January 3, 2020 • 36 mins
Fred Armisen joins Mo to pay tribute to legendary bandleader and TV host, Lawrence Welk. Welk was another victim of television's Rural Purge of the early 1970s, when his long running musical variety show was canceled by ABC after his audience was deemed too old. But Welk did not go quietly. He defied the critics, bringing his show back to life on his own terms - and reaching an even wider audience.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, How are you doing? Oh great, how are you
doing good? Thanks for having me. Oh, I love that
you're here. I'm so glad that I ran into you
on the street that day. I believe in stuff like
that sometimes. I'm in the studio today with my friend, actor,
comedian and musician Fred Armison. He's here for a Mobituari's
first a sequel episode. Earlier in the season, I told
(00:23):
you the story of television's rural purge of the early
nineteen seventies. That's when CBS, in search of a younger,
more cosmopolitan audience, decided to cancel en mass the rural
themed shows that had come to define it. Green Acres,
Petticoat Junction, the Beverly Hillbillings, all of them bought the farm.
(00:47):
These Ladida city folks don't want our kind around. As
one actor put it, at the time, CBS canceled everything
with a tree in it. Well, it turns out the
purge spread beyond CBS. Good Night Over at eight. The
(01:12):
chief victim was the Lawrence Welk Show, hosted by the
heavily accented bandleader and accordion player Lawrence Welk. Thank your
Boyfriend Girl, A real dured number. Welk was anything but hip,
and his variety show catered to the more senior set
(01:33):
who longed for the music and dancing of yesteryear. So
this evening, our show is dedicated to our best friends,
the senior citizens of the nation, and we starred with
the song that should bring back a few memories one
and two. But Fred Armison helped make Welk a household
(01:54):
name for a whole new generation when he impersonated the
Impressario on Saturday Night Live Now to take us out
as a sister rack from the finger Legs making their
wonderful Lawrence Welk Show debut. So I knew he would
be the perfect polka partner. Thank You, Thank You. The
real Welk and his orchestra served up a soothing stream
(02:17):
of bubbly champagne music starting in the nineteen fifties, and
although he had built up a fiercely loyal fan base,
ABC canceled Welk in nineteen seventy one. But just like
the variety show he hall over at CBS, which survived
(02:38):
in syndication, the music didn't die. You see. After the purge,
Welk and his musical family lived on, but They'll never
takeaway champagne music that pus Lawrence Welk up his car.
(03:01):
Could it be seen as something a little bit like
and I'm not trying to make a shocking comparison, it's
a little bit of like what the Grateful Dead did
in that like just keep going, just keep going. This
is definitely the first Lawrence Well Grateful Dead comparison ever.
But I think, but I totally hear what you're saying.
Fred and I will spend this episode talking all things Welk.
(03:23):
There will be laughs, polka, and some pretty crazy tangents.
Jacqueline Smith stayed on the show the entire time. Charlie's
Angels not Lawrence Walk because why not? From CBS Sunday
Morning and Simon and Schuster, I'm Mo Rocca and this
is mobituaries. This mobit Lawrence Welk. May seventeenth, nineteen ninety two,
(03:53):
Death of a Square. I remember my family watching, or
my parents watching, but not in a way that was
like we must watch Lawrence Welk. It was like in
(04:15):
the room, in the living room, it was just on
atmosphere on Yeah. Fred Armison and I each grew up
watching Lawrence Welk in the nineteen seventies. It wasn't exactly
a choice. In my case, my grandmother had it on
when we went over to her apartment to visit on Sundays,
and it's it's not like love or dislike or anything.
(04:36):
It's just I mean, this is a positive thing. It's
like a sort of wallpaper, huh, colorful and relaxing. To
get us in the mood for today's conversation, we traveled
down memory lane by sampling some of Welk's greatest hits.
There were the big orchestral numbers like this Stephen Foster Medley.
(05:02):
Oh this is great, isn't this? Wouldn't this just bring
your pulse right now? Let me let me fill your
glass right now. Oh it's slowing, it's already slowing. I'm
so the world has just faded away. Indeed, the show
had an almost sedative effect, not just the music, but
(05:25):
also the look. Bubbles rolled over the opening credits, revealing
a polyester and chiffon fantasia of powder blues, peaches, and
cream tones. As the singers and dancers glided in and
out of numbers. Chandeliers hung over a dance floor that
filled with couples who seemed to emerge from out of nowhere.
(05:48):
It felt like a wedding reception happening on another planet.
Now it's my great pleasure through his four young ladies
that have grown so very very popular on our two shows,
The Wonderful Wonderful Lennin Sisters, Mister Wealth called his company
of singers and musicians his musical family. The Lenin Sisters,
(06:13):
who literally grew up on the show, became big stars
with their almost hypnotizing harmonies. Fucking SENI, wow, it's too
so perfect. It's really nice, isn't it. It's so lush. Yeah,
(06:34):
it's funny that there. I'm guessing there was effects in
a rock and roll people who thought it was uncool,
but it's there's so many similarities, Like I think that
I think the Beach Boys probably aren't that much different
than this, right, It's like pet sounds for grandparents. Yeah,
it's very soothing. The Lenin's Sisters almost certainly inspired the
(06:56):
sister act led by Kristen Wigg in Saturday Night send
up of the Welk Show Sisters Do As Sisters Show,
We're All Together, Sisters, you were telling me about um
when on Saturday Night Live, When do they say, we
wanted to sketch about Lawrence walk The fun thing about
(07:18):
S and L is that they don't really prepare you
for these things. It's really you know, we have this
night of writing and then you show up at the
table and right before you sit down, someone says, hey,
we have you as David Lee Roth. WHOA okay. So
you kind of quickly look up and that's kind of fun.
You're like, I think you know, they cast you because
they think you might be able to look like that person.
(07:40):
But it's kind of fun to do some quick research
and go like what was he like, or maybe to
go by your memories. So the Lawrence Welks sketch is
um for you know, it's built around Kristin Wiggs character,
which is great. That's the framework around it. Denice was
the name of character water fun like Chase sing Cars,
(08:06):
and so the writer James Anderson clearly had many memories
of Lawrence Welk, Like he wrote in a way that
obviously all the way from the Finger Lakes he just knew.
He just knew it's the show so well that he's
a little he might be like, can I tell you
(08:26):
something about James Anderson? Please? Do. It is so great.
I toured in the musical Grease with him through Southeast Asia?
What before he was a writer on SNL When I
was twenty four years old and I think he was
a couple of years older. We both forecast in a
(08:47):
non union production of the musical Grease that went through
Southeast Asia, and I remember hearing afterwards how he had
become a writer on SNL when I was so happy
for him. Did you know that he wrote the laurens? Oh? Yeah,
he and Kristen did thank you, thank you wonderful? Was
her forehead really big? Or was I looking through a
(09:08):
couple of others, sony, So they came to you then? Oh? Anyway,
so you're Lawrence welk And I already knew enough. I mean,
you know, I was familiar enough that I was like,
of course, Lawrence Welkum, But then I didn't know enough
about him. I knew he had this accent, and because
I wanted to get that right, he learned to speaking
which when he was twenty one. Yes, he's speaking German
(09:31):
until then and from a German community, a Roman Catholic
German community in the Dakotas, educated by German speaking nuns. Yeah, incredible.
Now I want you to listen to Welk speaking on
his show. We're happy to dedicate this show to the
most loyal members of our television audience, the mothers of
(09:52):
the nation. And now here Fred's take. Now, before we
continue with our Mother's Day show, I'd like to say
something to my mother, mother, thank you. Did you notice
I can say the thh and mother, But when I
tried to say thank you, I say thank you that's
where And so how did you go about doing the accent?
(10:12):
I mean, it really was just imitation from you know,
hearing him and watching him, and there's something in the
d's and something in the tongue in here, and he
was very official. This is an announcement, this is something
I am speaking. It's almost like he it's not casual,
(10:33):
it's not like, hey, you know, it was very officially
I am bringing. And then the d's were sort of
in the middle of his mouth as opposed to d
is where where I heard it. I'm not saying by
the way that I perfected or I got it perfectly right,
but that's just strong. Great. But you know, you make
a good point that the only thing that wasn't smooth
(10:56):
about the Lawrence walk Show was the way he spoke,
but even that was added to it, to the appeals, yes,
and to the whole vision of it. Told me, what
inspired you to become a musician? Well, O, my family,
I believe my brothers and sisters played into sang and
(11:17):
my folks my dad played the accordion and my mother sang.
So we had a lot of music either. Lawrence Welcome
may have had a strong accent, but make no mistake,
he was all American. He was born on March eleventh,
nineteen oh three, in Strasbourg, North Dakota, the sixth of
(11:37):
eight children. His parents were German immigrants who would come
to America by way of the Ukraine. His family was
living in a in a sawd house. Yes, an upside
down wagon or something with sawd over it right, It's
just what I read. Yeah, it's like I'm sure. At
that moment, he was like, you know what I'm gonna do.
(11:57):
I'm gonna study music and some big band stuff. I'm
gonna get singers. I'm going to um have my own
TV show. And everyone was like what is TV. He's like,
don't worry about it. It's gonna be televised everywhere, and
I'm gonna take over the airwaves. If life were only
that easy. In reality, the young Welk had to make
a bargain with his parents just to own his first accordion.
(12:21):
His father sold a cow to purchase the instrument. In return,
Lawrence worked on the farm through his twenty first birthday
and handed over any money he made from playing local gigs.
Feels very German. Yeah, like here the terms of our deal. Yeah,
and Alice de gelt fondine Musik is for the family. Okay,
(12:52):
couldn't no Dan exactly? Do you think that the deal
he made with his father motivated him even more in
a way? Definitely right? And what I think it's great
of his father also to say, Okay, you want to
do this, but let's make it serious. You're not just
gonna be jamming in the garage of our sawd house
(13:14):
with this with your buddies, like you got to be serious.
After he paid his debt, Welk left home Accordion in
tow to pursue his musical dreams. Soon enough, he was
leaving a ten piece band called the Hotsi Tatsi Boys.
That name is about as racy as he ever got
and steadily gained a name across the Upper Midwest. Along
(13:35):
the way, he married his wife, Fern. They'd stay married
for sixty one years and they had three children. Now.
The label Champagne Music supposedly came out of a gig
in Pittsburgh, where fans said that dancing to Welk's music
was like sipping champagne. Incidentally, Welk did not drink. When
TV arrived, Welk moved to Los Angeles and landed his
(13:58):
own show in nineteen fifty one on local station KATLA.
By nineteen fifty five, he was offered a national audience
of over thirty million on Saturday Night on ABC, and
here bood thank you, thank you, my good friend, and
(14:21):
a pleasant hello. Lawrence Welk shared the secret to his
success with Edward R. Murrow on CBS's Person to Person.
I think we had the formula of playing simple harmony,
of good harmony along with the melody, the type of
music that's the American audience, slige, and it's been most wonderful.
I think it must have taken some real I guess
(14:44):
he's courage the right word, but it is kind of
risky to say this is it. It's just pleasant. There's
nothing deeper than that. Is there anything that you can
compare it to today? The experience of watching that kind
of pleasant programming, I think any sort of reality TV
that has to do with um, either real estate or
(15:07):
fixing up a house or something where the uh, that
sort of relaxing feeling, like you know, the end of
a real estate show or or sort of makeover shows.
You know where it's going. But it's interesting also pickase
in sort of turbulent times, people watch HGTV even more
than usual because it's it's kind of it's you go
(15:28):
to another place with it, yes, and it's I don't
know if it's an escape as much as it's just
sort of I mean this in a positive way, sort
of numbing, just sort of like a little maybe like
a little light drink. I want um a cocktail and
a polka. Wealth wasn't edgy, He wasn't surprising. He was
(15:55):
aggressively uncool, the subject of parody even back in the
fifties for his stilted delivery and musical taste. On his
nineteen fifty seven comedy album, satirist Stan Freeberg poked fun
at Welcome It's the machine. I'm please turn off the
(16:17):
babble machine. Then please turn off the babbo. Thank you.
I'm a sister, but well pushing fifty. When he first
got on TV, wasn't trying to please the urban sophisticate,
nor was he all that interested in playgating network suits
who wanted him to add more comedy and high profile
(16:40):
guest stars. They didn't like Welk's accent. They also wanted
him to eliminate what they saw is the quirky regionalism
of his show Friend and Welcoming draw off County fair Show.
There were whole episodes built around songs of the South.
There was a salute to Canada extravaganza, and an entire
(17:03):
special dedicated to his home state, and mister Welk almost
always made sure to point out where his performers hailed from,
and I will bring you up a very canded young
man from South Dakota. Here's the gentleman from Fargo, North Dakota.
(17:26):
Little Alice from Dela Bablida of Tersa cited from Madisonville.
Kim Clucky own Kim n Wealth largely ignored the network
notes and wanted to voted fan base. He knocked one
of the most popular comedians of the nineteen fifties, Sid Caesar,
(17:46):
off of his Saturday night throne, which made for this
great headline. Lawrence Welk may be known as the man
who killed Caesar. Did that show get canceled? Yes, Caesar
got canceled. Yeah I didn't. They just moved the move
to another time sline. I don't know who knows. It's
you know networks. Let's get them on the phone. On
top of that, the Welk Orchestra's recording of the German
(18:08):
pop song Calcutta went to number one when Welk was
fifty seven, making him the oldest person at the time
to top the charts. Wow, do you remember that song?
I don't remember that. And then he was also an inventor.
(18:28):
He patented an accordion shaped ash tray. Oh that's very cool.
I want some of these. Let's I mean, I'm not
a smoker, but let's have some of these around. Does
it close? He should have designed it so that it
closes to you know, I hold the same thing, fold
him yea, and actually do something with the ashes, yes,
create a diamond. Oh definitely. Well, I don't know if
(18:51):
you knew that Lawrence Folk was the first recipient of
the Theodore Roosevelt rough Rider Award in nineteen sixty one,
which is awarded to North Dakotan's to distinguish North Dakotans
really and other recipients. Other famous North Dakotan's Peggy Lee, Oh,
I didn't know that. Who turns one hundred in twenty twenty? Who?
(19:14):
She's dead? But she would have been a hundred years old.
Angie Dickinson is from North Dakota. I love Angie. Yeah,
she's great. Whiz Khalifa is from North Dakota. Away. Yeah.
They have to have a little hall of famers and
they do, okay great. If I had to choose between
the Dakotas, I would choose North Dakota. But I don't
think you'll ever have to choose. We don't have to choose.
(19:36):
Cheryl Latt is from South Dakota. I don't have a
list of other famous South Dakota. But how did you
know about Sarah Latte? I just I was a big
Charlie's Angels fan. Once upon a time, there were three
little girls who went to the police Academy. You were, yeah,
the original three Chary latt is a close like she's
(19:56):
class I mean she's she plays Bill Murray of sn
That's actually a great that would be a great SAP
analogy question. Bill Murray is too snl as blank is
Charlie's Angels and you fill in Cheryl last She's in
there early enough, she's she came in season two and
she played fair Faucet's sister, Jill Monroe's sister. Oh wow, right,
(20:20):
is um Is Bodley still alive? No, David Doyle's dead
And anyway, enough Charlie's Angels for now, at least back
to Welk who show remained a safe, unchanging space for loyal,
mostly older viewers, and in case anyone needed to be
reminded of the audience demographic, the show was sponsored by
(20:41):
the vitamin supplement Cheratoll, America's number one tonic, Jeratol hipup
and say vitamin plus iron tonic that helped you feel
stronger fast. They would have these the shots of the
audience dancing, usually older people and not glamorous. That had
(21:07):
to be intentional. I mean it's really smart too, because
the audience probably looked like the rest of the audience
at home. The studio audience was also overwhelmingly white, as
was the makeup of the Musical Family and TV in
general in the nineteen sixties. Yet the show did break
barriers when tap dancing phenom Arthur Duncan became the first
(21:29):
African American regular on any TV variety series when he
joined the show in nineteen sixty four. The King of Taps,
Arthur Duncan Uron and Arthur Duncan has repeatedly said Lawrence
had his rules, he knew what he wanted, and that's
what made the show working. I'm guessing the Lawrence Well
(21:50):
Show would fall apart otherwise, you know, people showing off
and stuff. Most of the stars on the show really
only existed within the Welk universe. There was Myron Florin
on the Accordion, Champagne, Lady Norma Zimmer pianist, Joe Anne Castle,
dancers Bobby and Sissy, married singers Guy and Ralna. What
(22:10):
I always found sort of interesting as a kid watching
it was that the people on it you would never
see on other shows, and you never saw I never did.
I know it happened occasionally, but I never saw very
famous people from outside the show on the show, So
it was a parallel universe. It was its own world.
(22:33):
I never thought about that. But there were no guest stars.
There weren't like I guess a very famous appearance was
made by Jack Benny because he really liked Jack Benny.
But otherwise it was almost hermetically sealed. Yeah. Now before
we get further into that, you're going to have to
pardon the segue. Okay, so we should put on the
other headphones, right, headphones. While waiting to hear a musical clip,
(22:55):
Fred and I took a slight detour. I think the
thing is I never understood the lack of affection for
Shelly Hacks Charlie's Angel. She was the fourth one, and
I thought she was fine. She was Tiffany Welch from Boston,
so they were trying to do like a sophisticated Angel.
(23:15):
I've support it fully, so I guess I just feel
like the flack that Shelly Hack got for not being
a great actress like it worked for. And also whatever
generation signed on to Charlie's Angels, for them, that is
their Charlie's Angel, So one could say she was the
Adam Sandler of You know, that's sort of like people,
(23:37):
how could you have Adam Sandler on what happens to
the original cast, And there's a generation saying no, he's
this is our angel. One thing's for sure. None of
the Angels would have graced the Welk stage. One of
the early Welk performers, Alice Lawn, was reportedly let go
for showing too much leg Welk's show was the ultimate
encounter countercultural programming. The orchestra did cover popular songs, they
(24:02):
were welcified, though one particular adaptation may not have been
such a hit with the older crowd. One Toke over
the line sweet Jesus one token, oh boy, the line wow,
(24:24):
how did it happen? Apparently he liked that the lyrics
included sweet Jesus, and so he didn't realize what the
song did. Someone must have explained it to him, right,
I don't know, I've been changing. Is you complain to see?
(24:45):
I mean, what did they think? Toke was? I mean,
it doesn't mean anything else. Maybe he thought it was
a token. I mean, the music does work for the show.
But Lawrence Welk was no fool. He was well aware
of what youth culture thought of him. In one memorable
episode from nineteen sixty nine, an old hippie in sunglasses
(25:07):
and a sheepskin vest ambled out on stage and silenced
the orchestra. Is that him? Hold time, You'll see Okay,
now listen to what he says. Don't you cats know
this polka jazz is strictly from Squaresville. Usually the charm
(25:29):
of the show is they don't care about the outside world,
which is what I love about it, right, and they're
they're kind of all of a sudden we see the
outside world. Even hearing the word hippies, I thought, I
don't want to. I was enjoying not even thinking about them.
I hope you're going to like my fabulous rapping. Welk
(25:49):
appeared as himself with Vivian Vance and Lucille Ball on
an episode of Here's Lucy, a spinoff of I Love Lucy,
and made fun of his own accent. Oh, I know
he'll be wonderful one. That is the worst imitation of Lawrence.
(26:14):
He's very aware of the audience. Oh, he's a good sport,
you know. I think of Lawrence Welk in sort of isolation,
his own world. Then you see him with a titan
with Lucy and she's playing someone who's sort of overwhelmed
by the celebrity of Lawrence Welk. It just shows you
what a big deal he was. And also he's clearly
enjoying himself, which is really nice. I mean, if you're
(26:37):
being parodied, you're in good shape. I mean, clearly it's
enough of a gamble that people will get the reference.
So that's already a sign that things are going really well.
Parodied multiple times and then into the two thousands with SNL,
I mean, that's really says a lot about the show.
What do you think he would have thought of the parody?
(26:57):
I think I'm going to, just as a gay say
that maybe he wouldn't have been psyched it. I think
you would have said, I don't understand it. The Lennon sisters, Yeah,
say they loved it, the SNL parody. They've seen it. Yeah, yeah,
they the Lennon sisters have seen it. Yeah, Oh my god.
But it's another group of women that sends us back
(27:19):
on a tangent. Jacqueline Smith stayed on the show the
entire time. Charlie's Angels, not Lawrence walk and who can
we compare her to? Oh, I'm trying to think who's
the longest running cast. She's like Tim Meadows, somebody who
was like Daryl Hammond. H yeah, yeah, what about So
(27:41):
Kate Jackson didn't stay the whole time? No, Kay Jackson
didn't get along with Cheryl Ladd and the whole you
know what, the whole Cramer versus Kramer thing, right, I
don't know that Meryl Streep, you know, ended up winning
an oscar for Cramer Versus Kramer. Kay Jackson had been
offered that role and Aaron's spelling wouldn't let her out
of the cor Oh and that's I know, I know,
(28:03):
it's a terrible I know it. I still to this day,
thank how frustrated she must feel about that. Oh that's rough.
That's a rough one. But not as rough as what
happened to Welk in nineteen seventy one. That spring ABC
canceled his show. His audience was deemed too old and
(28:24):
too rural. But Lawrence Welk wasn't going to go quietly.
These lyrics are wild. Listening We're going through the music revolution.
(28:44):
Fred Ormison and I are listening to the Lawrence Welk
cast seeing about the cancelation of their show in nineteen
seventy one the same year as the Rural Purge over
at CBS. Is there some anger in this? They've been
(29:07):
booted from the network, so there is some fight in there.
There was some I'm sure that was when the anchor
came from. Yeah, if it sounds like that song Roy
Clark sang about he Haws cancelation in our Rural Purge episode,
there's a reason for it. It's actually the same song,
and the title is quite a mouthful. It's called the
(29:28):
Lawrence Welk Heehaw counter Revolution Polka, and it feels to me,
it feels kind of contemporary. This tension, yeah, between what's
perceived in the middle of the country and then the
people who are controlling what airs nationally. And Lawrence Welk
and Hehaw are kind of the two survivors. They go
(29:49):
into syndication, and Lawrence Welke after nineteen seventy one, just
he's at this point, he's almost seventy nineteen seventy one.
He was born in nineteen o three. Wow, would you welcome,
very charming, gentleman, mister Lawrence welcome. Johnny Carson asked Welk
about his cancelation on The Tonight Show in nineteen seventy four.
(30:10):
You were with seventeen years with ABC, and then did
you leave or did they say, hey, you're not going
to be on the network anymore. No, we didn't leave,
were requested to requested to leave. I've been through that.
Everybody hands was had television show. How did you take it?
Wasn't it? It was personal? A very difficult thing. But
Welk's sponsors stuck by him, as did his audience. After
(30:33):
getting the acts from ABC, his audience actually grew. How
many people would you reach every week? With that? I
would have made an estimate. I would say we reach
approximately around thirty million people. And so he assembles a
station group larger than ABC had had for him. So
continues getting tens of millions of viewers. Then, and we'll
(30:54):
stay on until nineteen eighty one or nineteen eighty two.
We were seeing this stuff between nineteen seventy one in
nineteen eighty two, which was the Lawrence Welk sort of
I'm not going to be kept down. I Am not
going to go down to the rural perge. I mean,
it's amazing he he benefited from that move. I feel like,
(31:14):
could it be seen as something a little bit like
and I'm not trying to make a shocking comparison. It's
a little bit of like what the Grateful Dead did.
They made so much money as a sort of live
act that there's a sort of like we're just going
to do our thing, just keep going, just keep going.
This is definitely the first Lawrence Welk Grateful Dead comparison ever.
But I think, but I totally hear what you're saying.
(31:40):
Lawrence Welk not only made a fortune in television, he
managed to create a real estate empire that included a
set of resorts. When he died on May seventeenth, nineteen
ninety two, he was reportedly the second richest entertainer in
the country after Bob Hope, and his musical variety series
was at that point point the longest running in history.
(32:03):
But that's not why I admire him. Lawrence Welk knew
who he was, and he knew his audience, as he
put it, very nice people. He played for theirs was
an almost sacred bond. He wasn't going to let network
executives interfere with that, and when they did, he went
his own way. That kind of rebel spirit is something
(32:25):
we usually associate with young people, but it was lived
out by a man in his late sixties. Lawrence Welk
was a square yes and a badass to this day.
His show can be seen in reruns on nearly three
hundred public television stations, and it's still the highest rated
(32:46):
syndicated series on public TV. Not bad for a kid
from North Dakota who grew up in a sowd house.
Now from all of har Musica family, good health and
good night. Next time on Mobituaries, we take the show
(33:15):
on the road. Seth Paul Prudome is not all together now,
Oh my god, I just got a whole audience to say,
Don Deloise and Unison, I certainly hope you enjoyed this Mobituary.
May I ask you to please rate and review our podcast.
You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and
(33:37):
you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca. You can
subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get your podcasts. This episode
of Mobituaries was produced by Megan Marcus, Sam Egan and
me Morocca. It was edited by Sam Egan and engineered
by Nathan Miller. Indispensable support from Lucy Kirk Genius Daneski
(34:00):
out there to Robina, Harry Wood, Richard Wore, and everyone
at CBS News Radio Special thanks to Susie Down and
of course to my friend the great Fred Armisson, who
can currently be seen in LUSAT Spookies on HBO. Our
theme music is written by Daniel Hart and is always
undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John carp without whom
(34:23):
Mobituaries couldn't live. That sound again, Charlie is your therapist
there again? Oh yes, and still hard at work showing
(34:43):
me the upper body development exercises. What about the lower body, Charlie, Well,
actually there doesn't seem to be a problem in that area,
Isn't that great? Charlie's always trying to improve himself. At
least I can do. Bye Angels by Hi, It's mo.
(35:16):
If you're enjoying Mobituaries the podcast, may I invite you
to check out Mobituaries the book. It's chock full of
stories not in the podcast. Celebrities who put their butts
on the line, sports teams that threw in the towel
for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses, presidential candidacies that cratered,
(35:37):
whole countries that went caput, and dragons Yes, dragons you see.
People used to believe the dragons will reel until just
get the book. You can order Mobituaries the book from
any online bookseller, or stop by your local bookstore and
look for me when I come to your city. Tour
information and lots more at mobituaries dot com fo
Hi, How are you doing? Oh great, how are you
doing good? Thanks for having me. Oh, I love that
you're here. I'm so glad that I ran into you
on the street that day. I believe in stuff like
that sometimes. I'm in the studio today with my friend, actor,
comedian and musician Fred Armison. He's here for a Mobituari's
first a sequel episode. Earlier in the season, I told
(00:23):
you the story of television's rural purge of the early
nineteen seventies. That's when CBS, in search of a younger,
more cosmopolitan audience, decided to cancel en mass the rural
themed shows that had come to define it. Green Acres,
Petticoat Junction, the Beverly Hillbillings, all of them bought the farm.
(00:47):
These Ladida city folks don't want our kind around. As
one actor put it, at the time, CBS canceled everything
with a tree in it. Well, it turns out the
purge spread beyond CBS. Good Night Over at eight. The
(01:12):
chief victim was the Lawrence Welk Show, hosted by the
heavily accented bandleader and accordion player Lawrence Welk. Thank your
Boyfriend Girl, A real dured number. Welk was anything but hip,
and his variety show catered to the more senior set
(01:33):
who longed for the music and dancing of yesteryear. So
this evening, our show is dedicated to our best friends,
the senior citizens of the nation, and we starred with
the song that should bring back a few memories one
and two. But Fred Armison helped make Welk a household
(01:54):
name for a whole new generation when he impersonated the
Impressario on Saturday Night Live Now to take us out
as a sister rack from the finger Legs making their
wonderful Lawrence Welk Show debut. So I knew he would
be the perfect polka partner. Thank You, Thank You. The
real Welk and his orchestra served up a soothing stream
(02:17):
of bubbly champagne music starting in the nineteen fifties, and
although he had built up a fiercely loyal fan base,
ABC canceled Welk in nineteen seventy one. But just like
the variety show he hall over at CBS, which survived
(02:38):
in syndication, the music didn't die. You see. After the purge,
Welk and his musical family lived on, but They'll never
takeaway champagne music that pus Lawrence Welk up his car.
(03:01):
Could it be seen as something a little bit like
and I'm not trying to make a shocking comparison, it's
a little bit of like what the Grateful Dead did
in that like just keep going, just keep going. This
is definitely the first Lawrence Well Grateful Dead comparison ever.
But I think, but I totally hear what you're saying.
Fred and I will spend this episode talking all things Welk.
(03:23):
There will be laughs, polka, and some pretty crazy tangents.
Jacqueline Smith stayed on the show the entire time. Charlie's
Angels not Lawrence Walk because why not? From CBS Sunday
Morning and Simon and Schuster, I'm Mo Rocca and this
is mobituaries. This mobit Lawrence Welk. May seventeenth, nineteen ninety two,
(03:53):
Death of a Square. I remember my family watching, or
my parents watching, but not in a way that was
like we must watch Lawrence Welk. It was like in
(04:15):
the room, in the living room, it was just on
atmosphere on Yeah. Fred Armison and I each grew up
watching Lawrence Welk in the nineteen seventies. It wasn't exactly
a choice. In my case, my grandmother had it on
when we went over to her apartment to visit on Sundays,
and it's it's not like love or dislike or anything.
(04:36):
It's just I mean, this is a positive thing. It's
like a sort of wallpaper, huh, colorful and relaxing. To
get us in the mood for today's conversation, we traveled
down memory lane by sampling some of Welk's greatest hits.
There were the big orchestral numbers like this Stephen Foster Medley.
(05:02):
Oh this is great, isn't this? Wouldn't this just bring
your pulse right now? Let me let me fill your
glass right now. Oh it's slowing, it's already slowing. I'm
so the world has just faded away. Indeed, the show
had an almost sedative effect, not just the music, but
(05:25):
also the look. Bubbles rolled over the opening credits, revealing
a polyester and chiffon fantasia of powder blues, peaches, and
cream tones. As the singers and dancers glided in and
out of numbers. Chandeliers hung over a dance floor that
filled with couples who seemed to emerge from out of nowhere.
(05:48):
It felt like a wedding reception happening on another planet.
Now it's my great pleasure through his four young ladies
that have grown so very very popular on our two shows,
The Wonderful Wonderful Lennin Sisters, Mister Wealth called his company
of singers and musicians his musical family. The Lenin Sisters,
(06:13):
who literally grew up on the show, became big stars
with their almost hypnotizing harmonies. Fucking SENI, wow, it's too
so perfect. It's really nice, isn't it. It's so lush. Yeah,
(06:34):
it's funny that there. I'm guessing there was effects in
a rock and roll people who thought it was uncool,
but it's there's so many similarities, Like I think that
I think the Beach Boys probably aren't that much different
than this, right, It's like pet sounds for grandparents. Yeah,
it's very soothing. The Lenin's Sisters almost certainly inspired the
(06:56):
sister act led by Kristen Wigg in Saturday Night send
up of the Welk Show Sisters Do As Sisters Show,
We're All Together, Sisters, you were telling me about um
when on Saturday Night Live, When do they say, we
wanted to sketch about Lawrence walk The fun thing about
(07:18):
S and L is that they don't really prepare you
for these things. It's really you know, we have this
night of writing and then you show up at the
table and right before you sit down, someone says, hey,
we have you as David Lee Roth. WHOA okay. So
you kind of quickly look up and that's kind of fun.
You're like, I think you know, they cast you because
they think you might be able to look like that person.
(07:40):
But it's kind of fun to do some quick research
and go like what was he like, or maybe to
go by your memories. So the Lawrence Welks sketch is
um for you know, it's built around Kristin Wiggs character,
which is great. That's the framework around it. Denice was
the name of character water fun like Chase sing Cars,
(08:06):
and so the writer James Anderson clearly had many memories
of Lawrence Welk, Like he wrote in a way that
obviously all the way from the Finger Lakes he just knew.
He just knew it's the show so well that he's
a little he might be like, can I tell you
(08:26):
something about James Anderson? Please? Do. It is so great.
I toured in the musical Grease with him through Southeast Asia?
What before he was a writer on SNL When I
was twenty four years old and I think he was
a couple of years older. We both forecast in a
(08:47):
non union production of the musical Grease that went through
Southeast Asia, and I remember hearing afterwards how he had
become a writer on SNL when I was so happy
for him. Did you know that he wrote the laurens? Oh? Yeah,
he and Kristen did thank you, thank you wonderful? Was
her forehead really big? Or was I looking through a
(09:08):
couple of others, sony, So they came to you then? Oh? Anyway,
so you're Lawrence welk And I already knew enough. I mean,
you know, I was familiar enough that I was like,
of course, Lawrence Welkum, But then I didn't know enough
about him. I knew he had this accent, and because
I wanted to get that right, he learned to speaking
which when he was twenty one. Yes, he's speaking German
(09:31):
until then and from a German community, a Roman Catholic
German community in the Dakotas, educated by German speaking nuns. Yeah, incredible.
Now I want you to listen to Welk speaking on
his show. We're happy to dedicate this show to the
most loyal members of our television audience, the mothers of
(09:52):
the nation. And now here Fred's take. Now, before we
continue with our Mother's Day show, I'd like to say
something to my mother, mother, thank you. Did you notice
I can say the thh and mother, But when I
tried to say thank you, I say thank you that's
where And so how did you go about doing the accent?
(10:12):
I mean, it really was just imitation from you know,
hearing him and watching him, and there's something in the
d's and something in the tongue in here, and he
was very official. This is an announcement, this is something
I am speaking. It's almost like he it's not casual,
(10:33):
it's not like, hey, you know, it was very officially
I am bringing. And then the d's were sort of
in the middle of his mouth as opposed to d
is where where I heard it. I'm not saying by
the way that I perfected or I got it perfectly right,
but that's just strong. Great. But you know, you make
a good point that the only thing that wasn't smooth
(10:56):
about the Lawrence walk Show was the way he spoke,
but even that was added to it, to the appeals, yes,
and to the whole vision of it. Told me, what
inspired you to become a musician? Well, O, my family,
I believe my brothers and sisters played into sang and
(11:17):
my folks my dad played the accordion and my mother sang.
So we had a lot of music either. Lawrence Welcome
may have had a strong accent, but make no mistake,
he was all American. He was born on March eleventh,
nineteen oh three, in Strasbourg, North Dakota, the sixth of
(11:37):
eight children. His parents were German immigrants who would come
to America by way of the Ukraine. His family was
living in a in a sawd house. Yes, an upside
down wagon or something with sawd over it right, It's
just what I read. Yeah, it's like I'm sure. At
that moment, he was like, you know what I'm gonna do.
(11:57):
I'm gonna study music and some big band stuff. I'm
gonna get singers. I'm going to um have my own
TV show. And everyone was like what is TV. He's like,
don't worry about it. It's gonna be televised everywhere, and
I'm gonna take over the airwaves. If life were only
that easy. In reality, the young Welk had to make
a bargain with his parents just to own his first accordion.
(12:21):
His father sold a cow to purchase the instrument. In return,
Lawrence worked on the farm through his twenty first birthday
and handed over any money he made from playing local gigs.
Feels very German. Yeah, like here the terms of our deal. Yeah,
and Alice de gelt fondine Musik is for the family. Okay,
(12:52):
couldn't no Dan exactly? Do you think that the deal
he made with his father motivated him even more in
a way? Definitely right? And what I think it's great
of his father also to say, Okay, you want to
do this, but let's make it serious. You're not just
gonna be jamming in the garage of our sawd house
(13:14):
with this with your buddies, like you got to be serious.
After he paid his debt, Welk left home Accordion in
tow to pursue his musical dreams. Soon enough, he was
leaving a ten piece band called the Hotsi Tatsi Boys.
That name is about as racy as he ever got
and steadily gained a name across the Upper Midwest. Along
(13:35):
the way, he married his wife, Fern. They'd stay married
for sixty one years and they had three children. Now.
The label Champagne Music supposedly came out of a gig
in Pittsburgh, where fans said that dancing to Welk's music
was like sipping champagne. Incidentally, Welk did not drink. When
TV arrived, Welk moved to Los Angeles and landed his
(13:58):
own show in nineteen fifty one on local station KATLA.
By nineteen fifty five, he was offered a national audience
of over thirty million on Saturday Night on ABC, and
here bood thank you, thank you, my good friend, and
(14:21):
a pleasant hello. Lawrence Welk shared the secret to his
success with Edward R. Murrow on CBS's Person to Person.
I think we had the formula of playing simple harmony,
of good harmony along with the melody, the type of
music that's the American audience, slige, and it's been most wonderful.
I think it must have taken some real I guess
(14:44):
he's courage the right word, but it is kind of
risky to say this is it. It's just pleasant. There's
nothing deeper than that. Is there anything that you can
compare it to today? The experience of watching that kind
of pleasant programming, I think any sort of reality TV
that has to do with um, either real estate or
(15:07):
fixing up a house or something where the uh, that
sort of relaxing feeling, like you know, the end of
a real estate show or or sort of makeover shows.
You know where it's going. But it's interesting also pickase
in sort of turbulent times, people watch HGTV even more
than usual because it's it's kind of it's you go
(15:28):
to another place with it, yes, and it's I don't
know if it's an escape as much as it's just
sort of I mean this in a positive way, sort
of numbing, just sort of like a little maybe like
a little light drink. I want um a cocktail and
a polka. Wealth wasn't edgy, He wasn't surprising. He was
(15:55):
aggressively uncool, the subject of parody even back in the
fifties for his stilted delivery and musical taste. On his
nineteen fifty seven comedy album, satirist Stan Freeberg poked fun
at Welcome It's the machine. I'm please turn off the
(16:17):
babble machine. Then please turn off the babbo. Thank you.
I'm a sister, but well pushing fifty. When he first
got on TV, wasn't trying to please the urban sophisticate,
nor was he all that interested in playgating network suits
who wanted him to add more comedy and high profile
(16:40):
guest stars. They didn't like Welk's accent. They also wanted
him to eliminate what they saw is the quirky regionalism
of his show Friend and Welcoming draw off County fair Show.
There were whole episodes built around songs of the South.
There was a salute to Canada extravaganza, and an entire
(17:03):
special dedicated to his home state, and mister Welk almost
always made sure to point out where his performers hailed from,
and I will bring you up a very canded young
man from South Dakota. Here's the gentleman from Fargo, North Dakota.
(17:26):
Little Alice from Dela Bablida of Tersa cited from Madisonville.
Kim Clucky own Kim n Wealth largely ignored the network
notes and wanted to voted fan base. He knocked one
of the most popular comedians of the nineteen fifties, Sid Caesar,
(17:46):
off of his Saturday night throne, which made for this
great headline. Lawrence Welk may be known as the man
who killed Caesar. Did that show get canceled? Yes, Caesar
got canceled. Yeah I didn't. They just moved the move
to another time sline. I don't know who knows. It's
you know networks. Let's get them on the phone. On
top of that, the Welk Orchestra's recording of the German
(18:08):
pop song Calcutta went to number one when Welk was
fifty seven, making him the oldest person at the time
to top the charts. Wow, do you remember that song?
I don't remember that. And then he was also an inventor.
(18:28):
He patented an accordion shaped ash tray. Oh that's very cool.
I want some of these. Let's I mean, I'm not
a smoker, but let's have some of these around. Does
it close? He should have designed it so that it
closes to you know, I hold the same thing, fold
him yea, and actually do something with the ashes, yes,
create a diamond. Oh definitely. Well, I don't know if
(18:51):
you knew that Lawrence Folk was the first recipient of
the Theodore Roosevelt rough Rider Award in nineteen sixty one,
which is awarded to North Dakotan's to distinguish North Dakotans
really and other recipients. Other famous North Dakotan's Peggy Lee, Oh,
I didn't know that. Who turns one hundred in twenty twenty? Who?
(19:14):
She's dead? But she would have been a hundred years old.
Angie Dickinson is from North Dakota. I love Angie. Yeah,
she's great. Whiz Khalifa is from North Dakota. Away. Yeah.
They have to have a little hall of famers and
they do, okay great. If I had to choose between
the Dakotas, I would choose North Dakota. But I don't
think you'll ever have to choose. We don't have to choose.
(19:36):
Cheryl Latt is from South Dakota. I don't have a
list of other famous South Dakota. But how did you
know about Sarah Latte? I just I was a big
Charlie's Angels fan. Once upon a time, there were three
little girls who went to the police Academy. You were, yeah,
the original three Chary latt is a close like she's
(19:56):
class I mean she's she plays Bill Murray of sn
That's actually a great that would be a great SAP
analogy question. Bill Murray is too snl as blank is
Charlie's Angels and you fill in Cheryl last She's in
there early enough, she's she came in season two and
she played fair Faucet's sister, Jill Monroe's sister. Oh wow, right,
(20:20):
is um Is Bodley still alive? No, David Doyle's dead
And anyway, enough Charlie's Angels for now, at least back
to Welk who show remained a safe, unchanging space for loyal,
mostly older viewers, and in case anyone needed to be
reminded of the audience demographic, the show was sponsored by
(20:41):
the vitamin supplement Cheratoll, America's number one tonic, Jeratol hipup
and say vitamin plus iron tonic that helped you feel
stronger fast. They would have these the shots of the
audience dancing, usually older people and not glamorous. That had
(21:07):
to be intentional. I mean it's really smart too, because
the audience probably looked like the rest of the audience
at home. The studio audience was also overwhelmingly white, as
was the makeup of the Musical Family and TV in
general in the nineteen sixties. Yet the show did break
barriers when tap dancing phenom Arthur Duncan became the first
(21:29):
African American regular on any TV variety series when he
joined the show in nineteen sixty four. The King of Taps,
Arthur Duncan Uron and Arthur Duncan has repeatedly said Lawrence
had his rules, he knew what he wanted, and that's
what made the show working. I'm guessing the Lawrence Well
(21:50):
Show would fall apart otherwise, you know, people showing off
and stuff. Most of the stars on the show really
only existed within the Welk universe. There was Myron Florin
on the Accordion, Champagne, Lady Norma Zimmer pianist, Joe Anne Castle,
dancers Bobby and Sissy, married singers Guy and Ralna. What
(22:10):
I always found sort of interesting as a kid watching
it was that the people on it you would never
see on other shows, and you never saw I never did.
I know it happened occasionally, but I never saw very
famous people from outside the show on the show, So
it was a parallel universe. It was its own world.
(22:33):
I never thought about that. But there were no guest stars.
There weren't like I guess a very famous appearance was
made by Jack Benny because he really liked Jack Benny.
But otherwise it was almost hermetically sealed. Yeah. Now before
we get further into that, you're going to have to
pardon the segue. Okay, so we should put on the
other headphones, right, headphones. While waiting to hear a musical clip,
(22:55):
Fred and I took a slight detour. I think the
thing is I never understood the lack of affection for
Shelly Hacks Charlie's Angel. She was the fourth one, and
I thought she was fine. She was Tiffany Welch from Boston,
so they were trying to do like a sophisticated Angel.
(23:15):
I've support it fully, so I guess I just feel
like the flack that Shelly Hack got for not being
a great actress like it worked for. And also whatever
generation signed on to Charlie's Angels, for them, that is
their Charlie's Angel, So one could say she was the
Adam Sandler of You know, that's sort of like people,
(23:37):
how could you have Adam Sandler on what happens to
the original cast, And there's a generation saying no, he's
this is our angel. One thing's for sure. None of
the Angels would have graced the Welk stage. One of
the early Welk performers, Alice Lawn, was reportedly let go
for showing too much leg Welk's show was the ultimate
encounter countercultural programming. The orchestra did cover popular songs, they
(24:02):
were welcified, though one particular adaptation may not have been
such a hit with the older crowd. One Toke over
the line sweet Jesus one token, oh boy, the line wow,
(24:24):
how did it happen? Apparently he liked that the lyrics
included sweet Jesus, and so he didn't realize what the
song did. Someone must have explained it to him, right,
I don't know, I've been changing. Is you complain to see?
(24:45):
I mean, what did they think? Toke was? I mean,
it doesn't mean anything else. Maybe he thought it was
a token. I mean, the music does work for the show.
But Lawrence Welk was no fool. He was well aware
of what youth culture thought of him. In one memorable
episode from nineteen sixty nine, an old hippie in sunglasses
(25:07):
and a sheepskin vest ambled out on stage and silenced
the orchestra. Is that him? Hold time, You'll see Okay,
now listen to what he says. Don't you cats know
this polka jazz is strictly from Squaresville. Usually the charm
(25:29):
of the show is they don't care about the outside world,
which is what I love about it, right, and they're
they're kind of all of a sudden we see the
outside world. Even hearing the word hippies, I thought, I
don't want to. I was enjoying not even thinking about them.
I hope you're going to like my fabulous rapping. Welk
(25:49):
appeared as himself with Vivian Vance and Lucille Ball on
an episode of Here's Lucy, a spinoff of I Love Lucy,
and made fun of his own accent. Oh, I know
he'll be wonderful one. That is the worst imitation of Lawrence.
(26:14):
He's very aware of the audience. Oh, he's a good sport,
you know. I think of Lawrence Welk in sort of isolation,
his own world. Then you see him with a titan
with Lucy and she's playing someone who's sort of overwhelmed
by the celebrity of Lawrence Welk. It just shows you
what a big deal he was. And also he's clearly
enjoying himself, which is really nice. I mean, if you're
(26:37):
being parodied, you're in good shape. I mean, clearly it's
enough of a gamble that people will get the reference.
So that's already a sign that things are going really well.
Parodied multiple times and then into the two thousands with SNL,
I mean, that's really says a lot about the show.
What do you think he would have thought of the parody?
(26:57):
I think I'm going to, just as a gay say
that maybe he wouldn't have been psyched it. I think
you would have said, I don't understand it. The Lennon sisters, Yeah,
say they loved it, the SNL parody. They've seen it. Yeah, yeah,
they the Lennon sisters have seen it. Yeah, Oh my god.
But it's another group of women that sends us back
(27:19):
on a tangent. Jacqueline Smith stayed on the show the
entire time. Charlie's Angels, not Lawrence walk and who can
we compare her to? Oh, I'm trying to think who's
the longest running cast. She's like Tim Meadows, somebody who
was like Daryl Hammond. H yeah, yeah, what about So
(27:41):
Kate Jackson didn't stay the whole time? No, Kay Jackson
didn't get along with Cheryl Ladd and the whole you
know what, the whole Cramer versus Kramer thing, right, I
don't know that Meryl Streep, you know, ended up winning
an oscar for Cramer Versus Kramer. Kay Jackson had been
offered that role and Aaron's spelling wouldn't let her out
of the cor Oh and that's I know, I know,
(28:03):
it's a terrible I know it. I still to this day,
thank how frustrated she must feel about that. Oh that's rough.
That's a rough one. But not as rough as what
happened to Welk in nineteen seventy one. That spring ABC
canceled his show. His audience was deemed too old and
(28:24):
too rural. But Lawrence Welk wasn't going to go quietly.
These lyrics are wild. Listening We're going through the music revolution.
(28:44):
Fred Ormison and I are listening to the Lawrence Welk
cast seeing about the cancelation of their show in nineteen
seventy one the same year as the Rural Purge over
at CBS. Is there some anger in this? They've been
(29:07):
booted from the network, so there is some fight in there.
There was some I'm sure that was when the anchor
came from. Yeah, if it sounds like that song Roy
Clark sang about he Haws cancelation in our Rural Purge episode,
there's a reason for it. It's actually the same song,
and the title is quite a mouthful. It's called the
(29:28):
Lawrence Welk Heehaw counter Revolution Polka, and it feels to me,
it feels kind of contemporary. This tension, yeah, between what's
perceived in the middle of the country and then the
people who are controlling what airs nationally. And Lawrence Welk
and Hehaw are kind of the two survivors. They go
(29:49):
into syndication, and Lawrence Welke after nineteen seventy one, just
he's at this point, he's almost seventy nineteen seventy one.
He was born in nineteen o three. Wow, would you welcome,
very charming, gentleman, mister Lawrence welcome. Johnny Carson asked Welk
about his cancelation on The Tonight Show in nineteen seventy four.
(30:10):
You were with seventeen years with ABC, and then did
you leave or did they say, hey, you're not going
to be on the network anymore. No, we didn't leave,
were requested to requested to leave. I've been through that.
Everybody hands was had television show. How did you take it?
Wasn't it? It was personal? A very difficult thing. But
Welk's sponsors stuck by him, as did his audience. After
(30:33):
getting the acts from ABC, his audience actually grew. How
many people would you reach every week? With that? I
would have made an estimate. I would say we reach
approximately around thirty million people. And so he assembles a
station group larger than ABC had had for him. So
continues getting tens of millions of viewers. Then, and we'll
(30:54):
stay on until nineteen eighty one or nineteen eighty two.
We were seeing this stuff between nineteen seventy one in
nineteen eighty two, which was the Lawrence Welk sort of
I'm not going to be kept down. I Am not
going to go down to the rural perge. I mean,
it's amazing he he benefited from that move. I feel like,
(31:14):
could it be seen as something a little bit like
and I'm not trying to make a shocking comparison. It's
a little bit of like what the Grateful Dead did.
They made so much money as a sort of live
act that there's a sort of like we're just going
to do our thing, just keep going, just keep going.
This is definitely the first Lawrence Welk Grateful Dead comparison ever.
But I think, but I totally hear what you're saying.
(31:40):
Lawrence Welk not only made a fortune in television, he
managed to create a real estate empire that included a
set of resorts. When he died on May seventeenth, nineteen
ninety two, he was reportedly the second richest entertainer in
the country after Bob Hope, and his musical variety series
was at that point point the longest running in history.
(32:03):
But that's not why I admire him. Lawrence Welk knew
who he was, and he knew his audience, as he
put it, very nice people. He played for theirs was
an almost sacred bond. He wasn't going to let network
executives interfere with that, and when they did, he went
his own way. That kind of rebel spirit is something
(32:25):
we usually associate with young people, but it was lived
out by a man in his late sixties. Lawrence Welk
was a square yes and a badass to this day.
His show can be seen in reruns on nearly three
hundred public television stations, and it's still the highest rated
(32:46):
syndicated series on public TV. Not bad for a kid
from North Dakota who grew up in a sowd house.
Now from all of har Musica family, good health and
good night. Next time on Mobituaries, we take the show
(33:15):
on the road. Seth Paul Prudome is not all together now,
Oh my god, I just got a whole audience to say,
Don Deloise and Unison, I certainly hope you enjoyed this Mobituary.
May I ask you to please rate and review our podcast.
You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and
(33:37):
you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca. You can
subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get your podcasts. This episode
of Mobituaries was produced by Megan Marcus, Sam Egan and
me Morocca. It was edited by Sam Egan and engineered
by Nathan Miller. Indispensable support from Lucy Kirk Genius Daneski
(34:00):
out there to Robina, Harry Wood, Richard Wore, and everyone
at CBS News Radio Special thanks to Susie Down and
of course to my friend the great Fred Armisson, who
can currently be seen in LUSAT Spookies on HBO. Our
theme music is written by Daniel Hart and is always
undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John carp without whom
(34:23):
Mobituaries couldn't live. That sound again, Charlie is your therapist
there again? Oh yes, and still hard at work showing
(34:43):
me the upper body development exercises. What about the lower body, Charlie, Well,
actually there doesn't seem to be a problem in that area,
Isn't that great? Charlie's always trying to improve himself. At
least I can do. Bye Angels by Hi, It's mo.
(35:16):
If you're enjoying Mobituaries the podcast, may I invite you
to check out Mobituaries the book. It's chock full of
stories not in the podcast. Celebrities who put their butts
on the line, sports teams that threw in the towel
for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses, presidential candidacies that cratered,
(35:37):
whole countries that went caput, and dragons Yes, dragons you see.
People used to believe the dragons will reel until just
get the book. You can order Mobituaries the book from
any online bookseller, or stop by your local bookstore and
look for me when I come to your city. Tour
information and lots more at mobituaries dot com fo
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