Dick Clark Hosts 29th New Year's Bash

Dec. 29 -- For many of us, Dick Clark is as much a part of New Year’s Eve as “Auld Lang Syne” and a glass of bubbly. That’s not surprising, considering he’s been hosting New Year’s Rockin’ Eve since 1972.

Maybe it’s the cold air or the crowds who gather each New Year’s Eve in Manhattan’s Times Squares, but Clark seemingly hasn’t aged a bit. For the record, the perennially youthful emcee is 71.

He hosted American Bandstand from 1952 to 1990 and has been at the helm of the New Year’s Rockin’ Eve stage since it began 29 years ago.

He’s under contract to rock in the New Year until 2005 on what is traditionally the highest-rated network show for New Year’s Eve. The show airs on the ABC television network.

Clark says the holiday is not only a time to celebrate, but also to reflect back on the year.

“It’s a time of restrospection, of thinking, and of joy,” Clark said on ABCNEWS’ Good Morning America.

And in Times Square, it is also a time of packed crowds. There were a million people jammed into the square for the millennium celebration in 2000, and millions more watching at home, all around the world, he said.

“Because so many people saw it last year, we think we will have more this year, ” Clark said. Though a snowstorm might hit New York City this weekend, conditions like rain or wind — not snow — are what sends the crowds away from the celebration, he said.

Anything Goes on New Year’s EveIn his history as host of the holiday bash, Clark has seen a great deal and has come to learn that anything goes on New Year’s Eve. The viewers at home missed it because of the direction that the cameras were pointing, but one year, a group of 30 naked people at a hotel room party were visible to the crowd at Times Square, Clark said.

Clark nearly canceled his New Year’s Eve celebration in 1980 during the Iranian hostage crisis because the owner of the building that houses the ball that drops in Times Square wanted to close the building down as a sign of protest. But Clark says he personally persuaded the man to keep the building open, and the party proceeded.