If you try to tell a forgotten story every day, as I do, you will find despite billions of bits and bytes, the internet frequently lets you down. There is no substitute for the library kids…just remember that.
In researching the snapshot above, from 1955, showing an African-American man writhing on the floor, I was reminded of a brief fad from my junior high school days. A dance move so bold, so racy, so damn filthy that the minute ONE boy did it, the party was OVER. At the least, the offender was yanked up and sent home with a phone call to his parents .
It was called the Alligator.
To do the Alligator, when I was a kid, was to drop down and feign the male humping of intercourse on the floor of the gymnasium. That's right. To fake the fug. To plunge to the floor and rut like a dog right near center-court when the chaperones were busy looking for smokers in the boy's room. When I found and bought this snapshot I was determined to bring it back.
I expected deep Gullah roots or something… a juke joint origin from the early days of rock and roll, when the Devil's music was just starting to ruin America's youth.
Imagine my dismay when the almighty internet traced it to a 1980s move from Bob Saget's completely neutered TV show FULL HOUSE! What a crock! As in Crocodile, not alligator. SURELY I wasn't wrong…and surely whatever the Full House claimed as their dance step involved fewer real humps than a camel without any.
To my great dismay that is where the trail ended, almost. I still remembered back in my youth the big scandal and hallways in school following sock hops when so and so was yanked up off the floor after a brief, furtive "alligator rock" down on the floor.
And finally I found what I was looking for. Read it yourself. Sure enough, I wasn't crazy, and the dance had spread to Cincinnati. The UPI even picked it up! The date was exactly when I remembered it too! 1966! Of course, in the original photo here, you can see, as always with dance, the brothers did it ten years earlier than we did.
But that is about all I found. So the next time I am at the Dance floor at the Lincoln Center Library, I'll see what else I can find. Obviously, the web sucks.
Original Anonymous Snapshot, 1955 Collection Jim Linderman
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Wow, I never heard of that one. But then I went to a school where the teachers carried rulers. Not to hit us with. It was to measure how close boys were standing with girls when they danced. The only time they'd forget to measure is when Louie, Louie came on. Then they'd be racing across the gym yelling at the kid with the turntable. Ahhh, our youth.
ReplyDeleteIt was huge in NOLA when I was a teen, but I remember it being there in 62.
ReplyDeleteHudson
Dick Clark, if he were still with us, would have remembered. According to this account, it was on of two dances (the other being "The Dog") banned from American Bandstand as being "too sexy".
ReplyDeletehttp://acerecords.co.uk/land-of-1000-dances
Another incident from April 21, 1966, as reported in The Paper, the student newspaper at Michigan State University. (Page 2, "Police Reports-The Peace-Keepers")
ReplyDeletehttp://msupaper.org/issues/The_Paper_1966-04-21.pdf
In a nutshell, a student was removed from a dance because he was doing "The Alligator" without shoes and refused to put them back on. No shoes, no dance? But what about sock hops? (Also, be sure to check out the "Son of Bureaucratic Atrocities Department" on page 6.)
Wow, great article. @Tattered and Lost - so funny about the rulers! Aaa loooway loooway haha amazing how times change :)
ReplyDeleteEarliest photo I've seen. Have linked this to
ReplyDeletehttps://sites.google.com/site/gatorpile/
Obscene, hardly, the best feel-good dance in my memory.
did this have any inspiration for Crododile Rock by Bernie Taupin/Elton John?
ReplyDeleteThe attached website provides a few videos that may be raunchy, but hardly obscens. Rather, the majority of recollections and images display the fun most associate with the dance.
ReplyDeletehttps://sites.google.com/site/gatorpile/
There was a tribute to the 'gator in 1978's Animal House during the toga party dance scene, but you already knew that, eh? :)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=074GnjYOVG0
Love the Alligator. xo
ReplyDelete~ Herman Swan
There is also a scene in the movie GREASE. Kenickie does it on the floor during the school dance contest. Thanks for the trip
ReplyDeletedown memory lane.
It came from Louisiana and was the beginning of what is now known as Twerking. It was also called Aligator Popping or just Popping. It is still done in New Orleans believe it or not at weddings and even funerals.
ReplyDeleteWell I lost my previous post, but as a alligator "dancer" it has nothing to do with twerkin, best I know of it does go back to the 50's New Orleans watching my brother who was 12 years older than I do the gator @ dances or wedding receptions, I,ve never done this nor do I recall seeing anyone doing this @ a funeral or repast, oh we do "secondline" @ funerals, but we don,t do the gator out of respect of the "event " family as it is seen as obscene by some like my mother, (deceased), like myself my brother (also deceased) did this only to the tune of certain New Orleans music, primarily the " secondline tune", by groups like the Neville Brothers or Stop Inc. etc., generally it depends on wats going on, for instance I/we did not "gator" if a lot of children are present, I have been videod in the "quarters" doing the "gator in the street by tourists, even got loud capped by a local singer while she was onstage singing saying "git it baby, look @ old school doing the alligator, no he,s not breaking, for those of U who,s not from here, C'est si bon Beau, le bon temps roule'...yes it's good...let good times roll !! We were @ a river front festival
DeleteThis wonderful, I was wondering the same thing about the dance and mused about it on Facebook this morning. Feel free to tune in and view the memories - I credited you for inspiration and the pics. - Margaret Moser
ReplyDeleteI remember this dance from the '80s in Charlotte, NC. Once somebody dropped to the floor, the lights went up and we ALL had to go home!!!
ReplyDeleteYou should all watch the 1984 Tom Hanks film, Bachelor Party, in the scene where they are literally in the heat of the bachelor party, Tom Hanks shouts ok ALIGATOR!and gang drops and starts seizing!
ReplyDeleteI was born in 1950 and remember the gator from Jr. High. This summer I brought it back during a wedding re eption, and found partners in some 20-something guys who were also dancing. I also got the DJ to play "Shout" for that event. You may get older but you don't have to really grow up. GATOR!!!
ReplyDeleteI was born in 1950 and remember the gator from Junior High. At a recent wedding reception I got the DJ to play "Shout" and some of the 20-something guys joined me when I yelled GATOR!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this hilarious and enlightening article! I am making an Instagram dance reel to the first verse of Wilson Pickett’s “Land of 1000 Dances.” He mentions the Alligator, so I wanted to learn how to do it. Now that I know what the Alligator really is, I’m quite sure I’m not limber enough to attempt it! I will improvise. 😃
ReplyDeleteWell, being from New Orleans twerkin has nothing to do with the alligator, as I still @ 70 yrs old, STILL do the gator wen certain New Orleans secondline music is played to my now deceased mothers dismay, I learned it from my brother, also deceased, he was 12 yrs older than I and had been doing this since the fifties, wen appropriate, because the more religious sect did see it as offensive, I won't do it wen kids are around or @ a repast, but I have been videod by tourists in the quarters "dancing" gator style in the streets doing certain New Orleans festival events, I even been called out by a local singer who knew wat I was doing, "she said while singing, look @ old school, no he,s not breaking, dats the alligator for those of U who don,t know" get it baby, roll dat gator, C'est si bon", Le bon temp rolle'!!! roule,
ReplyDelete(translate.....yes it's good, let the good times roll)