Let’s just say there were times in my childhood when I was desperate enough to watch even Lawrence Welk on tv. And there were all those beautiful young women. How did he do it?
Vintage Photo: Lawrence Welk Could Pick Up Beautiful Young Women Even In A Scout
– Posted on April 30, 2021
Maybe because they didn’t want to go near his 61 Dodge Dart? 🙂
Welk’s show was sponsored by Dodge for quite a long time but I did not know about any IH tie-in.
For my generation everyone’s Grandma loved the Lawrence Welk Show, which lasted a long time in syndication after it went off the network.
oops, forgot the picture
Oh Lawrence! How could you!?!
still on PBS, still watch it…memories if mom.
Groucho Marx got into the act, too. His sponsor was De Soto.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-omr-001&ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=omr¶m1=y6bdVFVIsvuYsgEClQfz8FBvKkXdqONxqOqRNOxENVbiwBWUBAkIDdn%2FLYzhTNzPYDceDfbJM1lUn1t8GDKeHI0FJVgil9O04hWrQwgVWNf0LEcHq8X9Ku3BiTfOctOq9JpwBXz%2BKnvVerKnbFyYbXb4W6EM%2F0qttb2NJc4uDNb28tdUNSormbYHg8OIfbWltBWKV2C7R4Gbz6%2BXKFdfqptDs35Pyjva8lHT6mw6hgo4HtAngnEtkKm27egJLb2VRBiBBqn0aW5NrfR2PTIVabXpHC%2BKT%2FJWsmfvqihuUJg%3D&p=ad+de+soto+with+gorucho+marx&type=863163319#id=0&vid=ca90a7089c7a298949573479a246dc0d&action=click
And might I remind you all, NO OTHER CAR RIDES LIKE A DE SOTO.
But is that DeSoto ride a good ride or not I wonder…. 😉
Once when I was about 8, I was going along with my dad as he shopped for a new car. When we walked into the DeSoto/Plymouth dealer, I said what the TV show instructed us to say: “Groucho sent us!” Dad wasn’t happy, but the dealer probably was.
It’s DeLightful, It’s DeLovely, It’s DeSoto!
I think those of us of a certain age were all desperate enough to watch Lawrence Welk in our youth, particularly if we lived in a market with only two or three stations in pre-cable TV days.
But you’ve got to give them credit for trying to appeal to a younger audience, like this “modern spiritual” by Gail and Dale…
Count me as one of those. In small town Minnesota early 1960s we got CBS and that’s it. Capt Kangaroo, Gunsmoke, Cronkite, Lawrence Welk.
One Toke, ha! The overlap between LW fans and regular pot users was zero.
Think of the amount of dental work that went into that show!
With all the polyester and hairspray, it’s a good thing they never had a fire on set.
I like Shep’s take on Lawrence Welk:
My family used to watch L-Dub when we visited my grandparents at their farm. As a young kid, I remember liking it. Whenever the dancers started (Arthur, Bobby, Cissy, etc.) when I was really young, all of a sudden I’d bust out “dancing” along with them in the living room. For a while, I was watching some of it on an Indiana PBS station, but haven’t for a long time.
Maybe five years ago, I discovered a Lawrence Welk remix album called “Upstairs At Larry’s” that is shockingly and amazingly good, and only slightly kitschy, which I was not expecting.
“L-Dub.” I love it, Joseph! Sounds like a rapper name!
I’m so stealing this, if I ever get the opportunity to use it.
The Lawrence Welk Show still appears on some Public Broadcasting stations. Either there is still an audience or those stations’ budgets are running short.
“A’ One, and a’ Two, and a…”
I’d just mentioned on Alden Jewell’s Flickr (where this photo exists and heartily recommended to anyone who’s into cars at any level), that I’ve often surmised that in the single-sponsor era the networks would’ve likely had to keep their chauffeured car services in-house and the fleet mixed but with careful policies to make sure any stars with automotive sponsorship were picked up in the right make.
This would’ve been more of an issue in NYC than LA, it wouldn’t have done for Ed Sullivan to be seen on Broadway alighting from a black Cadillac prior to a show’s worth of exhorting the virtues of Lincoln-Mercury. Welk likely drove his own Dodge “company car” – he seems to have favored convertibles with continental kits – from Beverly Hills to the studio.
Speaking of the logistics of filming in New York vs. Hollywood, Welk has enough currency that Saturday Night Live parodied the Lennon Sisters with the Maharelle Sisters from the Finger Lakes, notably Kristen Wiig’s Dooneese. I can easily picture her getting behind the wheel of the sponsor’s product display on stage and driving a ’59 Dodge fins-first into the orchestra pit were it not for those sketches being done live and
SNL originating from the eighth floor.
Saturday evenings were often spent at my grandmothers house which was also my great grandmothers house as they lived together. After a delicious supper I was usually instructed to “…go in the parlor and plug in the television and warm it up.” It was always a television and never a TV to them and it was never left plugged in for fear of fire. It was only watched about two hours a week anyway. Lawrence Welk was a huge big deal in that house and was not to be missed. After being serenaded by the likes of Myron, Norma JoAnne and the Lennon Sisters the set would be unplugged until Sunday night when Walt Disney was on and then unplugged for the rest of the week. Different times. I was at a flea market a few years ago and someone was selling a Lawrence Welk serving tray that showed him behind the wheel of a 1914 Dodge. It was neat but not $50 worth of neat that the the clown was asking for it.
Wiki tells me he landed in LA in 1951 (with lots of bandleading years under his belt); here’s a local Hudson promotion–a car I’d be happy to have today:
With a ’59 (?) Dodge, and the national TV show off and running. LW had no problem getting really fine musicians to play for him, ’cause it was a good job with playing to high standards. (I got to play a pick-up gig with his accordionist Myron Floren once upon a time, and am still happy to boast of it!)
“Play the music and play it straight.”
I recall reading about a longtime Welk musician (I’ve forgotten who) who wanted to play jazz when he was starting out. Then he noticed how Woody Herman’s band came to town in a bunch of scraggly cars while Guy Lombardo’s band came to town in big, gleaming buses. His desire to make a living outweighed his love of jazz and he made a good living with Welk.
JPC, I understand completely—there are kinds of music I want to play, and kinds of music people will pay me to play—and one can only hope for some intersection there. A couple months ago I prankishly FB-posted this quote, attributing it to George Martin—and got lots of “likes” for it. Then I told ’em it was Lawrence Welk, 1966, and they weren’t certain how to feel about it:
And, of course, there was the license plate:
Okay, one more 1950s convertible:
My father watched Lawrence Welk religiously back then, I was 9 years old and still remember vividly as Lawrence introduced the new 1956 Dodge on his show.
Never heard of him or his show.
Culturally deprived.
Damn lucky!
ah.. The bubble man. My sister used to say: we dont wana watch the bubble man! My Grandparents where actually more hip; they watched Ed Sullivan.
“The Dodge Dancing Party with Lawrence Welk and His Champagne Music Makers!” watch any of those mid-1950’s Dodge commercials, they are the prefect Ike and Mamie good-life ideal of the period. Bubbles in my champagne, indeed!
What catches my eye is the lack of the windshield and vent windows. The lack of the vent window can be easily explained by the earliest Scouts having sliding windows that were completely removeable. Roll up windows with a vent window came later though from what I read there were years where it was possible to order either.
The early Scouts also came with a fold down windshield and it too seemed to be an option on the later Scouts but not common. The problem is that the bolts that would hold on either the fold down or fixed windshield are behind the dash/defroster vents and those items would have to be removed to gain access to the windshield bolts. So someone when to a bit of trouble to not have the windshield stacked up on top of the hood.
I wonder if this was just used on his property, so he had it removed and it stayed off or was it removed for the photo shoot?
Of course the answer to how it “picked up” beautiful young women is easy. He was a star who could put them on TV and possibly make them a star, or at least get them into show business.
The lady sitting in the passenger seat is Norma Zimmer, his “Champagne Lady.” At the the time this photo was taken (assuming it was taken in 1961-62), she was pushing 40 and was married with two sons. She passed away in 2011. At least some of the brunette women sitting behind him are members of the Lennon Sisters.
My grandmother (born in 1913) faithfully watched Lawrence Welk every Saturday night well into the 1990s. Episodes were broadcast by a local station.
There are several Dodge commercials on Youtube featuring Welk and/or his singers. My favorite is a commercial featuring the Lennon Sisters. They tout the virtues of a 1960 Dart in a jingle specifically written for the car.
Sitting behind Norma is JoAnne Castle with the blond hair. The name of the other woman behind Norma escapes me. Sadly The Lennon Sisters paid a high price for fame. Their father was murdered by a deranged fan.
I believe that she is Barbara Boylan, a dancer on the show.
The murder of the father of the Lennon sisters was big news at the time. I remember my grandmother talking about it.
Driving north up I 15 out of San Diego you pass the Champagne Boulevard exit for the Lawrence Welk Village retirement community.
15 years ago it was thriving, but not so much now.
ETA judging by the rocky hillside in the background, that’s probably where this picture was taken.
That’s what I thought also. Nice golf course. At least it was 14 years ago when I played there.
Stan Freberg parody. Turn off the bubble machine.
Claude Short’s Dodge dealership in Santa Monica maintained the fleet of complimentary cars driven by his cast, including the virtuous young women who sang on his show. Mechanics found some interesting items in the back seats of some of their cars from time to time.
Used to do a lot of business with them, good dealership. They had a picture of Welk taking delivery of a St. Regis in their showroom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZofESfdhQc
Most unusual to say the least. I had a friend growing up whose parents were big into Welk. I never watched the show at home, my folks watched Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash.
Mr. Welk was into real estate even more than cars. He owned an entire city block here in downtown Santa Monica where I live that contained his Champagne Towers apartment building (where a couple of the Lennon sisters lived up until the Northridge Earthquake damaged the building and it was closed for renovation) and Lawrence Welk Plaza. Scattered along Ocean Avenue were a number of smaller apartment buildings with the signature LW on the front. His name was omnipresent when I moved to SoCal in 72 and my great aunt and uncle contemplated moving into one of his resort communities near Oceanside when they sold their home in Ojai and moved farther down the coast. I had to endure watching his show with them that summer before grad school.
“I had to endure watching his show,” great choice of words! My father would watch Lawrence Welk religiously every weekend, and my mother, brother and I had to endure this excruciating experience for years. And whenever we visited my grandmother, the two of them would bond over Lawrence. Doubly excruciating! To this day when you run across the reruns of the Welk show on PBS it is still a cringeworthy experience, but you get drawn into it now for the sheer enjoyment of its cheesiness. But as you note, he was a ubiquitous presence on L.A. television seemingly forever.
My father never cared for Lawrence Welk, but my grandmother (his mother) did. If we visited her when the show was on, we’d have to watch it with her.
Her aunt (my great-great aunt) was born in 1886 and lived until 1984. Aunt Bessie lived out of town, but she often visited my grandmother, and stayed for 2-3 weeks at at time.
Aunt Bessie loved Gunsmoke and Bonanza while they were still on during prime time. If Aunt Bessie was visiting from out of town, we all knew not to question the decision to watch those shows, and we had to keep quiet so as not to disturb Aunt Bessie. She also liked Lawrence Welk.
Watching Lawrence Welk in 1970 is watching a man younger than Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Linda Ronstadt, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, James Taylor, or Ringo Starr today.
Lawrence, in 1970, was as young as Jerry Seinfeld. Adam Ant, Jim Belushi, Christy Brinkley, Oprah Winfrey, John Travolta, Ron Howard, Howard Stern, and Elvis Costello.
Welk’s show was seen by 22% of all US households during the 1960s, about 10-30 million viewers each Saturday night.
He was mocked for being out of style, but he sold millions of albums, Dodge automobiles, bottles of Geritol, Ocean Spray cranberry juice from 1951 to 1982 and he laughed all the way to the bank, didn’t he?
This brings back memories of my grandmother, who looked forward to Saturday night with Welk all week. Incredibly uncool and unhip, he was the antithesis of Elvis, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis, all of whom came to popularity at the time Welk was at his peak. Like him or not, Welk was a true American icon, raising himself from humble beginnings in rural North Dakota to the heights of Hollywood fame. He supposedly would involve himself in the personal issues of his cast performers, presiding over the show like a benevolent dictator. Dodge, his longtime sponsor, would feature him in many of their commercials.
Although his music was geared to the geriatric set, Welk actually had a Billboard 100 number one hit in 1961 with Calcutta.
He had a few others make the top 100, his version of Elephant Walk was also big. He did some collaborations as well with Walk’s composer, Henry Mancini.
https://youtu.be/eaqZ3vdcqoA
Welk is certainly ingrained in me, he was (and still is to a degree) an institution.
I was a youngster in the ’70s and Welk’s show was the soundtrack at my grandparent’s apartment for Sunday dinner.
Welk appeared on on the Tonight Show somewhere in the ’70s and my friend and I caught it. As preteens we were surprised that he turned out to be a hoot to watch on Johnny’s show, we were expecting total somnolence.
His show remains on PBS to this day in some areas. For reasons lost to time, my toddler daughter caught a few minutes of his show in the early 2000s. She absolutely loved it! I suppose it was the gentle singing and frequently colorful costumes. It became a Sunday ritual for her to sit on my lap watching, while her baby sister was asleep. I appreciated Mr. Welk in a way I never had before!
My grandparents were also Welk fans. Burned into my memory is their television, which had to be one of the first remotes made. The magic beam tripped a big, loud solenoid that punched the tuning knob up one channel per stroke, one way only. If you were watching 5 and wanted 4 you were going all the way around.
My grandmother, and when she got into her 70’s, my mother too, were fans of LW. I used to goof on the show when my mom was watching it, but when I was a little kid, I was too scared of my grandmother to make any comments about it.
When I was 13, I met a friend of mine who I’m still friends with, and I was over at his house one night, and LW came on. His dad said, in a straight face, “Hey, you know who he really is?”. I went “What do you mean?”, and he said, “That’s Hitler! He’s supposed to be a nice old man now, but I know who he really is!”. I cracked up laughing. His dad was a trip. Later on, his comments about Ronald Reagan were classic.
I remember watching his show in grainy black and white occasionally in the early 1960’s .
Yes he was square with 90 degree corners but those were the 50’s and 60’s in a nutshell .
I discovered JoAnne Castle on his show and I’m sure I still have at least one of he LP records stashed away .
Some years ago I was perusing the piles of old CD’s and came across one of his, bought it and enjoy listening to it now and then .
-Nate
I turned 67, and my youth was influenced by the 1960’s – 1970’s rockers. But L.W. music is fine with me, too. I also don’t denigrate accordion music, either. My peer allegiance may have blocked my earlier appreciation, but now, I don’t care what anyone else thinks about my taste (or lack thereof). Good music is good music. And well performed good music is so nice.
Rock on, LW… Uh, no… Keep that time, band master, you’re the best.