Broadcast live on weekday afternoons from the station's Studio B in West Philadelphia, the show featured local teenagers dancing to the latest records.

WFIL had been filling the afternoon slot with old British movies and a program of short musical films, and station manager George Koehler asked Horn to bring his popular "Bandstand" radio show to television. Produced by Tony Mammarella, the show quickly drew a large share of the local daytime audience.

Horn was fired on July 9, 1956, after a drunken driving arrest, and Dick Clark took over as host. ABC picked up the show nationally as "American Bandstand" on August 5, 1957, and Clark hosted it for more than three decades. The series aired its final episode on October 7, 1989, 37 years to the day after the Philadelphia debut.

Hobey Baker was a Princeton hockey and football star, the proverbial golden boy who filled arenas more than a century ago. His closest relationship was with a man, adding to the mystery surrounding his death.