0:01

Hi, How are you doing? Oh great, how are you doing

0:03

good? Thanks for having me. Oh, I

0:05

love that you're here. I'm so glad that I ran into you on the

0:07

street that day. I believe

0:09

in stuff like that sometimes. I'm in the studio

0:12

today with my friend, actor, comedian

0:14

and musician Fred Armison.

0:17

He's here for a Mobituari's first

0:19

a sequel episode. Earlier

0:22

in the season, I told you the story

0:24

of television's rural purge

0:27

of the early nineteen seventies. That's

0:29

when CBS, in search of a

0:31

younger, more cosmopolitan audience,

0:34

decided to cancel en mass

0:37

the rural themed shows that had

0:39

come to define it. Green Acres,

0:41

Petticoat Junction, the Beverly

0:43

Hillbillings, all of them bought

0:46

the farm. These Ladida city

0:48

folks don't want our kind around. As

0:50

one actor put it, at the time, CBS

0:53

canceled everything with a tree

0:55

in it. Well, it turns out the

0:57

purge spread beyond CBS.

1:08

Good Night Over

1:10

at eight. The chief victim

1:13

was the Lawrence Welk Show, hosted

1:16

by the heavily accented bandleader

1:18

and accordion player Lawrence

1:21

Welk. Thank your Boyfriend

1:23

Girl, A real dured number.

1:26

Welk was anything but hip, and

1:29

his variety show catered to the more

1:32

senior set who longed

1:34

for the music and dancing of yesteryear.

1:37

So this evening, our show is dedicated

1:39

to our best friends, the senior

1:41

citizens of the nation, and we

1:44

starred with the song that should bring back a

1:46

few memories one and two.

1:52

But Fred Armison helped make Welk a

1:54

household name for a whole new generation

1:57

when he impersonated the Impressario

1:59

on Saturday Night Live Now

2:01

to take us out as a sister rack from

2:03

the finger Legs making their

2:05

wonderful Lawrence Welk Show debut.

2:08

So I knew he would be the perfect polka

2:10

partner. Thank You, Thank You. The

2:13

real Welk and his orchestra served

2:16

up a soothing stream of bubbly

2:18

champagne music starting in the nineteen

2:20

fifties, and

2:27

although he had built up a fiercely loyal

2:29

fan base, ABC canceled

2:31

Welk in nineteen seventy one. But

2:34

just like the variety show he hall

2:36

over at CBS, which survived

2:38

in syndication, the music didn't

2:41

die. You see. After the purge,

2:43

Welk and his musical family lived

2:46

on, but They'll never

2:48

takeaway champagne music that

2:52

pus Lawrence Welk up his car.

3:01

Could it be seen as something a little bit like

3:03

and I'm not trying to make a shocking

3:05

comparison, it's a little bit of like what the

3:07

Grateful Dead did in that

3:10

like just keep going, just

3:12

keep going. This is definitely the first

3:14

Lawrence Well Grateful Dead comparison ever. But

3:16

I think, but I totally hear what you're saying.

3:19

Fred and I will spend this episode talking

3:21

all things Welk. There will be

3:23

laughs, polka, and some

3:25

pretty crazy tangents. Jacqueline

3:27

Smith stayed on the show the entire time.

3:30

Charlie's Angels not Lawrence Walk because

3:33

why not? From CBS

3:35

Sunday Morning and Simon and Schuster,

3:38

I'm Mo Rocca and this is

3:40

mobituaries. This

3:47

mobit Lawrence Welk. May

3:50

seventeenth, nineteen ninety two,

3:53

Death of a Square. I

4:05

remember my family

4:08

watching, or my parents watching, but not in

4:10

a way that was like we must watch Lawrence

4:12

Welk. It was like in

4:15

the room, in the living room, it was just on

4:18

atmosphere on Yeah. Fred

4:20

Armison and I each grew up watching

4:22

Lawrence Welk in the nineteen seventies. It

4:25

wasn't exactly a choice. In

4:27

my case, my grandmother had it on when

4:29

we went over to her apartment to visit on Sundays,

4:33

and it's it's not like love or

4:35

dislike or anything. It's just I

4:38

mean, this is a positive thing. It's like a sort of wallpaper,

4:41

huh, colorful and

4:43

relaxing. To get us in the mood

4:46

for today's conversation, we traveled

4:48

down memory lane by sampling

4:50

some of Welk's greatest hits. There

4:53

were the big orchestral numbers like

4:55

this Stephen Foster Medley.

5:02

Oh this is great, isn't this? Wouldn't

5:04

this just bring your pulse right now? Let me let me fill

5:07

your glass right now. Oh

5:10

it's slowing, it's already

5:12

slowing. I'm so the

5:15

world has just faded

5:17

away. Indeed,

5:21

the show had an almost sedative

5:23

effect, not just the music,

5:25

but also the look. Bubbles

5:27

rolled over the opening credits, revealing

5:30

a polyester and chiffon fantasia

5:33

of powder blues, peaches, and

5:35

cream tones. As the singers

5:37

and dancers glided in and out

5:39

of numbers. Chandeliers

5:42

hung over a dance floor that

5:44

filled with couples who seemed to emerge

5:47

from out of nowhere. It felt

5:49

like a wedding reception happening

5:51

on another planet. Now

5:54

it's my great pleasure through

5:57

his four young ladies that have grown

6:00

so very very popular on our

6:02

two shows, The Wonderful Wonderful

6:05

Lennin Sisters, Mister

6:07

Wealth called his company of singers

6:09

and musicians his musical

6:11

family. The Lenin Sisters,

6:13

who literally grew up on the show, became

6:16

big stars with their almost hypnotizing

6:19

harmonies. Fucking

6:25

SENI, wow,

6:28

it's too so perfect. It's

6:31

really nice, isn't it. It's so lush.

6:33

Yeah, it's funny that there.

6:37

I'm guessing there was effects in a rock and roll people

6:39

who thought it was uncool, but it's

6:41

there's so many similarities, Like I think

6:43

that I think the Beach

6:46

Boys probably aren't that much different

6:48

than this, right, It's like pet

6:50

sounds for grandparents. Yeah, it's very soothing.

6:53

The Lenin's Sisters almost certainly

6:55

inspired the sister act led by

6:57

Kristen Wigg in Saturday Night

7:00

send up of the Welk Show Sisters

7:03

Do As Sisters Show, We're

7:06

All Together, Sisters,

7:09

you were telling me about um when

7:13

on Saturday Night Live, When do they say, we wanted to sketch

7:15

about Lawrence walk The fun thing about S

7:18

and L is that they don't really prepare

7:21

you for these things. It's really you know, we have this night

7:23

of writing and then you show up at the table

7:26

and right before you sit down, someone says,

7:28

hey, we have you as David

7:30

Lee Roth. WHOA okay. So you

7:33

kind of quickly look up and that's kind

7:35

of fun. You're like, I think you know, they cast

7:37

you because they think you might be able to look like that person.

7:40

But it's kind of fun to do some quick research and go like

7:42

what was he like, or maybe to go by your memories.

7:45

So the Lawrence Welks sketch is

7:48

um for you know, it's built

7:50

around Kristin Wiggs character, which

7:52

is great. That's the framework around it. Denice

7:55

was the name of character water

7:58

fun like

8:03

Chase sing Cars, and

8:06

so the writer

8:08

James Anderson clearly

8:11

had many memories of Lawrence Welk, Like he

8:13

wrote in a way that obviously all

8:16

the way from the Finger Lakes he just

8:19

knew. He just knew it's the show so

8:21

well that he's

8:23

a little he might be like, can

8:25

I tell you something about James Anderson? Please? Do. It is

8:27

so great. I toured

8:31

in the musical Grease with him through Southeast

8:33

Asia? What before

8:36

he was a writer on SNL When

8:38

I was twenty

8:42

four years old and I think he

8:44

was a couple of years older. We both forecast

8:47

in a non union production of the musical

8:49

Grease that went through Southeast Asia,

8:52

and I remember hearing afterwards

8:54

how he had become a writer on SNL when

8:56

I was so happy for him. Did you

8:59

know that he wrote the laurens? Oh?

9:01

Yeah, he and Kristen did thank

9:03

you, thank you wonderful? Was

9:06

her forehead really big? Or was I looking through

9:08

a couple of others, sony, So they

9:10

came to you then? Oh? Anyway, so you're

9:13

Lawrence welk And I already knew

9:16

enough. I mean, you know, I was familiar enough

9:18

that I was like, of course, Lawrence Welkum,

9:21

But then I didn't know enough about him.

9:23

I knew he had this accent, and

9:26

because I wanted to get that right, he learned to speaking

9:28

which when he was twenty one. Yes, he's speaking

9:30

German until then and from a

9:32

German community, a Roman Catholic

9:35

German community in the Dakotas,

9:39

educated by German speaking nuns.

9:41

Yeah, incredible. Now I want you

9:43

to listen to Welk speaking on his show.

9:46

We're happy to dedicate this show to

9:48

the most loyal members of our television

9:50

audience, the mothers of the nation.

9:53

And now here Fred's take. Now, before

9:55

we continue with our Mother's Day show, I'd

9:58

like to say something to my mother, mother,

10:01

thank you. Did you notice

10:03

I can say the thh and mother, But when

10:05

I tried to say thank you, I say thank you that's

10:08

where And so how did you go about

10:11

doing the accent? I mean, it really

10:13

was just imitation from

10:15

you know, hearing him and watching him, and

10:18

there's something in the d's and something

10:20

in the tongue in here, and

10:24

he was very official. This is an

10:26

announcement, this is something

10:28

I am speaking. It's almost like

10:31

he it's not casual, it's

10:34

not like, hey, you know, it

10:36

was very officially

10:39

I am bringing. And then the d's were sort of in the

10:41

middle of his mouth as opposed to d is

10:44

where where I heard it. I'm not saying

10:46

by the way that I perfected or I got it

10:48

perfectly right, but that's just strong. Great.

10:51

But you know, you make a good point that the

10:53

only thing that wasn't smooth

10:56

about the Lawrence walk Show was

10:58

the way he spoke, but even

11:01

that was added

11:03

to it, to the appeals, yes, and to the

11:06

whole vision of it. Told

11:08

me, what inspired you to become a musician?

11:11

Well, O, my family,

11:13

I believe my brothers and

11:15

sisters played into sang and my folks

11:18

my dad played the accordion and my mother sang.

11:20

So we had a lot of music either. Lawrence

11:26

Welcome may have had a strong accent, but

11:28

make no mistake, he was all American.

11:31

He was born on March eleventh, nineteen

11:33

oh three, in Strasbourg, North Dakota,

11:36

the sixth of eight children. His

11:38

parents were German immigrants who would

11:40

come to America by way of the Ukraine.

11:43

His family was living in a in a sawd

11:46

house. Yes, an upside

11:48

down wagon or something

11:50

with sawd over it right, It's just what

11:52

I read. Yeah, it's like I'm

11:54

sure. At that moment, he was like, you know what I'm gonna do. I'm

11:57

gonna study music and some

12:00

big band stuff. I'm gonna get singers. I'm

12:02

going to um have my own TV

12:04

show. And everyone was like what is TV. He's like, don't

12:06

worry about it. It's gonna

12:08

be televised everywhere, and I'm gonna

12:11

take over the airwaves. If life were only

12:14

that easy. In reality, the

12:16

young Welk had to make a bargain with his parents

12:18

just to own his first accordion. His

12:21

father sold a cow to purchase the

12:23

instrument. In return, Lawrence

12:26

worked on the farm through his twenty first

12:28

birthday and handed over any money

12:30

he made from playing local gigs. Feels

12:32

very German. Yeah, like here the terms

12:35

of our deal. Yeah,

12:41

and Alice

12:46

de gelt fondine Musik is

12:49

for the family. Okay,

12:52

couldn't no Dan exactly?

12:55

Do you think that the deal he made

12:58

with his father motivated him even

13:00

more in a way? Definitely

13:02

right? And what

13:06

I think it's great of his father also to say,

13:08

Okay, you want to do this, but let's make it

13:10

serious. You're not just gonna be jamming in the garage

13:13

of our sawd house with this with your buddies,

13:15

like you got to be serious. After he paid

13:17

his debt, Welk left home Accordion

13:20

in tow to pursue his musical

13:22

dreams. Soon enough, he

13:24

was leaving a ten piece band called the

13:26

Hotsi Tatsi Boys. That

13:28

name is about as racy as he ever got

13:31

and steadily gained a name across the

13:33

Upper Midwest. Along the way,

13:35

he married his wife, Fern. They'd stay

13:37

married for sixty one years and

13:39

they had three children. Now.

13:42

The label Champagne Music supposedly

13:44

came out of a gig in Pittsburgh,

13:46

where fans said that dancing to Welk's

13:49

music was like sipping champagne.

13:51

Incidentally, Welk did not drink. When

13:54

TV arrived, Welk moved to Los

13:56

Angeles and landed his own show

13:59

in nineteen fifty one on local station

14:01

KATLA. By nineteen

14:03

fifty five, he was offered a national

14:05

audience of over thirty million on

14:08

Saturday Night on ABC,

14:13

and here bood thank

14:18

you, thank you,

14:20

my good friend, and a pleasant hello.

14:23

Lawrence Welk shared the secret to

14:25

his success with Edward R. Murrow

14:27

on CBS's Person to Person.

14:29

I think we had the formula of playing simple

14:33

harmony, of good harmony along with the melody,

14:35

the type of music that's the American audience,

14:37

slige, and it's been most wonderful. I

14:40

think it must have taken some

14:42

real I guess he's courage

14:44

the right word, but it is kind of risky

14:47

to say this is it. It's

14:49

just pleasant. There's

14:51

nothing deeper than that. Is there anything that

14:54

you can compare it to today? The experience

14:56

of watching that kind of pleasant programming,

15:00

I think any sort of reality TV

15:02

that has to do with um,

15:05

either real estate or fixing

15:07

up a house or something where the uh,

15:10

that sort of relaxing feeling, like you know, the

15:12

end of a real estate show or or

15:15

sort of makeover shows. You know where

15:17

it's going. But it's interesting also pickase

15:19

in sort of turbulent times,

15:21

people watch HGTV even

15:24

more than usual because it's it's kind

15:26

of it's you go

15:28

to another place with it, yes, and

15:30

it's I

15:32

don't know if it's an escape as much as it's

15:34

just sort of I

15:37

mean this in a positive way, sort of numbing, just sort

15:39

of like a little maybe

15:41

like a little light drink. I want

15:44

um a cocktail

15:47

and a polka. Wealth

15:52

wasn't edgy, He wasn't surprising.

15:55

He was aggressively uncool, the

15:57

subject of parody even back in the fifties

16:00

for his stilted delivery and musical

16:02

taste. On his nineteen fifty

16:04

seven comedy album, satirist Stan

16:06

Freeberg poked fun at Welcome It's

16:09

the machine. I'm

16:15

please turn off the

16:17

babble machine. Then please

16:20

turn off the babbo. Thank

16:23

you. I'm a sister, but

16:27

well pushing fifty. When he

16:29

first got on TV, wasn't trying

16:31

to please the urban sophisticate, nor

16:34

was he all that interested in playgating

16:36

network suits who wanted him

16:38

to add more comedy and high profile

16:40

guest stars. They didn't like Welk's

16:43

accent. They also wanted him to

16:45

eliminate what they saw is the quirky

16:47

regionalism of his show Friend

16:50

and Welcoming draw off County

16:53

fair Show. There were whole episodes

16:55

built around songs of the South.

16:58

There was a salute to Canada extravaganza,

17:02

and an entire special dedicated

17:04

to his home state, and

17:15

mister Welk almost always made sure to

17:17

point out where his performers hailed

17:20

from, and I will bring you up a very

17:22

canded young man from South Dakota.

17:24

Here's the gentleman from Fargo, North Dakota.

17:26

Little Alice from Dela Bablida of

17:28

Tersa cited from Madisonville. Kim

17:31

Clucky own Kim n Wealth

17:36

largely ignored the network notes

17:38

and wanted to voted fan base.

17:41

He knocked one of the most popular comedians

17:44

of the nineteen fifties, Sid Caesar,

17:46

off of his Saturday night throne, which

17:49

made for this great headline. Lawrence

17:51

Welk may be known as the man who

17:54

killed Caesar. Did that show get canceled?

17:56

Yes, Caesar got canceled. Yeah I

17:58

didn't. They just moved the move to another time

18:00

sline. I don't know who knows. It's you know networks.

18:03

Let's get them on the phone. On top of that, the

18:05

Welk Orchestra's recording of the German

18:08

pop song Calcutta went to number

18:10

one when Welk was fifty seven,

18:13

making him the oldest person at the time

18:15

to top the charts. Wow,

18:22

do you remember that song? I don't remember that. And

18:27

then he was also an inventor. He patented

18:30

an accordion shaped ash tray.

18:32

Oh that's very cool. I want some

18:34

of these. Let's I mean, I'm not a smoker, but let's

18:36

have some of these around. Does it close? He

18:38

should have designed it so that it closes to you

18:41

know, I hold the same thing,

18:44

fold him yea, and actually do something

18:46

with the ashes, yes, create

18:48

a diamond. Oh definitely. Well,

18:50

I don't know if you knew that Lawrence

18:53

Folk was the first recipient of

18:55

the Theodore Roosevelt rough Rider

18:57

Award in nineteen sixty one, which

19:00

is awarded to North Dakotan's to distinguish

19:02

North Dakotans really and

19:04

other recipients. Other famous North

19:06

Dakotan's Peggy Lee, Oh,

19:09

I didn't know that. Who turns one hundred in

19:11

twenty twenty? Who?

19:14

She's dead? But she would have been a hundred years

19:16

old. Angie Dickinson is from

19:18

North Dakota. I love Angie.

19:21

Yeah, she's great. Whiz Khalifa

19:24

is from North Dakota. Away. Yeah.

19:27

They have to have a little hall of famers and they

19:29

do, okay great. If I had to choose between

19:31

the Dakotas, I would choose North Dakota. But

19:34

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

19:38

of other famous South Dakota. But how did you know about

19:41

Sarah Latte? I just I was a big Charlie's Angels

19:43

fan. Once upon a time, there were

19:45

three little girls who went to the police

19:47

Academy.

19:51

You were, yeah, the original

19:53

three Chary latt is a close

19:56

like she's class I mean she's she plays Bill

19:58

Murray of sn That's

20:00

actually a great that would be a

20:03

great SAP analogy question. Bill

20:05

Murray is too snl

20:08

as blank is Charlie's Angels

20:10

and you fill in Cheryl last She's in

20:12

there early enough, she's she

20:15

came in season two and she played fair Faucet's

20:17

sister, Jill Monroe's sister. Oh wow,

20:19

right, is um Is

20:23

Bodley still alive? No, David Doyle's

20:25

dead And anyway, enough

20:27

Charlie's Angels for now, at least back

20:30

to Welk who show remained a safe,

20:32

unchanging space for loyal, mostly

20:35

older viewers, and in case anyone

20:37

needed to be reminded of the audience demographic,

20:40

the show was sponsored by the vitamin supplement

20:43

Cheratoll, America's number one

20:45

tonic, Jeratol hipup

20:47

and say vitamin plus iron tonic that

20:50

helped you feel stronger fast. They

20:56

would have these the shots of the

20:58

audience dancing, usually

21:01

older people and not

21:03

glamorous. That

21:06

had to be intentional. I

21:09

mean it's really smart too, because the

21:11

audience probably looked like the rest of the audience at home.

21:13

The studio audience was also overwhelmingly

21:16

white, as was the makeup of

21:18

the Musical Family and TV

21:21

in general in the nineteen sixties. Yet

21:23

the show did break barriers when

21:25

tap dancing phenom Arthur Duncan

21:28

became the first African American regular

21:30

on any TV variety series when

21:32

he joined the show in nineteen sixty four.

21:35

The King of Taps, Arthur

21:37

Duncan Uron and

21:39

Arthur Duncan has repeatedly

21:42

said Lawrence had

21:44

his rules, he knew what he

21:46

wanted, and that's what made the show

21:48

working. I'm guessing the Lawrence Well Show would

21:50

fall apart otherwise, you know, people

21:52

showing off and stuff. Most of the stars

21:54

on the show really only existed

21:56

within the Welk universe. There

21:59

was Myron Florin on the Accordion,

22:01

Champagne, Lady Norma Zimmer pianist,

22:04

Joe Anne Castle, dancers

22:06

Bobby and Sissy, married singers

22:09

Guy and Ralna. What I always found

22:11

sort of interesting as a kid

22:13

watching it

22:15

was that the people on it you would never

22:18

see on other shows, and you never

22:20

saw I never did. I know it happened occasionally,

22:22

but I never saw very famous people from outside

22:24

the show on the show, So it

22:27

was a parallel universe.

22:30

It was its own world. I

22:33

never thought about that. But there were no

22:35

guest stars. There weren't like I

22:37

guess a very famous appearance was made by Jack

22:39

Benny because he really liked Jack Benny. But

22:42

otherwise it was almost

22:44

hermetically sealed. Yeah. Now

22:46

before we get further into that, you're

22:48

going to have to pardon the segue. Okay, so we should

22:50

put on the other headphones, right, headphones.

22:53

While waiting to hear a musical clip, Fred

22:56

and I took a slight detour. I

22:58

think the thing is I never

23:00

understood the

23:02

lack of affection for Shelly Hacks Charlie's

23:05

Angel. She was the fourth

23:08

one, and I thought she was fine. She was

23:10

Tiffany Welch from Boston, so

23:12

they were trying to do like a sophisticated Angel.

23:15

I've support it fully, so I

23:18

guess I just feel like the flack that Shelly Hack got

23:20

for not being a great actress

23:23

like it worked for. And also whatever

23:25

generation signed on to Charlie's

23:28

Angels, for them, that is their Charlie's

23:30

Angel, So one could

23:32

say she was the Adam Sandler

23:35

of You know, that's sort of like people, how

23:38

could you have Adam Sandler on what happens to the original

23:40

cast, And there's a generation saying no,

23:42

he's this is our angel. One thing's for sure.

23:45

None of the Angels would have graced the

23:47

Welk stage. One of the early Welk

23:49

performers, Alice Lawn, was reportedly

23:52

let go for showing too much leg Welk's

23:55

show was the ultimate encounter

23:57

countercultural programming. The

24:00

orchestra did cover popular songs, they

24:02

were welcified, though one particular

24:05

adaptation may not have been such

24:07

a hit with the older crowd.

24:10

One Toke over the line sweet

24:12

Jesus one token,

24:14

oh boy, the

24:20

line wow,

24:24

how did it happen? Apparently

24:27

he liked that the lyrics included

24:30

sweet Jesus, and so he didn't realize

24:32

what the song did. Someone

24:35

must have explained it to him, right, I

24:37

don't know, I've

24:41

been changing. Is

24:43

you complain to see? I

24:45

mean, what did they think? Toke was? I

24:48

mean, it doesn't mean anything else. Maybe

24:51

he thought it was a token. I

24:54

mean, the music does work for the show. But

24:57

Lawrence Welk was no fool. He

24:59

was well aware of what youth culture thought

25:01

of him. In one memorable episode

25:03

from nineteen sixty nine, an old

25:05

hippie in sunglasses and a sheepskin

25:08

vest ambled out on stage and

25:10

silenced the orchestra. Is

25:15

that him? Hold time, You'll

25:17

see Okay, now listen to what

25:19

he says. Don't you cats

25:22

know this polka jazz is strictly

25:24

from Squaresville. Usually

25:28

the charm of the show is they don't care about

25:31

the outside world, which is what I love about it, right,

25:33

and they're they're kind of all of

25:35

a sudden we see the outside world. Even hearing

25:37

the word hippies, I thought, I don't

25:39

want to. I was enjoying not even thinking

25:41

about them. I

25:46

hope you're going to like my fabulous rapping.

25:49

Welk appeared as himself with Vivian

25:52

Vance and Lucille Ball on an

25:54

episode of Here's Lucy, a spinoff

25:56

of I Love Lucy, and made fun of

25:58

his own accent. Oh, I know he'll

26:00

be wonderful one. That

26:11

is the worst imitation of Lawrence. He's

26:14

very aware of the audience. Oh,

26:17

he's a good sport, you know. I think of Lawrence

26:19

Welk in sort of isolation, his

26:21

own world. Then you see him with a

26:23

titan with Lucy and

26:26

she's playing someone who's sort of overwhelmed

26:28

by the celebrity of Lawrence Welk. It just shows

26:31

you what a big deal he was. And

26:33

also he's clearly enjoying himself, which is really nice.

26:36

I mean, if you're being parodied, you're

26:38

in good shape. I mean, clearly

26:41

it's enough of a gamble that people will get the

26:43

reference. So that's already

26:45

a sign that things are going really well. Parodied

26:48

multiple times and then into the two thousands

26:50

with SNL, I mean, that's

26:53

really says a lot about the show. What

26:55

do you think he would have thought of the parody? I

26:57

think I'm going to, just as

26:59

a gay say that maybe he wouldn't have been

27:01

psyched it. I think you would have said, I don't understand

27:04

it. The Lennon sisters, Yeah, say

27:07

they loved it, the

27:09

SNL parody. They've seen it. Yeah,

27:11

yeah, they the Lennon sisters have

27:14

seen it. Yeah, Oh my god.

27:16

But it's another group of women that

27:18

sends us back on a tangent. Jacqueline

27:21

Smith stayed on the show the entire time.

27:24

Charlie's Angels, not Lawrence walk and

27:26

who can we compare her to? Oh,

27:31

I'm trying to think who's the longest running cast. She's

27:34

like Tim Meadows, somebody who was like Daryl

27:37

Hammond. H yeah, yeah,

27:40

what about So Kate Jackson didn't stay the whole time?

27:42

No, Kay Jackson didn't get along with

27:45

Cheryl Ladd and the whole you know what, the whole Cramer

27:47

versus Kramer thing, right, I don't know

27:50

that Meryl Streep, you know, ended up winning

27:52

an oscar for Cramer Versus Kramer. Kay

27:55

Jackson had been offered that role and

27:57

Aaron's spelling wouldn't let her out of the cor Oh

28:01

and that's I know, I know, it's

28:03

a terrible I know

28:05

it. I still to

28:07

this day, thank how frustrated she must

28:10

feel about that. Oh that's rough.

28:12

That's a rough one. But not as rough as

28:14

what happened to Welk in nineteen seventy

28:16

one. That spring ABC

28:19

canceled his show. His audience

28:22

was deemed too old and too

28:24

rural. But Lawrence Welk

28:27

wasn't going to go quietly. These

28:32

lyrics are wild. Listening We're

28:37

going through the music revolution.

28:44

Fred Ormison and I are listening to

28:46

the Lawrence Welk cast seeing about

28:49

the cancelation of their show in nineteen

28:51

seventy one the same year as

28:53

the Rural Purge over at CBS.

29:05

Is there some anger in this? They've been booted

29:07

from the network, so there is

29:09

some fight in there. There was some I'm sure that

29:12

was when the anchor came from.

29:14

Yeah, if it sounds like that song Roy

29:16

Clark sang about he Haws cancelation

29:19

in our Rural Purge episode, there's

29:21

a reason for it. It's actually

29:23

the same song, and the title

29:26

is quite a mouthful. It's called the

29:28

Lawrence Welk Heehaw counter

29:30

Revolution Polka, and it

29:33

feels to me, it feels

29:35

kind of contemporary. This tension, yeah,

29:38

between what's

29:40

perceived in the middle of the country and then

29:42

the people who are controlling what airs

29:44

nationally. And Lawrence Welk and Hehaw

29:47

are kind of the two survivors. They go into

29:49

syndication, and Lawrence Welke after

29:51

nineteen seventy one, just he's

29:54

at this point, he's almost

29:57

seventy nineteen seventy one. He was born in nineteen

29:59

o three. Wow, would you welcome, very

30:01

charming, gentleman, mister Lawrence welcome. Johnny

30:04

Carson asked Welk about his cancelation

30:07

on The Tonight Show in nineteen seventy

30:09

four. You were with seventeen years with ABC,

30:12

and then did you leave or did they say,

30:14

hey, you're not going to be on the network anymore. No, we

30:17

didn't leave, were

30:20

requested to requested to leave. I've been

30:22

through that. Everybody hands was had television show. How did

30:24

you take it? Wasn't it? It was personal? A

30:27

very difficult thing. But Welk's

30:29

sponsors stuck by him,

30:31

as did his audience. After

30:33

getting the acts from ABC, his

30:35

audience actually grew. How

30:37

many people would you reach every week? With that? I

30:40

would have made an estimate. I would say we reach approximately

30:42

around thirty million people. And

30:44

so he assembles a station group larger

30:48

than ABC had had for him. So

30:51

continues getting tens of millions of viewers. Then,

30:53

and we'll stay on until nineteen eighty one or nineteen

30:55

eighty two. We were seeing this stuff between nineteen

30:58

seventy one in nineteen eighty two, which

31:00

was the Lawrence Welk sort of I'm not

31:02

going to be kept down. I Am not going

31:04

to go down to the rural perge.

31:07

I mean, it's amazing he

31:11

he benefited from that move. I feel

31:13

like, could it be seen as something

31:15

a little bit like and I'm not trying to make

31:17

a shocking comparison. It's a little

31:19

bit of like what the Grateful Dead did.

31:22

They made so much money as a sort of live

31:24

act that there's a sort of like we're just

31:26

going to do our thing, just keep going, just

31:29

keep going. This is definitely the first

31:31

Lawrence Welk Grateful Dead comparison ever. But

31:33

I think, but I totally hear what you're saying.

31:40

Lawrence Welk not only made a fortune

31:42

in television, he managed to create

31:44

a real estate empire that included

31:46

a set of resorts. When

31:48

he died on May seventeenth, nineteen

31:51

ninety two, he was reportedly the

31:53

second richest entertainer in the country

31:55

after Bob Hope, and his musical

31:58

variety series was at that point point

32:00

the longest running in history.

32:03

But that's not why I admire him.

32:06

Lawrence Welk knew who he was,

32:09

and he knew his audience, as

32:11

he put it, very nice people. He

32:13

played for theirs was an

32:15

almost sacred bond. He

32:17

wasn't going to let network executives interfere

32:20

with that, and when they did, he

32:22

went his own way. That kind

32:24

of rebel spirit is something we usually

32:26

associate with young people, but

32:28

it was lived out by a man in

32:30

his late sixties. Lawrence

32:33

Welk was a square yes and

32:36

a badass to

32:38

this day. His show can be seen in reruns

32:41

on nearly three hundred public television

32:43

stations, and it's still the highest

32:46

rated syndicated series on public

32:48

TV. Not bad

32:50

for a kid from North Dakota who

32:52

grew up in a sowd house. Now

32:56

from all of har Musica family, good

32:58

health and good night. Next

33:11

time on Mobituaries, we

33:14

take the show on the road. Seth

33:17

Paul Prudome is not

33:20

all together now, Oh

33:23

my god, I just got a whole audience to say, Don

33:25

Deloise and Unison, I

33:27

certainly hope you enjoyed this Mobituary.

33:30

May I ask you to please rate and review

33:32

our podcast. You can also follow

33:34

Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram,

33:37

and you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca.

33:40

You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever

33:42

you get your podcasts. This episode

33:45

of Mobituaries was produced by

33:47

Megan Marcus, Sam Egan and

33:50

me Morocca. It was edited

33:52

by Sam Egan and engineered

33:54

by Nathan Miller. Indispensable

33:56

support from Lucy Kirk Genius

33:59

Daneski out there to Robina, Harry

34:01

Wood, Richard Wore, and everyone

34:04

at CBS News Radio Special

34:06

thanks to Susie Down and of course

34:09

to my friend the great Fred Armisson, who

34:11

can currently be seen in LUSAT Spookies

34:14

on HBO. Our theme music

34:16

is written by Daniel Hart and is always

34:19

undying thanks to Rand Morrison

34:21

and John carp without whom Mobituaries

34:24

couldn't live. That

34:37

sound again, Charlie is your therapist

34:39

there again? Oh yes, and

34:42

still hard at work showing me the upper

34:44

body development exercises. What

34:48

about the lower body, Charlie, Well, actually

34:50

there doesn't seem to be a problem in that area,

34:55

Isn't that great? Charlie's always

34:57

trying to improve himself. At

35:00

least I can do. Bye

35:03

Angels by Hi,

35:15

It's mo. If you're enjoying Mobituaries

35:18

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35:22

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