Its ascendance to the mainstream began in Baltimore where, in 1959, kids on a local TV dance program, The Buddy Deane Show, fashioned a no-touching dance to ac-company a song written by R&B pioneer Hank Ballard. Variations had been kicking around within the African-American community for decades. If you danced in the '60s, what you were really doing was the Chubby.ĭespite his association with it, Checker didn't invent the Twist. He was also the Fly, the Pony, the Popeye, the Limbo and several other dance crazes that swept the world during those Camelot years. But Chubby Checker was not only the Twist. As Chubby himself put it, 'The world as it exists today, especially when it comes to dancing, is Chubby Checker.' Chubby Checker was the king of dance parties everywhere, a sensation among young and old alike-not to mention chiropractors.
More than four decades later, that hasn't changed. The dance phenomenon and the amiable fellow who popularized it were inextrica-bly twisted together. In the early 1960s, everyone knew the Twist.
