Puttin' on the Hits

A music/variety competition show featuring amateur acts lip-synching to popular songs.

Broadcast
Syndication September 22, 1984-July 2, 1988

Host
Allen Fawcett

Gameplay
Contestants would often dress up in costumes and use props to make their act more outrageous. This varied from a seemingly servered head singing "I Ain't Got Nobody" to an Aretha Franklin drag act using couch cushions for breasts. Other acts were more conservative and placed emphasis on performance.

The competition as it was conducted as many other televised performance contest (e.g. Star Search) were. Each act was judged by a panel of celebrity judges based on their apperances, song choice and lip-synch ability with a total of 90 points being the maximum value an act could score. to achieve that, an act would have to receive 10 points in each of the three categories from all three judges. The act with the highest score at the end of the show won $1,000. They also advanced to the semi-finals which is worth $5,000 and after that the season-ending championship show (dubbed as the "Grand Final") worth $25,000 to the winning act.

Trivia
The show grew out of lip-synching contests developed by Wm. "Randy" Wood, who in 1982 had reliazed that his contest had grown so popular that he needed to stage them on a broader scale. The planning process eventually grew into ''Puttin' on the Hits. ''

Chris Bearde best known for creating The Gong Show and Dick Clark best known for hosting Pyramid and creating Greed among other things were both the excutive producers of the series.

Dick Clark's son, Richard A. Clark produced the show while MCA TV served as the distributor.

The show has been credited with launching the careers of the 90's R&B group Troop and Jazzmun, a drag performer who can been seen in many contemporary television shows.

Kato Kaelin (best known for being a witness during the infamous 1994-1995 O.J. Simpson trial) was once a contestant on the show's third season performing performing the 1967 hit song Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf.

Youtube Links
80's Puttin' on the Hits TV Commercial

Puttin' on the Hits 1985