Dance Fever is an American musical variety television series that aired weekly in syndication from January 1979 to September 1987. The series was technically created by Merv Griffin but his agent Murray Schwartz actually conceived the idea of a pilot which piggybacked on a special Merv Griffin Show salute to the movie Thank God It's Friday which would feature top disco dancers from 8 cities competing for a title. Casablanca Records had already paid for the set, so a pilot could be produced at a significant reduction. Merv's vision was to have frequent Griffin guest Deney Terrio as the host, and celebrities would dance with professional disco dancers. (In a sense, it was very similar to Dancing with the Stars.) But pilot show producer Ernest Chambers had no success convincing the stars who