What's the best video effects you've seen in a 70's pop musi

[Funky Dude]

One thing that really fascinates me about pop music shows of the 70's besides the music is the awsome video effects used. One show that really made great use of special effects is the British pop show Top Of The Pops. That show used some fantastic video effects such as chromakey, psychedelic colour effects including colour stepping, visual feedback, single colour silhouette effects, ripples, crystal ball effects and others. These effects were used heavily during 1971-1974 with glam rock artists such as Sweet, Slade, T-Rex, Glitter Band, Suzi Quatro etc...

Another show that used some really cool video effects is the German pop show "Beat Club". They really make good use of video effects and I have a couple of video clips of "Yes" performing on Beat Club in 1971 and the effects are fantastic.

Also going back to the late 1960's and early 70's the Ed Sullivan show used some really cool psychedelic video effects for the Psychedelic bands such as Vanilla Fudge, Jefferson Airplane and other artists like the Beach Boys, Janis Joplin, Temptations, Santana and others.

Australia's pop show "Countdown" occasionally used video effects such as chromakey and visual feedback and cool colour effects.

The best video effects I've seen are on Top Of The Pops and Beat Club which are the visual feedbacks and the psychedelic colour effects with the stepping which I guess is created using analog comparators.

So what's the best video effects you's seen on a 70's pop music show?

And I haven't seen much of American Bandstand, does that show have psychedelic video effects?

[Robbie]

Years ago, when VH-1 played old American Bandstand episodes, the Sylvers were on one show singing "Boogie Fever". After Dick Clark introduced the group with their album (Showcase) while he was with the crowd the song started and they must've used some sort of device because the picture was fire engine red, real bright and the group looked like they were overexposed, real bright yellow/white. It lasted like this until the vocals kicked in.

Another time was in late '76 when The Four Tops were on. When Dick Clark introduced them, you saw a black background with FOUR (in blue) and TOPS (in red) and as the words came closer and closer outwards, you could begin to see the group performing.