Dick Clark clip available?

[Jasper2k]

I missed recording ABC last night and I wanted to catch Dick Clark's appearance on New Year's Rockin' Eve....

While there are TONS of news stories online, I can't seem to find a clip of his appearance... does anyone know where I can find it? It's not on ABC's site anywhere.

Thanks!! :o

[atrac]

I'd like to see it too. I just talked to my dad and he said while it was admirable that he came back and did the show, it was quite painful to watch and he almost changed the channel. :(

[vertigo235]

Glad I'm not the only one who found it disturbing. Although he didn't look bad, he sounds really bad.

[markp99]

I could only watch for a few minutes before changing the channel. I felt so bad for the guy.

I wonder if it was a difficult decision for the network to have Dick appear this year.

[Big Deficit]

It was so hard to watch. He sounded too much like Crack Head Bob of Howard Stern fame. It's the first time in my life I was relieved to hear Ryan Seacrest talk. If I were a betting man, I'd bet we saw the last Rockin New Years Eve with Dick Clark last night. :(

[Jasper2k]

Gosh, I'm sorry to hear that... I saw a brief clip on the news, which is what makes me want to see the whole thing...

I see it much more positively, I guess. Mr. Clark would not have appeared if he didn't want to (his production company owns the show so it's his call), and the fact that he is fighting hard to come back from a devastating stroke is really empowering to me. Rather than be written off, he actually wanted to come back for a "handoff" - I like to think that his desire to appear may have helped in his rehabilitation...

At any rate, if anyone finds the clip, I'd sure like to view it, please! And thanks again!! :)

[Marc]

I was taken aback by his performance, and more so by just how much it struck me. I hadn't considered him to be such an American icon until I saw him in this state and realized that America had essentially lost him as that icon. It brought tears to my eyes.

[justapixel]

His speech was slurred, but his spirit was inspiring. At first, I was shocked - this was the man who was never supposed to grow old. Yet, as I watched, I saw his tremendous courage, and I admire him very much. I hope he continues to improve, and we see him back next year.

But, this post doesn't help the OP, as I don't have a clip. However, a clip will be upsetting and only show his disability - I think you really needed to see the whole thing to understand what kind of bravery and heart he showed.

[Graymalkin]

I had the same visceral reaction to hearing Dick Clark that I did to hearing Kirk Douglas after his stroke and Jack Klugman after his throat cancer. You admire their courage but you can't help but realize (with a sinking feeling) that they're never going to be the same again.

[murgatroyd]

I admire Kirk Douglas and Dick Clark for coming back from strokes and being brave enough to appear.

It used to be that any person with a disability was hidden from public view. I've talked to people who can't watch Itzhak Perlman play violin on TV because the sight of his crutches is too upsetting. :rolleyes:

Stuff happens to people. But they can and do go on with their lives. And I don't see why they shouldn't.

Jan

[lew]

I think some, or all, of Dick Clark's segments were pre-recorded. Dick was never on live as late as the later segments. Ryan Seacrest and Dick were doing a segment from the studio at virtually the same time yet you never saw them on camera together.

[cmontyburns]

There is a story on the show in today's New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/02/arts/television/02heff.html). Here's an excerpt:

Mr. Clark seemed, in short, old. He missed words and, seated at a desk, kept atypically still. Sometimes his impaired speech seemed comical; mostly it was touching. The adolescence of America's Oldest Living Teenager - Mr. Clark's hyper, chipper, fun-loving persona - had, in his 76th year, finally abandoned him. In its place was another, more ambiguous holiday figure: the couchbound relative who, maudlin and exhausted, weeps at how lucky he is to be around his family one more year.

[LlamaLarry]

There is a story and apparently a video clip available on the front page of cnn.com

[Bill N]

I was both upset hearing his speech and proud to see him make a comeback.

I remember meeting Dick in 1992 and what a help he was as an alum of our fraternity at Syracuse Univ. He and his roommate from our fraternity almost single-handedly helped make our purchase of an incredible old mansion possible. He and a group of his classmates came back and had some hilarious stories for all of us.
It was great to see him help us both financially and by taking the time to come to visit us and letting us build a weekend around the visit.

Sorry for rambling.....guess i'm just throwing out a public thank you to Dick for his years of help...

[lambertman]

there is a clip available at this blog. (http://malcontent.typepad.com/malcontent/2006/01/new_years_slurr.html) (Disclaimer: it's not mine)

After midnight, I thought he got better. I imagine he'll visit Larry King in a few months and be improved still.

[Bierboy]

I think some, or all, of Dick Clark's segments were pre-recorded. Dick was never on live as late as the later segments. Ryan Seacrest and Dick were doing a segment from the studio at virtually the same time yet you never saw them on camera together.I'm not sure that's true. I read several reports that he stayed on until after 1 a.m.

[lambertman]

Footage of his opening speech is available in this ABC News On Demand report. (http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/tv/article.adp?id=20051230182509990008&cid=918)

[Lee L]

It was a great show of determination on his part and I hope he keeps improving. One side effect of having so many facelifts is that his face did not show the typical issues with stroke victims. At times I also though his speech sounded like the voice translator that Steven Hawking uses.

I wonder if he will be back next year or if he was really pushing to do it one last time. :(

[askewed]

There is a 'at the stroke of midnight' pun here some where but I'm too tired to find it.

[Rkkeller]

I hate to say it but Dick was sooooooo hard and disturbing to watch that I just recorded it so I could skip over his parts later on and watched another channel.

He even messed up the final 10 second countdown and was wishing everyone a happy new year seconds before and while everyone else was still counting down.

I still have it saved as I like Ashley Simpson and she sang three songs.


Rich

[Cocoa Hill]

I agree that the Dick Clark segments looked prerecorded. There was a lot of odd cutting-away to irrelevant outside shots to appear "live," but the timing of his countdown was so off that it certainly seemed taped. As someone else has noted, it also seemed strange that Dick always appeared alone, looking a little bit lonely, even though Seacrest was presumably very close by and could easily have popped up to the studio. Dick is a people person, why would he want to be so isolated on New Year's Eve?

I can understand why ABC thought it necessary to do this (they probably wanted to give Dick opportunities for rest and re-takes during the taping), but they should have been honest with the public.

[slydog75]

Any Pittsburghers around here? This reminds me of the last few times I've seen Myron Cope. Clearly the end of an era and hard to watch.

[JFriday]

He sounded like Buddy Epson in his later years. I found it sad.

[LoadStar]

I'm pretty sure that Dick Clark was live until 1 a.m. EST, when they handed it off to the Hollywood taped show. As far as being all by himself, Dick has done his stuff alone in the ABC Times Square Studios since they were built several years ago. He hasn't been down with the people since the early 90's at the latest.

You could definitely tell he was live - by 1:00, he was clearly growing much harder to understand. The effort of being there for the whole show was definitely wearing on him.

As for the countdown - well, even Carson Daly over on MTV flubbed up the countdown too. It's a problem when the control room is feeding the host the coundown over the earpiece they are wearing, and the control room is off of what they're showing on the air.

Ryan was up in the Times Square studios as well, but off in a corner of the studio (northeast corner, if I remember what the building looks like) for his segments.

[CaffeineBoy]

I have a friend that works with stroke victims on speech rehabilitation. She felt inspired by his appearance. She also thought he had made great progress.

[forecheck]

I think if it was taped they would have re-shot his countdown. No need to air something that has a blooper when they could just re-shoot it and do it right.

[sushikitten]

I have to admit I was both a bit disturbed and a bit inspired. It was just really hard to hear that voice coming out of that body--he essentially looked as he's always looked. When the countdown was flubbed, my heart just broke... :(

[tecban]

I was taken aback by his performance, and more so by just how much it struck me. I hadn't considered him to be such an American icon until I saw him in this state and realized that America had essentially lost him as that icon. It brought tears to my eyes.What Marc said. I hadn't realized how much a part of our non-party-going New Year's Eves Dick Clark has been, and to realize that era was passing brought back memories of Johnny Carson's last show, knowing an icon of my childhood and well my whole life was moving on.

Seacrest I can take or leave, but the idea of a handoff was a good one, and I hope he keeps recovering well. I wouldn't want to listen to a Dick Clark daily call-in show, but I don't understand anyone being "disturbed" by his performance on NYE. Yes, he has a disability now. I know we typically only like beautiful people on TV, but there's more to the human experience than that, and for the limited amount he was involved I thought it was inspiring.

And now that he's disabled, maybe Michael Moore will have better luck ambushing him than he did in Bowling for Columbine.

[sushikitten]

For me it was disturbing because he looked "normal" and I expected to hear his "normal" voice...which we, of course, didn't.

[iceturkee]

monday's countdown with keith olbermann had a clip of dick in times square. at one point in time, he apologizes for his horse voice and stumbling on some of his words. gotta give the guy an a for effort.

[vman]

I give him a big :up: for his perseverence in wanting to be there and do the show. Yes, it was surprising to hear that voice coming out of him, especially since he appears just as he always had, but I thought it was moving. He still seemed mentally sharp, but just had difficulty physically speaking. And it wasn't like he dominated the show -- he was only on 3 or 4 times before midnight, and even then for less than a minute each time.

What I find incredible is that he really wanted to do the show last year, right after his stroke, but his doctors nixed it. Wonder what kind of condition he was in then.

[Wilhite]

From dallasnews.com - reprinted without permission...


NEW YORK – He sat stiffly behind a desk, one hand in front of him, one down at his side. His words had the familiar slurred sound of a stroke victim. But his cadence was brisk, he made himself clear, and most of all, he was there – on national TV.

Stroke survivors and their advocates said Tuesday they were cheered and inspired by Dick Clark's New Year's Eve appearance, ringing in 2006 a year after his debilitating stroke.

“I think it's awesome,” said Leanne Hendrix, who was 26 when she had a stroke three years ago. “It was a tremendously courageous thing to do.”

Hendrix, a former Miss Arizona who lives in Phoenix, echoed a hope common among stroke survivors interviewed: that the public might begin to treat them with the respect and admiration given those who've overcome cancer or heart attacks.

“Survivors of those other diseases seem to wear a badge of honor,” said Hendrix. But a stroke, with its obvious impairment, “maybe isn't a pretty thing to look at. It's definitely not a sexy disease.”

“So for him to get up on national TV and say: “This is what I am now” – I have nothing but respect for him,” she said.

Diane Mulligan-Fairfield of the National Stroke Association, a public education organization, called Clark a “hero” for showing the world his condition.

“Hero is not normally a word we associate with stroke survivors,” she said. “We are trying to change that.”

Clark's appearance on New Year's Rockin' Eve came a full year after the December 2004 stroke that forced him to miss last year's show. There had been intense speculation beforehand whether he'd be up to the task. The 76-year-old entertainer has given no interviews since his stroke.

On New Year's Eve, seated inside a studio at Times Square, Clark began by immediately acknowledging his condition, saying it had been a “long, hard fight” learning to walk and talk again. But, he said, “I wouldn't have missed this for the world.”

His words were muffled, but he kept a quick pace and was, for the most part, easy to understand during his brief appearances sprinkled through the telecast. At midnight, he counted down the seconds as the ball dropped, then kissed his wife, Kari, sitting next to him at his desk.

While some found the appearance moving, others seemed to find it inappropriate or depressing to see the ever-boyish, handsome Clark display his impaired condition in a TV universe where appearance is everything.

“Viewers ... may well have been hoping the famous giant ball was the only thing that would drop before the night was over,” wrote Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales. He said Clark looked “seriously debilitated,” and called his appearance “a gesture likely to strike some observers as courageous and others as morbid.”

In the New York Times, reviewer Virginia Heffernan called Clark's description of his speech (“not perfect”) an “understatement,” and wrote that sometimes, “his impaired speech seemed comical,” although mostly it was touching.

The negative comments deeply angered Karl Guerra of Annapolis, Md., who has been recovering from a stroke for the last five years. For the first three years, he spent 10 hours a day working on his speech. He called Clark's recovery so far “remarkable.”

“Let's face it, there are certain aspects of a stroke that make people feel uncomfortable, and one of those is speech,” Guerra said in a telephone interview. “But he's doing a great job as far as I can tell. For me, he epitomizes the 'Go out there and make it happen' spirit.”'

A doctor who treats stroke survivors said Clark's determination to go ahead with his appearance is just the kind of goal that often helps patients with their recovery.

“In many diseases the emotional component – the determination to fight and pursue recovery – is part of the recovery itself,” said Dr. Pierre Fayad, medical director of neurology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Preliminary ratings from big-city markets showed that Clark's broadcast on ABC drew more people than competitors Carson Daly on NBC and Regis Philbin on Fox combined, according to Nielsen Media Research. New Year's Rockin' Eve ratings were up 15 percent over last year, when Philbin filled in.

Television analyst Marc Berman of Media Week Online said that while Clark's appearance was brave, he's not sure ABC would want him to continue playing a major role in future New Year's Eve broadcasts if his condition doesn't improve markedly. ABC and Clark's production company have already signed a long-term deal with Ryan Seacrest, who co-hosted this year, to make the “American Idol” host the New Year's Eve heir apparent.

“We've already seen what (Clark) looks like,” said Berman. “The curiosity factor is gone.”

As for Clark himself, he was in a “terrific” mood after the show, said his spokesman, Paul Shefrin. “He got done and five or six of us went out for a hamburger,” he said. “He absolutely feels like he did the right thing.” He said Clark will likely sit down in the next few weeks to decide what he wants to do about the future.

“He has never said this would be his last year,” he said. “It's up to him.”

[Hansky]

I hate to say it but Dick was sooooooo hard and disturbing to watch that I just recorded it so I could skip over his parts later on and watched another channel.

He even messed up the final 10 second countdown and was wishing everyone a happy new year seconds before and while everyone else was still counting down.

I still have it saved as I like Ashley Simpson and she sang three songs.


Rich

I must have completely missed Ashley Simpson. Saw plenty of Hillary Duff. On a similar note, Susanna Hoffs looked great for late 40's. She has aged very well and looks like she did 20 years ago.

As for Dick, I am watching my 93 year old grandfather decline after a few mini-strokes a couple years ago. His speech is is declining daily (even w/out any more strokes) though his mind is still sharp. If the same hold for Dick and his major stroke, he probably won't get better in speech than he is now. It isn't easy, but it is life.

[TiVoJedi]

Ashley Simpson was not part of the program. Must've meant Hillary Duff.

Growing up in the 80's I thought Dick Clark was a robot because he never showed any aging. He's mortal like the rest of us and I applaud him for for his courage to get on and tell everyone "this is how it is". I was not 'put-off' at all by his speech impediment. I was impressed he made as much progress as he did. I hope we see him in many years to come.

Amazingly I predicted on 07-29-2004, 12:41 AM that Ryan Seacrest was taking over Rockin' Eve (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=2124060&&#post2124060)

SCARY! Why didn't anyone take my bet? :)

[YCantAngieRead]

I have a friend that works with stroke victims on speech rehabilitation. She felt inspired by his appearance. She also thought he had made great progress.
I agree. He had a major stroke. I was surprised to see him at all-he looked great. He didn't sound great, and that did strike me a little, but when I think back on it, and knowing a few stroke survivors his age, I'm incredibly admirous (is that a word?) of his progress and hard work.

I, for one, was awfully glad to see him there.

[NJChris]

I can't believe how much I'm hearing people say that they shouldn't have had him on because it made them uncomfortable or feel bad or that they wouldn't be able to remember him the way he was before.

I say, too bad for you. Get over it. The man is still a human and still has desires to accomplish things. If it makes anyone uncomfortable, maybe it's something they need to deal with, not Dick Clark. I just heard this morning on the radio how someone was complaining how it made him uncomfortable. I say too freakin' bad. I felt good for Dick Clark that he did this, and so what if it made me feel uneasy. It wasn't as if he was hurting anyone on TV or commiting a crime.

[IJustLikeTivo]

I did not see the event live and just watched the clips now. Frankly, based on what I had been hearing, I expected it to be truly a horrible thing to see. I found it to be the opposite. I'm astounded at how well he did. Based on the severity of his original stroke, I think he has made tremendous progress and was very brave to go on the air and be seen.

[heyitscory]

It was so hard to watch. He sounded too much like Crack Head Bob of Howard Stern fame. It's the first time in my life I was relieved to hear Ryan Seacrest talk. If I were a betting man, I'd bet we saw the last Rockin New Years Eve with Dick Clark last night. :(
I have a feeling that's why he insisted on doing the show. He figures it's his last year alive, or at the very least, his last year he'll be in any condition to do TV.

[cheesesteak]

I had a friend who died from ALS. I have a friend who has cerebral palsy. Slurred speech sometimes is a part of life. If it made you feel uneasy or if you joked about it, just wait until you get old or get sick. Then it'll be you.

[Rkkeller]

Thanks. I did mean Hillary Duff. Not sure how I could get her and Ashley mixed up. Hillary looked great and all grown up now.



Rich