Square Dance Trivia . . .
Official State Dances:
Twenty-one states list "square dance" as their official state dance (Kansas is not one of them).
One can understand why some states opted for another dance form: Hawaii has the Hula; Pennsylvania and Wisconsin selected Polka; Virginia has the Reel; North Carolina has the Shag; New York voted for Lindy Hop; Ohio the Charleston; Louisana selected Second Line; and Texas, of course, the Texas Two-Step.
A little less obvious is why Massachusetts selected the Hokie Pokie as their state dance. At least they do have an official state dance.
But, for some reason, Kansas is among sixteen states that officially list "None" for their state dance.
Square dance figures prominently in a TV Episode of Mr. Monk Visits A Farm (Episode #515, February 2007). Monk attends a square dance to verify that a gunshot could not possibly have been heard over the fun and frolic noise during a square dance. He is correct, and solves the case, of course.
TV Show Lassie, February 23, 1958: Timmy attends a Grange Square Dance. To everyone's surprise, a fire disrupts the children's dance and Lassie must save the day. (Timmy did not get to square dance.)
Okay, this one is Round Dance Trivia: Two Step - Odd name for a three step move.
Dancing terms often mean something very close to what you actually do, but sometimes they have some historical reason for the name even if it doesn't describe what you do. An example is found in Country Western Dancing and Round Dancing, where we are taught how to do a movement called the "two-step" even though it requires taking three steps. And no, that isn't because Cowboys can't count. It's because there is a Dance called the Two-Step that used two kinds of step movements: a simple walking step and the movement now called the two-step. That is the foundation movement for all variations of that Dance. If you learn that movement, you can do just about any Two-Step variation. So the movement came to be called the "two-step" after the Dance. It is pure happenstance that you move your feet three times while doing the basic two-step.
Square Dancing was featured in one of TV's first filmed cigarette commercials
The American Tobacco Company was the first major tobacco advertiser to sponsor a "national" TV program (the short-lived Barney Blake, Police Reporter, on NBC) in 1948. They were thinking about the future of television advertising, and wanted something unique for one of their first filmed commercials.
They asked Jam Handy, who produced several "commercial" theatrical films sponsored by them over the years, to create a commercial that would grab the viewers' attention. Handy's best known were 1943's "Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco," featuring performances by Frank Sinatra (Your Hit Parade) and Kay Kyser's orchestra (The Kollege of Musical Knowledge), stars of Luckies' radio shows at the time. His commercials were interspersed with "behind-the-scenes" footage of tobacco auctions and the manufacture of their brand.
Handy came up with a stop-motion animated "cigarette square dance," primarily aimed at rural viewers who were among Luckies' most influential customers ... and it was a success, and one of the most talked-about ads in the advertising and tobacco industries. It was virtually a blueprint for the kind of commercials we see to this day.
You can view the Lucky Strike cigarette square dance commercial here.
Salt Lake City Olympic Games featured Square Dancing in their Opening Ceremony in 2002.
The 1950's comic strip, Li'l Abner put out a square dance book titled: The Official Li'l Abner Square Dance Handbook, by Fred Leifer (1953).
The first square dance caller was recorded at the request of Henry Ford. He asked Thomas Edison to record Benjamin Lovett calling square dances. Mr. Ford wanted the recordings to be used in school programs across the United States.