Pans People warmly remembered

Pans People

Watched some old Top of the Pops stuff on YouTube and I felt a twitch in the trousers department, oh Pans People, teenage memories come flooding back.

The highlight of my Thursday night was the Pans People dancing troupe on Top of the Pops. It was on before the watershed so escaped my mother’s Mary Whitehouse attitude to rude TV. Another bit of a history lesson for the MTV generation. Before pop videos shows like Top of the Pops had a dance troupe, employed has filler for those artists who couldn’t appear on the show.

Whatever song they dance to the male of the species didn’t care what they were wearing or the lack was what most were hoping to see. Besides wearing, some freaky stuff like space suits, monster outfits it was those skimpier costumes that got the blood boiling.

Pan’s People were top of the tree and legendary dance goddesses of the 1960s and ‘70s, the older generation my not have liked the music much but Pans People caught their eye. Those before or after never got my devotion like the Pans crew. They were there at my turning from a young lad without a real care in the world but a growing interest in girls.

I had a favourite, although Babs with her long blonde hair and those boobs was reputed to be the ultimate fantasy, Sue Menhenick, was my favourite joining the troupe in 1974, and was an instant hit with this 14-year-old. It was difficult to lust in a room full of your family but I can tell you, I was drooling. Although they were regarded a tad risky for TV in 1970s in particular by the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association. Things when up a level in the 1980s when Pans People were retired and Legs and Co took over.

Lucky for me Sue had joined the new group and with more flesh on show and raunchier dance routines and new rivals in the shape of Hot Gossip, it was the BBC v ITV. Legs and Co on the BBC took on the challenge but were far more subdued but that left more to the imagination. Hot Gossip were more dancing porn and were noted for the risqué nature of their costumes and the dance routines.

Time was running out for these kind of dancing groups, killed off by video. If a group couldn’t make a show, the record company started to supply a video. Fans expected to see videos and with MTV dominate in the market more and more artist were making them. Dance troupes on our screen like the for mentioned found themselves redundant with the video obviously the future.

Legs and Co

However, time may have loosened its grip on the Mary Whitehouse attitude but I had since moved on from fantasising about the unattainable. However, I will always have those memories of Pans People.

Hot Gossip