Welk proudly exclaimed that the “big-bands” were reportedly staging a comeback, quickly adding that “we never left!” Indeed, Lawrence Welk had been in the big-band game since 1924 when he left the farm in North Dakota to seek success in the music business. Last night, on my selected show from 1974, Mr. How many television shows have lasted that long on network reruns besides “Lucy,” or perhaps Dick Van Dyke/Mary Tyler Moore? Now, in 2017, sixty-two years later, we can still watch the old shows on PBS. For twenty-seven years, the Lawrence Welk show came into our living rooms on Saturday night, sponsored first by Dodge, then Geritol (don’t laugh!), and later, via syndication. I was in my early teens in 1955 when the Lawrence Welk show debuted on that also-adolescent medium called television. It is a shame that the concepts of “music” and “talent” have become so degraded in this day-and-age of uber-amplified sound and slurred, unintelligible lyrics. Welk and his “Champagne Music Makers.” Sadly, today’s generation, by and large, would find watching and listening to Lawrence Welk quite beyond the pale.
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Experience has taught me that there is no better way to “wind-down” before bedtime after a hectic day than reliving music from that magical era, courtesy of Mr.
![the lawrence welk show cast the lawrence welk show cast](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2011/05/13/arts/ZIMMER-obit/ZIMMER-obit-jumbo.jpg)
![the lawrence welk show cast the lawrence welk show cast](http://www.moviefanfare.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Lawrence_Welk.jpg)
Last night, as so often is the case, I went to my DVR and brought up recorded episodes of the Lawrence Welk show which still regularly play on PBS television. Watching the old Lawrence Welk television shows on PBS is like traveling through a time-machine for those of us who grew up during the era of the nineteen fifties, sixties, and on into the eighties.