Despite the production hiatus, Soul Train held that superlative record until 2016, when Entertainment Tonight surpassed it in completing its 35th season.

The origins of Soul Train can be traced to 1965 when WCIU-TV, an upstart UHF station in Chicago, began airing two youth-oriented dance programs: Kiddie-a-Go-Go and Red Hot and Blues.

[1] Don Cornelius, a newsreader and backup disc jockey at Chicago radio station WVON, was hired by WCIU in 1967 as a news and sports reporter.

[1] After securing a sponsorship deal with the Chicago-based retailer Sears, Roebuck and Company, Soul Train premiered on WCIU-TV on August 17, 1970, as a live show airing weekday afternoons.

Beginning as a low-budget affair, in black and white, the first episode of the program featured Jerry Butler, the Chi-Lites, and the Emotions as guests.

[3] Cornelius was assisted by Clinton Ghent, a local professional dancer who appeared on early episodes before moving behind the scenes as a producer and secondary host.

Cornelius and Soul Train's syndicator targeted 25 markets outside of Chicago to carry the show, but stations in only seven other cities—Atlanta; Birmingham; Cleveland; Detroit; Houston; Los Angeles; and Philadelphia—purchased the program, which began airing on a weekly basis on October 2, 1971.

The future of Soul Train was uncertain with the announced closing of Tribune Entertainment in December 2007, which left Don Cornelius Productions to seek a new distributor for the program.

When Don Cornelius Productions still owned the program, clips of the show's performances and interviews were kept away from online video sites such as YouTube owing to copyright infringement claims.

[citation needed] Cornelius also frowned upon the unauthorized distribution of Soul Train episodes through the sale of third-party VHS or DVD compilations.

[10] However, by the start of the 2008–09 television season, the Tribune Broadcasting-owned stations (including national carrier WGN America) that had been the linchpin of the show's syndication efforts dropped the program, and many others followed suit.

MadVision sold the rights to Soul Train in 2011 to a consortium led by basketball player Magic Johnson and backed by private equity firm InterMedia Partners.

As rap continued to move further toward hardcore hip hop, Cornelius admitted to being frightened by the antics of groups such as Public Enemy.

[18] Rosie Perez testified in the 2010 VH1 documentary Soul Train: The Hippest Trip in America that Cornelius also disliked seeing the show's dancers perform sexually suggestive "East Coast" dance moves.

Cornelius admittedly had rap artists on the show only because the genre was becoming popular among his African-American audience, though the decision alienated middle-aged, more affluent African Americans like himself.

The first was the "Soul Train Scramble Board", where two dancers are given 60 seconds to unscramble a set of letters that form the name of that show's performer or a notable person in African American history.

Cornelius openly admitted after the series ended its run that the game was usually set up so everybody won in an effort not to cause embarrassment for the show or African Americans in general.

[21] Rosie Perez, Damita Jo Freeman, Darnell Williams, Cheryl Song, Louie "Ski" Carr, Alfie Lewis, Pat Davis ("Madam Butterfly"), Alise Mekhail, Andrea N. Miles, Carmen Electra, Nick Cannon, Vivica A.

Fox, MC Hammer, Jermaine Stewart, Heather Hunter, Fred Berry, Laurieann Gibson, Pebbles, and NFL legend Walter Payton were among those who got noticed dancing on the program over the years.

Soul Train was also known for two popular catchphrases, referring to itself as the "Hippest trip in America" at the beginning of the show and closing the program with "...and you can bet your last money, it's all gonna be a stone gas, honey.