WILDWOOD – Kicking off Memorial Day Weekend, “Mr. Saturday Night,” Bob Pantano, the Delaware Valley’s #1 Rated Saturday Night Radio Host, heads back to the birthplace of the Bob Pantano Dance Party – Wildwood – every Sunday night this summer as the milestone 40th Anniversary Celebration cranks up the heat at the Jersey Shore this season.
Already a fixture on Jersey Shore radio each week simulcasting his legendary Saturday Night Dance Party broadcast on 96.1 WTTH Atlantic City and 93.1 WEZW Wildwood, live from the Adelphia Restaurant and Nightclub in Deptford, Pantano will be hosting his Sunday Night Dance Party all summer at the NEW 2nd Street Annie’s, 3601 Pacific Ave. (at Schellenger), in Wildwood starting Sunday, May 28. The party starts each week at 8 p.m.
The Bob Pantano Dance Party was born in Wildwood in 1973 at Phil and Eddie’s Surf Club. It moved to the Oasis Club, and the Fairview and in 1976, launched the first discotheque in Wildwood at the Mansion on Garfield Avenue.
“The ‘70s was my decade in Wildwood,” says Pantano. “Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. worked the door at the Surf Club when I was there, and one of the regulars back in 1974 was a guy named Walter “Bruce” Willis. Bruce continued to hang at my Wildwood dance parties at the Fairview and the Mansion, and we also played softball together in the bar league. He said I was a great second baseman. We’re still friends to this day.”
Pantano’s celebrated role in Wildwood’s music history was memorialized when he was added to the Avenue of the Stars along Pacific Avenue, where inductees who have helped build the Wildwoods as an “Entertainment Capital” of the East Coast are permanently honored.
Pantano is now #1 in his time slot “across the board” in the overall ratings as well and every age demographic, including the all-important 25-54 – for the first time ever, in the latest Neilsen ratings book. Mr. Saturday Night is now the King of Saturday Night among Delaware Valley radio listeners.
In 2015, Pantano was presented the Person of the Year Award by the Broadcast Pioneers Hall, and inducted into its Hall of Fame.
The Saturday Night Dance Party is an award-winning Philadelphia tradition broadcast LIVE that originates on 98.1 WOGL and is hosted by the man who pioneered the Live Radio Dance Party in Philadelphia… Bob Pantano.
Pantano started spinning at record hops in the late ‘60s and then nightclubs in the ’70s, before taking the show to the airwaves in 1977 on 98.1 WCAU FM “Fascinatin’ Rhythm.” Over the decades, well over a million Delaware Valley residents remember dancing, meeting, and even falling in love to that special mix for which The Saturday Night Dance Party is so well known. Pantano plays great uplifting dance music – a unique blend of Motown, ‘60s Soul, and the Dance Club Classics of the ‘70s and ‘80s – custom tailored for Delaware Valley listeners.
For more information about the Sunday Night Dance Party, call (856) 582-5006 or visit www.2ndstannies.com. Find a complete schedule of Bob Pantano’s events at www.bobpantano.com.