Dirty Dancing aired from October 1988 until January 1989 on CBS.
Set in the 1960's, Dirty Dancing was the musical story of 2 young people falling in love while working at Kellerman's, a summer resort in the catskills. The young lovers were 17 year old Baby( Melora Hardin), daughter of resort owner Max ( McLean Stevenson), and Johnny ( Patrick Cassidy), the resort's sexy dance instructor. Baby had come to Kellerman's to spend the summer between High School and College with her dad after living with her mom since her parent's divorce. It was a summer to be remembered. Dad made her talent coordinator, which irked Johnny who had been doubling in that capacity. But when Johnny began to teach her " dirty dancing" the relationship between upscale Baby and working class Johnny blossomed into romance-much to her dotting father's disgust. Complicating matters was Penny ( Constance Marie), Johnny's fiery Latin dance partner, who did not appreciate the boss's daughter butting in. Also seen were Norman ( Paul Feig), an obnoxious pre-med student working as a waiter; Sweets ( John Wesley), the resort's talented jazz pianist; Neil( Charles stratton), the young comic and bellhop; and Robin ( Mandy Ingber), Baby's spoiled, boy-crazy cousin and confidante.
Loosley adapted from the 1987 movie of the same name, which starred Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. As with the movie, sensual dancing . albeit somewhat sanitized for tv was an integral part of each episode.
A Review from The New York Times
Review/Television; A 'Dirty Dancing' Series
By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: October 29, 1988
Just over a year ago, a little movie called ''Dirty Dancing'' turned into a big box-office hit as it caught the romantic fancy of teen-agers. The film, set in a Catskills resort in 1963, told the story of a streetwise dance instructor and a blossoming middle-class young woman who found summer love while dancing the mambo. Sniffing a concept for weekly consumption, television has devised its own version of ''Dirty Dancing.'' The series, a Vestron Production made in association with the Steve Tisch Company, makes its special one-hour debut on CBS at 8 this evening.
Adjustments have been made. This may be the Catskills, but the Jewish character of the famed borsch belt has been reduced to near invisibility. Our heroine is no longer the daughter of a well-to-do guest but of the resort's owner, Max Kellerman, played by McLean Stevenson, who is probably about as non-Jewish as you can find in central casting. The rest, however, written and produced by Robert Rabinowitz and Barra Grant, will be familiar to fans of the movie.
Max's daughter Frances (Melora Hardin), whom he likes to call Baby, will spend the summer working at the resort before entering Mount Holyoke College. She hasn't visited the place since her parents were divorced. Times are changing. Her role model now, Baby tells us, is Jacqueline Kennedy, not Donna Reed. Enter Johnny Castle (Patrick Cassidy), the resort's dance instructor. Max is convinced that Johnny has ''wowed half the female population here'' and warns Baby to stay away from him. But middle-class Baby is a obviously wowed herself by lower-class Johnny. He may not have as much of a future in sight as a pre-med student, but can he ever dance.
The action, directed by Tony Bill, is interrupted periodically for brief but suggestive dance sequences choreographed by Kenny Ortega. The dominant beat is Latin and irresistible. Ms. Hardin is appealing but a bit lumpish in the dance scenes. Mr. Cassidy, looking as if he has just spent hours pumping iron, bumps, grinds and gyrates with all the sexual steaminess the producers are clearly seeking. Can Johnny and Baby keep this misbegotten romance simmering for a few weeks, never mind a full season? Can enough ''dirty dancing'' be squeezed into future half-hour episodes to maintain the mambo momentum? I doubt it. *
A Review From USA TODAY
Published: October 28, 1988
TV PREVIEW/BY MONICA COLLINS
'Dirty Dancing': Good clean fun
I kind of like Dirty Dancing. It made me want to dance to Heat Wave and Locomotion. It made me want to be 18 again. ( Ha! Who doesn't want to be 18 again?)
But here is a series that is really a sweet inoffensive gumdrop. And it even features McLlean Stevenson, one of TV's biggest stars.( Ha! again)
A ripoff of the film, Dirty Dancing-the TV series -features a similar premise. A sheltered young woman on the verge of becoming a real woman, finds love, self-confidence, and the urge to boogie in the arms of a dance instructor.
The time is the '60's. The setting is a resort, owned by her father. In the film, the resort, owned by a family friend, was in New York's Catskill Mountains. In the TV series, the hotel is somewhere with palm trees.
Dirty Dancing, the movie featured Patrick Swayze as the dance instructor and Jennifer Grey as Baby, the klutz-turned-dancer he learns to love.
Patrick Cassidy and Melora Hardin, who reprise the roles, are not as perfect as the movie duo , but they're not embarrassing. In fact, they're kind of cute.
In this first episode, McLean ( playing Baby's father) gets all hyper-spazzed when Baby wants to dance dirty. He keeps trying to push her on the lifeguard who's going to medical school instead of the dance instructor who'll return to mechanics' school. But she has stars in her eyes when she looks at Johnny, the dancing fool who drives a red Chevy.
Daddy thought this would be a fun summer with his daughter. Instead he's ready to join in a chorus of Kids-" What's the matter with kids today?"
And Baby wants to get out from under Dad's thumb. She can't get no satisfaction, sneaking off at night for dancing lessons with Johnny.
Dad discovers her secret, orders her to her room. She packs up to leave. But then on the night of the really, really big show, Baby shows up on stage, dances up a dirty storm. And Dad becomes convinced that she's a major talent.
The best part of Dirty Dancing is the dancing and the music. The worst part is when the stars open their mouths, because what they have to say is not half as expressive as anything Martha and the Vandellas sing about.
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