1960s in America

By 1960, Broadway productions had become prohibitively expensive for adventurous offerings, and producers resorted to musicals and works proven elsewhere. It was a great decade for musicals, including Camelot, Hello Dolly, Oliver, Man of La Mancha, Hair, and Funny Girl. Even Off-Broadway was feeling the economic pinch. leading to the advent of off-off-Broadway, where innovative shows and new writers could get a start. Theater expanded outside New York City, and by 1966 for the first time, more actors were employed outside New York City than in it. The most prestigious playwright of the sixties is Edward Albee, who wrote Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Musicals that proved popular on Broadway were made into movies, including Sound of Music and My Fair Lady. After Marilyn Monroe died, Audrey Hepburn, star of My Fair Lady and Wait until Dark, was the idol of young girls. Disney offered family entertainment in 101 Dalmatians and Pinocchio. Movies became more political, commenting on the arms race as in Dr. Strangelove. Sex became more explicit, and occasionally nontraditional, as in Midnight Cowboy, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, and The Graduate. Six James Bond Movies, including Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger, combined sex and violence and were enormously popular. Previous taboos on sex, violence and language, were ignored, resulting in the need for a new film code by the MPAA.

Radio continued to be the primary means of listening to music. The major development was a change from primarily AM to FM . Radio was supplemented by American Bandstand, watched by teens from coast to coast. They not only learned the latest music, but how to dance to it. When Chubby Checker introduced the twist on the show in 1961, a new craze was born, and dancing became an individual activity. The Mashed Potato, the Swim, the Watusi, the Monkey and the Jerk followed the Twist, mimicking their namesakes. Each new dance often lasted for just a song or two before the next one came along. Eventually the names and stylized mimicry ceased and the dancers just moved however they wanted. For those who preferred watching the dancers, Go-go girls, on stages or in bird cages, danced above the crowd.

Television offered the second prime time cartoon show, the Flintstones , in 1960. (The first was Rocky and his Friends in 1959.) It appealed to both children and adults and set off a trend that included Alvin & the Chipmunks , the Jetsons , and Mr. Magoo. The Andy Griffith Show was the epitome of prime time family television, and ran for most of the decade. The Beverly Hillbillies heralded the rise of the sitcom. The supernatural and science fiction blended in many of the popular shows, including Bewitched, The Addams Family, My Favorite Martian , I Dream of Jeannie, Star Trek, the Outer Limits , and the Twilight Zone. In the late 60's, humor was revived in a show called Rowan and Martin's Laugh In, where many regular performers and guests became part of a show biz classic.