CoL49 dance fever

[Michael Bailey]

Miles’s Song

 Too fat to Frug,
 That’s what you tell me all the time,
 When you really try’n’ to put me down,
 But I’m hip,
 So close your big fat lip,
 Yeah, baby, I may be too fat to Frug,
 But at least I ain’t too slim to Swim.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frug_(dance)


Interesting sidelight - a Norman Mailer reference to The Frug may have been
known to the author, since he published part of this book in Esquire
magazine - he may have read “In the Red Light: A History of the Republican
Convention in 1964," published in the November 1964 issue of *Esquire
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquire_%28magazine%29>*

- Norman Mailer <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Mailer>wrote: "The
American mind had gone from Hawthorne
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Hawthorne> and Emerson
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson> to the Frug, the
Bounce, and 'Walking the Dog
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_the_Dog>', from *The Flowering of
New England <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Wyck_Brooks>* to the
cerebrality of professional football in which a quarterback must have not
only heart, courage, strength and grace but a mind like an I.B.M.
computer." The piece is collected in Mailer's *Cannibals and Christians*
 (1966).


According to the article, the Frug evolved from The Chicken, which in turn
was a dance which people used for a change of pace when tired out from The
Twist.

No video, but listed as a Frug
https://youtu.be/jPVgmpdbeOY?si=73Uqe68nT8hAOAq1

Bollywood video - the comments say there are several dances. I can’t tell
which one is the Frug
https://youtu.be/paH6QDIHZsM?si=RWgxMXiqFTzs7iXx


There’s the Bob Fosse “Rich Man’s Frug” from 1969, which of course is all
fancied up & not contemporaneous -
https://youtu.be/mcrZIK3gqbU?si=Fvg6v2PYLBXxXkPS


Then this is probably from this millennium - doesn’t seem all that vigorous
https://youtu.be/b0Iqxi57rro?si=bF4IlQw_y-rEBD2Q


Hard to pin down which move is the Frug, & it’s more about how she can’t do
the Smurf (‘80s hip hop dance
https://youtu.be/x59nx74pj5Y?si=0pVzRAxlPCdn3Rgs ) but Rilo Kiley had a hit
with a song called “The Frug”, and she’s cute:
https://youtu.be/32RL5aNpiq4?si=6wySk_Cem5dOAYkY


Finally, an isolated Frug, which does seem like it might pose a challenge
for a corpulent person although the dancer isn’t very thin
https://youtube.com/shorts/mA48WUl03Oo?si=qJENbSc6WEeekXmQ


Contemporaneous clip of the Swim:
https://youtu.be/UemR8HXm59s?si=9zWGd6B_4CsxH1UE


More ‘60s dances, compiled by Toni Basil
(Who was a dancer on *Shindig!*, a breakthrough music variety show that
premiered on the ABC network in 1964. She was a lead dancer in the 1964 beach
party film *Pajama Party*, and a dancer in the Elvis Presley movie *Viva
Las Vegas*.

Also in 1964, she assisted choreographer Winters for Steve Binder's concert
film *T.A.M.I. Show*.*T.A.M.I. Show* would go on to be deemed "culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of
Congress and selected for preservation in 2006 in the National Film
Registry)
https://youtu.be/TZdvihA7Y1A?si=Sh8Umx5EuS6fItY8