Bunny Hop from Michelle Lee on Vimeo.
In my story from today’s Voice about the 1979 Village Station raid, I mentioned that the 12 bar patrons who were arrested that night had been doing “the bunny hop” on the dance floor. But it didn’t occur to me until later — thanks to a rendition from ageless DV staffer David Taffet in our offices — that many of our younger readers might not even know what the bunny hop is, or might have the original version confused with a later, hip-hop version. According to Wikipedia, the bunny hop is a party dance that was created at Balboa High School of San Francisco in 1952. The dance was generally performed to Ray Anthony’s big band recording of the song, “Bunny Hop,” which was released on a single that featured on its B side another dance classic, the “Hokey-Pokey.” Anyhow, I went looking for some video of the bunny hop, and lemme just tell you, there ain’t much out there. Most of it is of the newer, hip-hop version. The clip above from Vimeo, sorry to say, is about the best I’ve found. But if you’re unfamiliar with the bunny hop, it should give you some idea of what vice cops in those days defined as public lewdness — at least in a gay bar.
1 Comment
Thank you for posting this salacious video, John. Glad you (finally) found this somewhat cleaned up version.
And let’s be honest, you’re the only one who didn’t know what the bunny hop was. In fact, we were forced to bunny hop up and down the hall at the Voice on Thursday night duringt editing and production so that John could get perspective on his story.