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The Frug (pronounced "froog") was a dance craze from the 1960s that evolved from another dance of the era, The Chicken. The Chicken, which featured lateral body movements, was used primarily as a change of pace step while doing The Twist. As young dancers grew more tired they would do less work, moving only their hips while standing in place. They then started making up arm movements for the dance, which prompted the birth of The Swim, The Monkey, The Dog, The Watusi, and The Jerk. The Frug is sometimes referred to as The Surf, Big Bea and The Thunderbird.
A good example of a frug is found in the movie Sweet Charity, which contains a number called "The Rich Man's Frug", a wildly energetic dance number comprising three "movements" ("The Aloof", "The Heavyweight" and "The Big Finish") that showcases director Bob Fosse's distinctive choreography style, particularly his creative use of unusual poses, gestures, and arm movements.
The Frug is mentioned prominently in Allan Sherman's 1965 song "Crazy Downtown," a parody of Petula Clark's Downtown.
The B-52's 1978 song of 1960s beach party film references, "Rock Lobster", contains the line, "Everybody's rockin'; Everybody's fruggin' ".
In a song of the same name, "The Frug" is referenced by the band Rilo Kiley. It appeared on both their debut album The Initial Friend E.P. and on the soundtrack to the movie Desert Blue.
The Frug is one of the dances demonstrated in the Blues Brothers movie during the "Shake a Tail Feather" segment featuring Ray Charles.
Singer Beyoncé Knowles uses the dance craze as inspiration for the music video of her Dance track, Get Me Bodied from her 2006 album B'Day. Similarly, this style was featured in the music video for Emma Bunton's track Maybe'
In 2008, Welsh singer Duffy used this dance in her fourth international single, "Rain on Your Parade".
The Frug was the inspiration for the name of the band, "The Frug" in Huntsville, TX.
Literary allusions
In 1964, in "In the Red Light: A History of the Republican Convention in 1964," published in the November 1964 issue of Esquire, Norman Mailer wrote: "The American mind had gone from Hawthorne and Emerson to the Frug, the Bounce, and Walking the Dog, from The Flowering of New England to the cerebrality of professional football in which a quarterback must have not only heart, courage, strength and grace but a mind like and I.B.M. computer." The piece is collected in Mailer's Cannibals and Christians (1966).
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