50 Fun Facts About Soul Train

What did Don Cornelius later admit about the dancers who solved Soul Train's Scramble Board each week?

They got the answers beforehand: Cornelius said the game was set up so everybody won, because he did not want young Black viewers to watch a couple fail on television.

Which Underground Railroad conductor was among the Black icons spelled out on Soul Train's Scramble Board?

Harriet Tubman suited a show named after a train: she made some 13 missions along the Underground Railroad and led about 70 people out of slavery.

Which dance did Michael Jackson turn into a craze by performing it during 'Dancing Machine' on Soul Train?

The Robot finally reached viewers in full on Soul Train: a month earlier, a cameraman on a Bob Hope special had cut away from Michael just as he did the move.

Soul Train dancer Fred Berry became famous playing the beret-wearing Rerun on which 1970s sitcom?

What's Happening!! cast Berry as Freddie 'Rerun' Stubbs from 1976 to 1979, after he had shown off a step called the slo-mo on the Soul Train Line.

TSOP, the Soul Train theme that became the first TV theme to top the Hot 100, stands for The Sound of where?

Philadelphia was where the single's studio band was based, and the track held the No. 1 spot for two weeks in 1974.

In which city did Soul Train begin as a live weekday afternoon show on local UHF station WCIU?

Chicago teenagers went to the Board of Trade building after school to dance on the low-budget, black-and-white show before it went national a year later.

Which TV producer's short-lived rival show Soul Unlimited drew public protests from Don Cornelius and Jesse Jackson?

Dick Clark saw ABC cancel Soul Unlimited within weeks, and he later teamed up with Cornelius on network specials featuring R&B and soul artists.

Which former Soul Train dancer won the Grammy for Best New Artist after her hit 'Looking for a New Love'?

Jody Watley first danced on Soul Train at 15, when a fellow churchgoer asked her to stand in as his partner during her first week in her new city.

Which Johnson Products hair-care brand became famous through its commercials on Soul Train, the show it co-sponsored?

Afro Sheen's maker went public in 1971, becoming the first Black-owned company to trade on the American Stock Exchange.

Which 2024 movie sequel sends Netherworld spirits to a literal Soul Train bound for the Great Beyond?

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has the dead dancing on the station platform, and the train's conductor strongly resembles Don Cornelius.

Which first Black Supreme Court justice was among the names couples unscrambled on Soul Train's Scramble Board?

Thurgood Marshall joined the Supreme Court in 1967, three years before Soul Train first aired, and served there until 1991.

On Soul Train's Scramble Board, what held the colorful jumbled letters to the round board?

Magnets kept the letters in place, and one fan told NPR he still thinks of the game whenever he sees plastic alphabet letters on a refrigerator.

The Soul Train Line, with dancers strutting between two rows, was a variant of which 1950s dance fad?

The Stroll put men in one row and women in the other, as early Soul Train did; in later years the show gave men and women lineups of their own.

Which actor hosted Soul Train before playing FBI agent Derek Morgan on Criminal Minds?

Shemar Moore was the third permanent host, and he fronted the show while still starring as Malcolm Winters on The Young and the Restless.

Which Oscar-nominated star of Do the Right Thing started out in the 1980s as a dancer on Soul Train?

Rosie Perez joined at 19 after a talent scout asked her to appear, and she later recalled that Don Cornelius disliked the suggestive East Coast dance moves.

Which future Bears running back, nicknamed Sweetness, was among the dancers who got noticed on Soul Train?

Walter Payton danced on the show before his NFL career took off; he had picked up the nickname Sweetness back in college.

Which basketball legend led the group that bought the Soul Train brand and library in 2011?

Magic Johnson's group talked of a film, stage adaptations and a cruise, and his Aspire TV channel began airing reruns of the series.

Before radio, Soul Train creator Don Cornelius sold tires and insurance and held which uniformed job in his hometown?

Police officer was one of the day jobs he gave up in 1966 for a three-month broadcasting course, despite having two sons and only $400 in the bank.

Don Cornelius admitted modelling Soul Train on which older teen dance show, though he later bristled at the comparison?

American Bandstand was the acknowledged model, but once Soul Train became a tradition in its own right Cornelius tired of hearing the two compared.

The Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for female artists named their Entertainer of the Year prize after whom?

Aretha Franklin gave her name to the top prize, while the award for outstanding career achievements honored Lena Horne.

Which comedian hosted a Soul Train season finale in 1975, the only national episode Don Cornelius missed in 22 seasons?

Richard Pryor took over for the final episode of the 1974–75 season, the single gap in Cornelius's long run in front of the camera.

Which R&B group behind 'A Night to Remember' was rebuilt around two popular Soul Train dancers in the late 1970s?

Shalamar started as session singers on a disco medley of Motown hits; when it sold, Don Cornelius and his label partner put real faces from the dance floor in the group.

Which Soul Train dancer did the backslide on Top of the Pops in 1982, before Michael Jackson made it the moonwalk?

Jeffrey Daniel went on to co-choreograph Jackson's 'Bad' and 'Smooth Criminal' videos, and he hosted a British edition of Soul Train in 1985.

Which female vocal trio sang on TSOP, the chart-topping Soul Train theme recorded with the studio band MFSB?

The Three Degrees sang the few words on the mostly instrumental track, which won the Grammy for Best R&B Instrumental Performance.

Soul Train was America's longest-running first-run syndicated show until which program passed it in 2016?

Entertainment Tonight took the record by completing its 35th season; Soul Train's later opening titles had boasted of the distinction.

Which Tonight Show bandleader and lifelong Soul Train fan wrote a 2013 book on the show's music, dance and style?

Questlove titled it Soul Train: The Music, Dance, and Style of a Generation, and in it he names the 1983 theme by O'Bryan as his favorite.

Which Elton John song's success on R&B radio helped land him a guest spot on Soul Train in 1975?

Bennie and the Jets crossed over to R&B stations, and John, a huge soul music fan, played it on the show's 17 May 1975 edition.

In which branch of the US military did Soul Train creator Don Cornelius serve for 18 months in Korea?

The US Marines took him after he graduated from DuSable High School in 1954, more than a decade before he first worked in radio.

Which drama series cast Sinqua Walls as Don Cornelius, building his famous music and dance show in 1970s Hollywood?

American Soul ran for two seasons from 2019, with R&B singer Kelly Price among its ensemble cast.

Which actress danced on Soul Train in the early 1980s before roles in Independence Day and Kill Bill?

Vivica A. Fox also turned up in the video for Klymaxx's 'Meeting in the Ladies Room' during her time as a Soul Train dancer.

Besides figures from Black history, whose name did the letters on Soul Train's Scramble Board often spell?

That episode's musical guest was the other regular solution, and each couple had 60 seconds to rearrange the letters.

Don Campbell, who joined Soul Train's dancers when the show moved west in 1971, invented which street dance style?

Locking was created by accident, when Campbell could not manage another move and froze partway through it; the result was first called Campbellocking.

Which sketch comedy show mocked an aging Don Cornelius and Soul Train in a parody called Old Train?

In Living Color played the host and his show as extremely old and out of touch, poking at his well-known unease with rap.

Dorian Gregory, Soul Train's final permanent host, was also a regular as Darryl Morris on which supernatural series?

Charmed employed Gregory from 1998 to 2005, so for a time he was hosting Soul Train while still appearing on the series.

Which retail giant's sponsorship deal let Don Cornelius put Soul Train on local television for the first time?

Sears, Roebuck backed the daily local show, and a hair-care company then co-sponsored its move into national syndication a year later.

Which cable network relaunched the Soul Train Music Awards in 2009, before its parent bought the franchise in 2016?

BET first put the revived awards on its spin-off channel Centric, and the 2016 deal took in the brand, the library, the cruise and the award shows.

SOLAR, the label that grew out of Soul Train Records, is an acronym for Sound of which city Records?

Los Angeles went into the name after founder Dick Griffey bought out Don Cornelius, and SOLAR went on to release hits by the Whispers and Lakeside.

David Bowie mimed 'Fame' and which then-unreleased single when he taped a Soul Train appearance in 1975?

Golden Years reached the shops less than three weeks after the November taping, as the lead single from Station to Station; the episode itself did not air until January 1976.

Which group shared the bill with Eddie Kendricks and Honey Cone on Soul Train's first nationally syndicated episode?

Gladys Knight & the Pips helped open the national run in October 1971, when stations in only seven cities beyond the show's home had bought it.

Soul Train entered national syndication in the same year as The Lawrence Welk Show and which country music variety show?

Hee Haw and Welk both moved over from the networks that year, part of a trend toward syndicated music shows aimed at niche audiences.

Don Cornelius called it a big mistake to keep what out of the title of TSOP, Soul Train's hit 1974 theme?

The show's name was off limits when the single came out, so its writers retitled the tune, and it went to No. 1 without advertising the series.

Which institution posthumously inducted Soul Train creator Don Cornelius in 2023 with its Ahmet Ertegun Award?

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame names that award after the Atlantic Records founder who set up the Hall's foundation in 1983.

Which soul singer invited Soul Train dancer Damita Jo Freeman on stage for an unrehearsed dance during 'I Gotcha'?

Joe Tex's spur-of-the-moment invitation made Freeman a featured dancer after only her second appearance on the show.

Don Cornelius told which rapper, the man behind 'The Breaks', to his face that he did not understand rap?

Kurtis Blow heard it straight from the host, who kept booking rap acts through the 1980s because the genre was popular with his audience.

What did the Soul Train Music Awards trophy depict for most of the ceremony's first two decades?

An African mask was the trophy until the 2009 revival, when a new design was modeled on the show's train mascot.

Which Soul Train dancer later reached the US top five with 'We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off'?

Jermaine Stewart first got noticed on the local edition of the show, and later sang backing vocals for Culture Club before signing to Arista.

Which hip hop trio from East Orange, New Jersey, recorded the theme song Soul Train introduced in 1993?

Naughty by Nature's theme, subtitled Know You Like to Dance, carried a saxophone solo by Everette Harp and stayed until 1999.

MFSB, the studio band behind Soul Train's most famous theme, officially stood for Mother Father Sister what?

Brother completed the name of a pool of more than 30 studio musicians who worked out of Sigma Sound Studios.

Don Cornelius played a TV host in The Return of Bruno, a 1987 mockumentary starring which actor as a singer?

Bruce Willis played fictional singer Bruno Radolini, and Cornelius presented his return to the stage in a duet with the Temptations.

For their 2009 revival, the Soul Train Music Awards were held outside California for the first time, in which city?

Atlanta's Georgia World Congress Center staged the comeback, and the ceremony stayed in or near the city for the next two years.