Surprisingly, there is some lingering interest in this kind of music, albeit small. Dick Sinclair's Polka Party still airs through the Cable Radio Network, and can also be found on YouTube and other online venues. Mr. Sinclair is still with us - age 96.
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Why couldn't variety shows adapt in the 70s?
- Thread starter installLSC
- Start date
Surprisingly, there is some lingering interest in this kind of music, albeit small. Dick Sinclair's Polka Party still airs through the Cable Radio Network, and can also be found on YouTube and other online venues. Mr. Sinclair is still with us - age 96.
What seems to have happened with Lawrence Welk's audience, people who hated the show when their grandparents watched it when they were kids, now watch it themselves now that they are grandparents. Maybe musical tastes change. Or maybe the show evokes nostalgia for the time when they still had their grandparents around.
I think anyone whose musical taste developed pre-rock is fair game. I know my in-laws have always listened and still do. I thought PBS cancelled the show a couple of years ago. I wonder where it's coming from.
The show is distributed by the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, not PBS. It has remained in distribution. Maybe your local public TV station stopped running it but it has been on consistently a lot of other places. In my area, one station runs it both Saturday and Sunday nights and a second show also runs it on Saturday (the only instance in the regular schedule when it duplicates what the first station is running). Whoever is watching, apparently they pledge.
SNL did regular bits satarizing Welk a few years ago. Most people watching SNL - or writing it - now weren't born when Welk retired, or died, but millennials must know the show for SNL to make fun of it.
My grandparents were wonderful, but today I wouldn't watch more than a couple of minutes of Welk, Death Valley Days, or any of the other shows that were always on -- and too loud, at that -- at Nana and Papa's house when we'd visit. Maybe I'd smile and remark, "I think Papa had this on just about every time we'd drop by," but there'd have to be serious money involved to get me to sit through a whole hour.
My grandparents, born in the WW I era, were BIG fans of Lawrence Welk.
As a tot I was subjected to Welk at their house on a weekly basis.
My parents were not Welk fans. Both were born in the WW II era. My dad is
into American Standards and my mom into doo-wop and early 60's folk-rock.
Though I remember hours and hours of Welk from my early childhood, I am not a fan.
Best I can say is I go back and look at old photos of the Lennon Sisters and think
"they were kinda hot!"
..or better yet check out the tabloids of that era a lot of that was about The Lennons. Kinda like today what they do with the Kardashians. My uncle ( RIP ) for some unknown reason had saved just about every copy of TV-Radio Mirror from the 60s and early 70s. I couldn't believe how much coverage The Lennon sisters had received just from that one magazine alone. Some of the headlines were hysterical though "THE LENNON SISTERS TO LAWRENCE WELK...KEEP YOUR NASTY HANDS AWAY FROM OUR BABIES !!!. Was Welk really that evil ?? My parents once told me that when the father of the Lennon sisters was murdered in 1969 more people were more shocked by that than they were with the murder of Sharon Tate which had also took place in 1969.
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I couldn't tell you how "evil" Lawrence Welk was or wasn't but if an act left his "musical family" they were dead to him. There was no use of "formerly of the Lawrence Welk Show" and even if a cast member was still on the show, they couldn't use any reference to Welk on any of their own projects or while touring (I believe that was an issue with Myron Floren).
My grandmother was Welk all the way (born in 1900); at my parents', Hee Haw won the Welk/Hee Haw Saturday night war.
My grandmother was Welk all the way (born in 1900); at my parents', Hee Haw won the Welk/Hee Haw Saturday night war.
Careful what you say now when you talk about Death Valley Days...if you recall, it was hosted by none other than Ronald Reagan.
For perspective, my grandmother was born in the 1890s - she was NOT a Lawrence Welk fan, and was proud of that fact.
The viewing habits of the elderly can't always be pigeonholed as old-school, etc. My grandfather (born in 1895) had a favorite show at the time of his death in 1979: Barney Miller, which was then in its fifth season. Ironically, he died about a week after Jack Soo. That said, I'm not even sure where his musical tastes lie, but it's a safe bet that anything after 1950 was probably considered garbage.
Welk's reputation and his dealings with his employees were not unlike those of Arthur Godfrey, from what I understand. Although AFAIK, Welk never fired anyone on-air.
He did get a lot of critical mail from viewers when he fired Alice Lon as "champagne lady." He tried to get he to come back and she told what to do with his accordion.
The variety show format was TV's throwback to vaudeville. A sort of "Something For Everybody" kind of thing where there would be modern songs sung by entertainers far past their prime and strange songs only Grandma remembers sung by teenagers. And lots of slapstick comedy.
While it served to demonstrate TV in it's infancy, it was already getting pretty dated by the mid 1960s. Culture, style and music changes were making the variety show a lot more difficult to appeal to older viewers and younger viewers alike. It was just getting out of touch with everybody.
But what really ENDED it for good was a little off-season replacement in 1980 called Pink Lady & Jeff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Lady_(band)#Pink_Lady_in_the_USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCCfRtgaHys
While it served to demonstrate TV in it's infancy, it was already getting pretty dated by the mid 1960s. Culture, style and music changes were making the variety show a lot more difficult to appeal to older viewers and younger viewers alike. It was just getting out of touch with everybody.
But what really ENDED it for good was a little off-season replacement in 1980 called Pink Lady & Jeff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Lady_(band)#Pink_Lady_in_the_USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCCfRtgaHys
We've sort of ignored the concept of DAYTIME variety shows, such as Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin. I'd consider Live With Kelly & Michael to be a variety show. In that same way, the morning shows like Today and Good Morning America have incorporated some of the variety elements, as have the night shows like Kimmel, Fallon, and Colbert.
Rosie O'Donnell was going to bring back the Mike Douglas/Merv Griffin style of daytime talk/variety show with her mid-90s effort as the "Queen of Nice".
A line from Man on the Moon (the Andy Kaufmann story) after an appearance on Merv Griffin's show/ "Merv Griffin got hate mail. Merv Griffin doesn't get hate mail!"
A line from Man on the Moon (the Andy Kaufmann story) after an appearance on Merv Griffin's show/ "Merv Griffin got hate mail. Merv Griffin doesn't get hate mail!"
Everybody knew that persona was total BS. Rosie O'Donnell is to "nice" what Howard Cosell was to "humility."
Dean Martin's insulting attitude toward the Rolling Stones on Hollywood Palace was another indication of how stuck in the mud many such programs were. Martin began his own long-running show the following year, but I'm pretty sure no rock groups ever made it there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOr2a9oEzGQ
During his Cleveland days, Mike Douglas made an effort to veer outside entertainment personalities for guests from time to time. He had Madalyn Murray O'Hair a few days after she won her 1963 Supreme Court ruling about prayer in the classroom. The next year, he had Dr. Sam Shepard (who was from the Cleveland area) and his lawyer F. Lee Bailey on about a week after his conviction for killing his wife had been overturned. Sheppard's appearance caused some major tension backstage, with comedian Henry Morgan walking out before his second comedy bit on the show. Bailey later said that he would sue Morgan because he had supposedly called Sheppard a murderer, but the case went nowhere.
The following artists appeared on The Dean Martin Show at the same time they were featured on Top 40 radio playlists:
Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass
Frankie Avalon
Dino, Desi & Billy
Jan & Dean
The Righteous Brothers
The Supremes
Shirley Bassey
Petula Clark
Herman's Hermits
Nancy Sinatra
Lou Rawls
Glenn Campbell
Engelbert Humperdinck
Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
The Temptations
Dionne Warwick
Lynn Anderson
Olivia Newton-John
Donna Fargo
Jeannie C. Reilly
The Statler Brothers
The list includes some cross-over country acts. In addition, a number of country and western acts were booked and some R&B acts that likewise did not cross-over to the Top 40 stations. The show did not book the more controversial or hard rock performers but stayed with acts also crossing over to MOR stations. During the time of The Dean Martin Show cross-overs were very common and a lot of singles made the charts and radio playlists in more than one category.
Another factor very important: Variety shows decline concurrent with A.C. Nielsen beginning to report demographics.
All rather "white, middle America, middle class, middle aged-friendly" acts, unlike the Stones.
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