Hully Gully

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The Hully Gully is a type of unstructured line dance originating from the sixties, but also mentioned some forty years ago as a dance common in the black juke joints in the first part of the twentieth century.^[1] In its modern form it consisted of a series of "steps" that are called out by the MC. Each step was relatively simple and easy to do however the challenge was to keep up with the speed of each step.

[edit] Modern form

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The Hully Gully was started by Frank Rocco at the Cadillac Hotel in Miami Beach Florida. The rock group, the Olympics, sang the song "Hully Gully", in 1959, which involved no physical contact at all. The same tune was used a year or two later as a song by the Marathons, entitled "Peanut Butter", which was later used for the Peter Pan Peanut Butter commercial during the 1980s. Tim Morgan sang different lyrics to the song "Peanut Butter" as well, however, only mentioning the Skippy" brand. There was another song about the dance by the Dovells, entitled "Hully Gully Baby" Ed Sullivan mentioned the Cadillac Hotel as "Home of the Hully Gully" on his weekly show, featuring some dancers from Frank Rocco's revue. Known as "Mr. Hully Gully", Rocco then toured America, including the 1964 New York World's Fair he danced it with Goldie Hawn and Europe, where over the next year he taught the dance at the NATO Base in Naples, Italy, in Rome, and all over Europe.

[edit] In popular culture

An example of the Hully Gully can be seen as performed by John Belushi in the film The Blues Brothers.
In The Wanderers by Richard Price, the Hully Gully is enacted.
According to classicbands.com, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs' 1964 hit "Wooly Bully" was originally called "Hully Gully," but the band could not record it under that name due to the prior existence of a recorded song by that title. And the speed of the beats did not fit to the steps of "Hully Gully".
In The Simpsons episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled" the ventriloquist's dummy Gabbo sings "I can do the Hully Gully, I can imitate Vin Scully."
The Hully Gully appears in the Homestar Runner short "The Ballad of the Sneak".