Well, again, as I said in my review of "Puttin' on the Hits," if you can't say anything nice....
But, here are three observations that should easily exceed the 10-line minimum:
(1) The only good part of this show was after the closing credits rolled, the copyright notice was shown at the top of the screen with the "Ownership of this program is protected by copyright and other applicable laws...." warning at the bottom with the IATSE union bug and the AMPTP (Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers, of which production company 20th Century Fox Television was - and *still is* - an active member) logo in between - superimposed over the crowd - then cutting to the pretty woman proclaiming "Dance Fever" was recorded live, then the animated Merv Griffin Enterprises "blinking eye griffin" logo and then - the *best* part of all - the "20th CTELEVISION FOX" (as it was sometimes humorously referred to) logo with the short version of the Alfred Newman fanfare. Fade to black;
(2) For those who wondered why this ultra-cutesy and insipid personality parade managed to survive six years after the disco craze ended in 1981 and despite poor ratings, former Chicago Tribune TV critic Gary Deeb - who rightly labeled "Dance Fever" as being "fatuous" - observed that Merv Griffin had "deep pockets, and as long as his bankroll holds out, the show will be around for a while." Mercifully, in the spring of 1987 Griffin and Fox finally saw the writing on the wall; and
(3) As with "Puttin' on the Hits," because of ultra-expensive music clearances - the majority of the music on this show was recorded - 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, glad to say, has *no* plans to release "Dance Fever" on DVD anytime soon, nor will they lease the rights out to other companies like Shout! Factory, who also complained of the same problem. One might remember when Fox decided to release the first season of "WKRP in Cincinnati" on DVD in 2007, they could not afford to include the original recordings featured in the episodes because of said high royalties and instead used "generic" music, causing an uproar among many fans. With regard to "Dance Fever," however, it appears Fox is acting *very* wisely in their decision to withhold any DVD releases.
(April 22, 2014. Update:
According to an article at Wikipedia.org listing all shows syndicated by 20th Television - the current syndication arm of 20th Century Fox - "Dance Fever" is *no longer* owned and syndicated by 20th but - along with all other Merv Griffin Enterprises properties - is now owned and syndicated by Sony Pictures Television. Still, although they inherited the original "Dance Fever," Sony is *also* very smart in *not* doing anything about putting the show on DVD at this time.)
*Touche! Au revoir!*
