In all seriousness though, the mention of Lawrence Welk brings back memories of when America was a better place. A time before everything on TV was 99% gay and interracial couples. I remember my folks tuning into The Lawrence Welk Show when I was a kid, I'm 52 now. If I'd known enough I might have thought it was corny, but I sure wish we had a lot more of that now than what currently occupies the airways. The America that Lawrence Welk inhabited is long gone.
It's one of those shows that is so hokey bad I just cant bring myself to change the channel..........like not being able to let go of an electric fence........
Cowboy chorus in yellow outfits with that one black guy on the end that can tap dance kinda bad....
It was required viewing every Saturday nite at my grandmother’s house when visiting. I’ve seen every show. His absolute funniest show was the one where he dances with a girl from the audience and her wig flies off. Hilarious and well worth looking this gem up on YouTube.
actually i hated that show. when i saw those bubbles, i knew it was an hour of hell. same when the billy graham show or whatever it was would come on tv. not a lot of choice in those days.
I absolutely hated that show and my mother loved it and she would play records during the day of some kind of music with no words. Also we had to watch the Academy Awards.
It was on at my Grandma’s house all the time. The big band theme was part of her generation. I didn’t care for it much at the time, but the classy era of Lawerence Welk shames where we find ourselves today.
He was a talented musician and a talented businessman. It has been the “cool” thing to make fun of anything middle class/white for decades, now. Folks need to quit “pizzing on the graves” of their forebears, whether it be polka/country/Welk music/whatever. Have some respect for some folks that were trying to entertain with at least a modicum of dignity and “class”, and actually had some talent to back it up. Back when the “adults” ran things....
I have watched many a Lawrence Welk show. My mom and dad loved that show. It didn't think it was a bad show. I enjoyed it. It certainly was a different time in America. We also watched Hee Haw as well. That was probably my dad's favorite TV show.
Welk, who paid the minimum union scale to his cast. "We worked at group scale, which was $110 a week, for 10 years," Kathy Lennon recalled. "After that he agreed to pay us solo scale, $210 a week.May 19, 1992
And he was cheap with the lighting too.... looked like an American soap opera or a Brit series.
Many here probably remember him, but are unaware that he had two daughters: Anna 1, Anna 2.
Yeah - funny recall - and a bunch of other idiosyncrasies. I was working on big band jazz at the time and watched him quite a bit for a while - even though I thought the arrangements were very "square" - because the players in that band were excellent musicians. I remember cracking up when he introduced a tune "Now we are going to play that great Duke Ellington piece - Take A Train." Thanks for the thread.
In all seriousness though, the mention of Lawrence Welk brings back memories of when America was a better place. A time before everything on TV was 99% gay and interracial couples. I remember my folks tuning into The Lawrence Welk Show when I was a kid, I'm 52 now. If I'd known enough I might have thought it was corny, but I sure wish we had a lot more of that now than what currently occupies the airways. The America that Lawrence Welk inhabited is long gone.
I always believed, and have heard repeatedly that Lawrence Welk was as queer as they come. But I believe that of almost everyone who appears on television. Seems to me that the entire TV industry is/was built by the queers.
And there were TV shows that I liked as a kid. But I think all of the TV heroes did some strange stuff to get their part in any show...
Hey, I've passed thru his home town in the Southern part of Norda Koda... right near the Souda Koda state line... many times...
and then near Temecula CA, south of I 15, on old US 395, there is still an entire Retirement Village founded by Lawrence Welk, for all his faithful fans... The town is named for Whatever "Golden Valley" is in Spanish/ Mexican....
Anyone remember "Sing Along with Mitch Miller".... another one of those time period shows, we'd sit and watch with our folks on prime time.. When in even large metro areas, you had like 3 channels available on the TV....
I miss those 'simpler" times.... when we put communism into perspective....
heck, I still even miss the good old Family 56 Chevy.....
I watched it at my grandparents house,my grandfather called L..W. ,"THAT ANNOYING BASTARD!" On sundays we all watched Mutual Of Omaha s Wild Kingdom,and Disney.I remember Nation Geographic specials,and Jaques Cousteau ones too.i still remember watching ,Cannon,Banacheck,Mannix with my grandfather,but not,Barnaby Jones,"If that mumbling old bastard s a detective ,i m a cotton picker!" T.V. was very different in those days.
In all seriousness though, the mention of Lawrence Welk brings back memories of when America was a better place. A time before everything on TV was 99% gay and interracial couples. I remember my folks tuning into The Lawrence Welk Show when I was a kid, I'm 52 now. If I'd known enough I might have thought it was corny, but I sure wish we had a lot more of that now than what currently occupies the airways. The America that Lawrence Welk inhabited is long gone.
In all seriousness though, the mention of Lawrence Welk brings back memories of when America was a better place. A time before everything on TV was 99% gay and interracial couples. I remember my folks tuning into The Lawrence Welk Show when I was a kid, I'm 52 now. If I'd known enough I might have thought it was corny, but I sure wish we had a lot more of that now than what currently occupies the airways. The America that Lawrence Welk inhabited is long gone.
I'm 70, and of course it's very easy to say that the America of the Lawrence Welk era was a better place, especially when it comes to the fact that queers, trannies, Negroes, and Communists weren't being thrown in our faces every day. It was a time when the crime rate was very low, especially in the rural area I grew up in. But, there is also a flip side, and today's quality of life is much better, people are receiving much better medical care now, and there are many things about the current time period we're living in that I wouldn't want to give up.
However, as a whole, the America of the 1960's was a time period that I could very easy live in again if it were possible.
100% agree. For those who need a little help, Molly B is the singer/trumpet/tenor-Saxopohone/keyboard player in the VFW re-opening/Polka scene of Clint Eastwood's "The Mule".
My Great grandpa went to school with Lawrence Welk in Strasburg ND till 3rdgrade.
I read his wiki page, pretty interesting. Born in 1903 to homesteaders. Quit school after grade 4 to help work the farm. Couldn't speak English at all until he was 21, he spoke German and never became comfortable speaking English. Left the farm at 21 and worked his way to the top.