Jazzercise
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| Corporation | |
| Industry | Physical fitness |
| Founded | 1969 |
| Founder | Judi Sheppard Missett |
| Headquarters | Carlsbad, California |
| Revenue | $93 million for fiscal year 2015 |
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Number of employees
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228 corporate staff |
| Divisions | Jazzercise Apparel, JM DigitalWorks |
| Website | Jazzercise YouTube Channel |
Judi Sheppard Missett pioneered the dance aerobics movement when she created Jazzercise in Chicago, IL in 1969. Now in its 47th year, the dance fitness franchise is headquartered in Carlsbad, CA.
Jazzercise combines dance, strength, and resistance training with popular music for a fun, full-body workout. The company currently has over 8,300 franchisees worldwide in 32 countries.
Judi Sheppard Missett began what would evolve into Jazzercise as a student at Northwestern University. Sheppard Missett was teaching at a dance studio and noticed her classes had high dropout rates. Realizing students were attending for physical fitness and not to become highly technically proficient in dance, Shepard Missett began to hold "just for fun" classes that began with a jazz warmup. These classes were eventually renamed "Jazzercise." [2]
Sheppard Missett's family moved to Carlsbad, California where she taught classes in local rec centers. Jazzercise quickly took off in San Diego and Sheppard Missett trained new instructors herself. Many of those first instructors were in military families, so, we they moved about the country, and the world, new populations were continually introduced to the program. Initially using VHS videos, Sheppard Missett was able to train franchisees from a distance and began to sell franchise rights for Jazzercise studios across the country. [3]
In Ron Howard's live-action movie adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Grinch's schedule has an hour blocked off for Jazzercise.
In the episode of Taxi entitled "Louie Goes Too Far", Andy Kaufman (playing Vic Ferrari) suggests to Christopher Lloyd (playing Jim) that he take up Jazzercise as a way of meeting beautiful women.
On The Golden Girls, Bea Arthur (Dorothy) admits taking up Jazzercise in the episodes "The Stan Who Came to Dinner" and "The Audit".
In the Futurama episode "Parasite Lost", the parasitic worms are seen Jazzercising Fry's muscles.
The Flight of the Conchords episode "New Zealand Town" of their second television series features a song called "Fashion is Danger" which is a parody of 1980s music and style, and contains a reference to Jazzercise.
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