The Popcorn Stand: Sanjeev The Dancing Machine

If India ever has its own version of The Gong Show, it has its own version of “Gene, Gene The Dancing Machine.”

Sanjeev The Dancing Machine has been going viral and he’s awesome.

Growing up as a kid I loved watching The Gong Show, which was basically the Baby Boomer-Buby Buster-Generation X mostly tongue-in-cheek forerunner of American Idol.

Although at the time I had no idea what the song was called as a kid I would always get so excited for the “spontaneous” playing of Count Basie’s “Jumpin’ at the Woodside.”

That meant only one thing. The Gong Show’s proceedings would come to a complete halt and Chuck Barris would announce “Gene, Gene The Dancing Machine” was indeed there and the stage hand turned celebrity — now that was real reality TV back then — would give us the old soft shoe in his tennis shoes.

Now there’s Sanjeev Srivastava, an Indian electronics professor, who danced it up at a family wedding. He’s now got the hashtag #dancinguncle.

I can tell you Sanjeev has got some moves and he truly is the modern day Gene Gene The Dancing Machine, aka, Eugene Patton. Much like Patton was transformed into a celebrity overnight, so too has Sanjeev as he’s now doing the talk show and news show circuit, demonstrating his moves along the way.

You can check out Gene, Gene the Dancing Machine’s moves and Sanjeev’s moves on YouTube.

As Barris would say, when it comes to Gene, Gene the Dancing Machine and Sanjeev, that’s a lot of good stuff.

— Charles Whisnand