Philadelphia ? In the late 1950s and early ’60s, everyone knew Bob and Justine, Kenny and Arlene, and Ed and Bunny. They were some of the most famous kids in America, dancing every day on “American Bandstand.”

“We were like miniature rock ‘n’ roll stars. We had fans, we had groupies,” said Steve Colanero, 56, a dancer from 1959 to 1961 and now retired to Palm Beach, Fla.

“I spread the Beehive across America,” said Bunny Gibson, 56, on the show from 1959 to 1962.

A few of the regulars, including Gibson, will be featured on the “American Bandstand” 50th anniversary special airing Friday on ABC.

Their return to the spotlight provides an opportunity to look back on their teen-age stardom and the difficulties that went with it. The mostly working-class Philly kids were often teased and abused at school. They were bombarded with fan mail and media attention, but had no guidelines on how to manage fame.

And in the end, many felt they were ejected from the show unfairly.

The show made its debut in 1952 with Bob Horn as the host. Dick Clark came on the scene in 1956 and in August 1957 it aired nationally on ABC. The show moved from Philadelphia to Los Angeles in 1964. (The show was canceled by ABC in 1987.)

The Pony, the Jitterbug, the Twist, the Chalypso (a cha-cha, calypso combination) they danced them all at Bandstand. They even gasp! slow-danced.

Lots of wannabes

To get on the show, crowds of boys in white jackets and girls in full skirts lined up outside the studio at 46th and Market streets.

Only kids between 14 and 18 could be on the show, but more than a few bent the truth.

“I was 13,” said Gibson, who now lives in Los Angeles and does some work as an actress. “I put on a lot of makeup and my mom’s padded girdle.”

Inside the studio was the dance floor where the regulars performed and the bleachers where other kids sat and watched. Once you got inside, you had to hope a regular noticed you.

Ed Kelly, now 58 and working at a New York law firm, said a regular had called him out of the bleachers.

“I was lucky,” he said. “It was intimidating to go and ask a regular to dance.”

The regulars were like soap opera stars. Viewers followed who they danced with, who the couples were. They were featured in magazines such as Teen and Sixteen.

All the dancers had their own fan clubs. Kenny Rossi, 58, who danced from 1957 to 1959, said he would get thousands of letters from teens every week.

“My parents were working people,” he said, adding that they “asked everyone to send a stamped envelope, because we couldn’t afford the stamps.”

But despite national celebrity, many of the dancers said they were woefully unpopular outside the studio.

“I would sit in school and eat lunch by myself,” Gibson said.

And Kelly said “most of the kids in Philly looked at the show as an uncool thing to do. It got to the point where you wouldn’t want to be seen on the street.”

Still, they said they would never have left the show.

But according to “Bandstand” rumor and lore, some didn’t have a choice.

“It seems, looking back, that when any one of us got too popular, then at that point you didn’t see us any more,” said Gibson.

Gibson said she had been told not to come back in 1962 after she had a fight with an ex-boyfriend outside the show.

“My mother thought I was having a nervous breakdown,” she said. “It was my whole life.”

Some kids were canned for what they thought were minor reasons. Others were kicked out for accepting money for writing in magazines or for personal appearances, because then they were considered professionals.

“I found it not very fair,” said Joyce Schaffer, 58, who danced from 1956 to 1961. “So they wrote for a magazine, I worked at the five-and-ten.”

Clark could be a tough guy to work for, the regulars said.

Rossi signed a record deal and was promptly asked to leave.

“I was crying when I left the show,” he said. “I went there one day and they wouldn’t let me in. They sat me down and said ‘Ken, you can’t be on the show anymore.’ No one ever mentioned that.”

Of course, Rossi said even had he known, he still would have signed the $10,000 contract.

It all ended for the Philly teens anyway in 1964 when the show moved. After that the importance of the regular dancers lessened. The show wasn’t taped live and the dancers weren’t as well-known.