Image Credit: Lou Rocco/ABC
“Seacrest, the show must go on.”
-Ryan Seacrest, minutes before midnight in New York, recounting the classic showbiz-ism that Dick Clark used to say to him
To usher in 2013, Ryan Seacrest took the helm on ABC’s New Year’s Eve broadcast. Seacrest was the pre-determined heir, having hosted alongside Clark since 2005. While this was the first New Year’s Rockin’ Eve without Clark, who died in April, the longtime host was everywhere – even in the confetti (seriously, people wrote tributes to Clark that were printed on pieces of the confetti that was dumped on Times Square). Other things happened, sure. Jenny McCarthy lost her voice around 10:15pm. Fergie’s hair transitioned from Veronica Lake to Bamm-Bamm as the evening went on. Seacrest almost got pummeled with the balloons everyone was holding. Carly Rae Jepsen performed in Times Square. Justin Bieber performed in Los Angeles. MC Hammer even showed up out of nowhere. But there was no question: the evening belonged to Dick Clark.
And for that reason, many of the best parts of the broadcast were in the two-hour tribute to Dick Clark, when Jenny McCarthy and Fergie hosted a countdown of the top 30 moments in American Bandstand history, interspersed with live performances, celebrity tributes, and great moments from Rockin’ Eve history.
