Soul Train/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Several, but the best known is Cheryl Song aka "the Asian chick with the hair".
    • Another famous example would be the other Asian chick with the long hair who replaced her, Sally "From the Valley" Achenbach.
  • Jump the Shark: Most people point to Cornelius giving up hosting duties.
  • Memetic Mutation: THE SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUL TRAIN!
    • Also parodied was Cornelius' tendency to sway when MCing, lampshaded on Mad TV once.
  • Never Live It Down: Although outlasting the genre by two decades, the show couldn't escape its connection to disco (particularly big bellbottoms and bigger Afros).
  • Older Than They Think: Cheryl Song had been a Soul Train Dancer since at least the late 1970s.
  • Replacement Scrappy: After Don Cornelius stepped away from hosting, every subsequent host was tolerated at best by the fandom.
  • The Scrappy: Any white male dancer in the Soul Train Line. Bro, give it up — you can't dance.
    • White women tended to avoid this Trope, holding their own on the dance floor.
    • White singers were tolerated, but only a few of them (including Elton John, Michael McDonald and David Bowie[1]) were deemed worthy.
  1. hilariously, as he was transitioning to his aristocratic, "emotionless Aryan superman" "Thin White Duke" phase