Davis Jr., George Hamilton, Michael Landon, David McCallum, George Maharis, Robert Vaughn, and others.
The typical edition of Hullabaloo began with an opening number, after which the guests would be introduced. There would be a "Top of the Pops" segment featuring a medley of the top hits of the time performed by one of the guests of the week. Towards the end of the show there would be the "Hullabaloo A-Go-Go" segment, which featured a go-go dancer in a cage (Lada St. Edmund). In addition to their go-go dancer in a cage, Hullabaloo had an entire group of Hullabaloo Dancers consisting of six women and four men. Among the Hullabaloo Dancers was Donna McKechnie, who later appeared on the soap opera Dark Shadows and won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a musical for playing Cassie in A Chorus Line on Broadway.
Hullabaloo was produced by Gary Smith who had been an associate producer on The Judy Garland Show and went on to produce The Kraft Music Hall and several specials (including Bing Crosby's final Christmas special, Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas. It was directed by Bill Davis, Who would go onto direct The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,. The Julie Andrews Hour, and Solid Gold, and Steve Binder, who would go onto direct Petula Clark's famous TV special Petula Elvis Presley's "comeback special." Sid Bernstein, famous for bringing The BEatles and The Rolling Stones to the United States, booked acts for Hullabaloo. Peter Matz, who was later the musical director on The Carol Burnett Show, served as the orchestra leader on Hullabaloo.
Much of Hullabaloo would be filmed at Studio 8H in the RCA Building in New York City, which would later be the home of Saturday Night Live. Much of the show would also be filmed at at NBC's Midwood Studios in Brooklyn, where the TV special Peter Pan with Mary Martin and Kraft Music Hall had been filmed and ;later The Cosby Show and the soap opera Another World. Some segments would be filmed at NBC Studios in Burbank, California. When Hullabaloo debuted on January 12 1965 it was an hour long show that aired on Tuesday night. For its second season, which started in September 1965, it was cut back to a half-hour and aired on Monday night. Ultimately, Hullabaloo was cancelled by NBC after one-and-a-half seasons and 48 episodes. Curiously, it would be replaced on Monday night by the youth-oriented sitcom The Monkees.
Sadly, while Hullabaloo was shot in colour, not much of the show survives in colour. In 1973 NBC was clearing out its archives and asked the show's production company if they would take ownership of the original colour masters. When they turned NBC down, NBC wiped the colour masters. Only three half-hour colour episodes would survive. Fortunately, much of Hullabaloo was copied in black-and-white to cinescope on film. In the end only one Hullabaloo episode appears to be completely lost and only three are incomplete.
Although Hullabaloo did not have a long run, it would have a lasting impact. It is referenced in The Ramones' song "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll?" along with fellow shows Shindig! and Upbeat. Even though Frankie Lymon never appeared on Hullabaloo, the biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love? (1998) portrayed a fictional appearance of the singer on the show. In Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood (2019) fictional actor Rick Dalton was a guest host on Hullabaloo. In mini-series The Queen's Gambit at one point characters in the film watch Hullabaloo. What survives of the show has been released on DVD by MPI Home Video.
Hullabaloo would be fondly remembered by those old enough to have seen it when it first aired. Those who were either too young at the time to remember the show or weren't even born yet have found themselves fascinated by clips from the show. While the entirety of the show does not survive, it remains well remembered.
