The Response - Danny Bonaduce: My Life as a Has-Been
Esquire, August, 1991
Another time, I was driving to school when a special bulletin interrupted my favorite song on the radio. The announcer said, “The world of show business has suffered a devastating blow.” I cranked up the volume. “Danny Bonaduce was found dead in his car after a mysterious auto accident.”
I was flattered. I mean, at this point, I couldn’t get a job in show business, but I could give it a devastating blow. Cool. And anyway, being dead was a reasonably acceptable excuse to miss class.
At 9:00 am, I was dead. At 10:00 am, my day got worse.
I was watching Soul Train when my classmate Michael Jackson appeared on the screen. Host Don Cornelius asked Michael if he went to school with any other kid celebrities . “Oh yes,” Michael replied. “Danny Bonaduce and Tony deFranco.” (The deFranco Family, remember? A cheap Italian knockoff of the Osmonds).
Michael told Cornelius that I was always cracking jokes and that my teachers hated me. I couldn’t decide which offended me more — being called a jerk on national TV or being compared to Tony deFranco. I returned to school the next day with the full intention of kicking Michael’s butt.
Over the school PA system I howled, “Jackson, get your ass out here!” It was a poor choice of words. I went to school with all the Jacksons. Within seconds I was surrounded by a well-choreographed army. I knew I could take Michael and probably LaToya. But I had seen Marlon fight on the basketball court and in that moment I settled an ancient schoolyard debate: Yes, indeed, the Jackson Five could beat up the Partridge Family.