Though Dick Clark is no longer with us, his name lights up millions of TV sets every December 31, thanks to Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest.
Clark manned the New Year’s Eve broadcast for 40 years, and toward the end of his life, the veteran TV personality shared hosting duties with Ryan Seacrest. Now Seacrest is carrying on Clark’s legacy and gearing up to host New Year’s Rockin’ Eve for the 19th time, and he’s bringing Rita Ora along for the ride.
Helping to usher in 2024 are this year’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve performers, including Megan Thee Stallion, Jelly Roll, Sabrina Carpenter, Post Malone, Ellie Goulding, Green Day, and Janelle Monáe.
With the new year coming in hot, scroll down to rewind the clock to memorable moments from NYRE history.
1972: Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve kicks off (under a different name)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnb-a3kxmeM
Clark emceed the December 31 broadcast for the first time in 1972, though that inaugural show was called Three Dog Night’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, named after the rock band headlining the party at the RMS Queen Mary in California. Joining Three Dog Night aboard that ship were the jazz-rock ensemble Blood, Sweat & Tears and the singers Al Green, Billy Preston, and Helen Reddy. Clark, meanwhile, reported live from Times Square.
2001: Dick Clark pays tribute to post-9/11 New York
With less than two minutes left in 2001 — and only a few months after the September 11th attacks — Clark praised the resilience of New Yorkers like those gathered to watch the ball drop. “They’re playing ‘God Bless America,’ because everybody remembers the last year with great reverence, great support, great sympathy,” he said. “It was not the happiest year in America’s life, but we are pressing on. And New Yorkers are with it, they are dynamic people, they are ready to go, they are ready to look forward to the year 2002.”
2005: Clark makes a comeback
After suffering a stroke in 2004, Clark returned to ABC in 2005 to help Seacrest ring in the new year. “Last year I had a stroke. I was in bad shape,” he told viewers. “My speech is not perfect, but I’m getting there.”
2011: Clark celebrates his final New Year’s Eve
Clark manned the New Year’s Rockin’ Eve broadcast one last time in 2011 before his death three and a half months later. “I don’t care where you live — you won’t find anything like it anywhere on the earth,” he told viewers, reflecting on the Times Square celebration. “Forty years later, I still find it amazing.”
2014: Taylor Swift shakes it off
One of the world’s biggest pop stars made a Swift recovery when she made a clumsy descent from the New Year’s Rockin’ Eve stage in 2014, springing to her feet and giving fans a wave after slipping down the stairs.
2014: Idina Menzel lets it go
And by “it,” we mean the criticism of her performance of the hit Frozen song for the 2014 NYRE broadcast. After viewers called her out for missing some notes, Menzel responded on Twitter, referencing a quote she’d given to Southwest’s magazine. “Performing isn’t only about the acrobatics and the high notes: It’s staying in the moment, connecting with the audience in an authentic way, and making yourself real to them through the music,” she told the magazine, in part.
2016: Mariah Carey hits the wrong notes
“It just don’t get any better,” Carey said on stage after suffering through a six-minute New Year’s Rockin’ Eve performance beset by technical difficulties, half-hearted dancing, and obvious lip-syncing. The pop diva’s team later claimed that her in-ear monitors weren’t working.
2017: Britney Spears puts in the “Work Bitch”
The 2017 show tapped into Spears’ then-ending Las Vegas residency to treat viewers to the pop star performing “Work Bitch” and “Toxic” — or, at least, mouthing along to the lyrics. And the chewing gum that viewers spotted in Spears’ mouth only lent credence to the lip-syncing claims.
2020: Jennifer Lopez slides into the first pandemic broadcast
Never mind that her Times Square audience numbered in the dozens and not the thousands, Lopez still entertained a socially-distanced crowd — including then-fiancé Alex Rodriguez — during the first NYRE broadcast of the COVID-19 era. And during a spirited rendition of “Dance Again,” J.Lo did a knee-slide across the stage and crashed into a camera operator.
Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest, Sunday, December 31, 8/7c, ABC