Of all the cool quasi-line dances that appeared in the 50s and 60s, there was one that stood out precisely because it was so uncool. ‘The Stroll’ was a song performed by the Diamonds and above are two examples of the dance step it inspired. The first is from a local Idaho kids dance show called ‘Seventeen’, even though the kids look more like they’re twelve. The dancers suck as much as the song does. Below it is a version from ‘American Bandstand’, a far more polished affair and one in which we can reasonably expect the teen and post-teen dancers to be relatively more professional than the Idaho dweebs,. But the dance itself seems to be the problem and the Am/Band dancers are defeated by its rambling and unremarkable structure. In fact they almost as lousy as the kids. I’ve sometime wondered who created these dances–they’re fairly exact, with rules and specific moves and sometimes–as with ‘The Madison’–contain verbal instructions. Were these scripted and registered with the Writers Guild? Are the descendants getting royalties on these things? Did you have to be a musician or could anyone just show up in the Brill Building with a few fancy moves and sell a new dance sensation? Whoever invented ‘The Stroll’ lucked out because it was apparently very popular. That doesn’t mean that it’s any good, of course. You’ve seen enough very popular movies to know how that works…