There's a saying that if you remember the '60s, you missed it. Not so if you were born in 1965 and got to live through the Summer of Love as a toddler. As children, we just saw a different 60s ... a Dr. Seussian '60s, which was probably not all that different than how the adults saw it, now that I think about it.
As a little kid, I went to parties with my super-hot, single-gal mom and witnessed the passing of "peace pipes," as I helpfully relayed to my grandmother when my mom and I came home. Mom was quick to add that she never "played Indian" (that I saw). (ahem) Yet, I remained unspoiled. That's what a good hippie mommy can do for a kid.
On the Ed Sullivan show, I remember seeing the Rolling Stones in their blue and white striped sailor suits, all freaky and skinny and rock-n-roll scary. I was laying on my gramma's rug watching the big console television through a haze of my grandparents' cigarette smoke (before second-hand smoke was invented). Neither gramma nor I had ever seen such a thing as the Rolling Stones. We agreed that we were disturbed by them, a gramma and her three-year-old fuddy duddy.
At the other side of the musical spectrum, grampa and gramma wouldn't miss Lawrence Welk on Saturday night at 7 p.m. A big bowl o' wholesome (enough to choke a Mormon), the Lawrence Welk Show provided "family values" entertainment, at its Arian-raciest. Welk fired creepy Bobby Burgess's dance parter Cissy King for her upstart attitude. Cissy was a ballroom dancer. What could she have done?
The Stones never played the Welk Show. The Osmonds did. So did Pat Boone. And, Anita Bryant. Creationist-pop for America's most chaste television viewers, that was Lawrence Welk. Over the show's 27-year history of original episodes, Welk's band played Tea-for-Two an unbelieveable 67 times. Technically, that's Tea-for-134. Welk loved tea. It's the most wholesome breakfast beverage, you know.
That said, even Lawrence Welk did the '60s. At least for the five minutes it took to take this photo. Don't miss the second person from the left. He's giving the famous three-finger peace sign, unique to Welk hippies.
Lawrence Welk is on the far right--in drag. Hey, that might be my single favorite sentence since I started this blog.
Oh! Oh! That's Arthur Duncan next to him. He was the black guy on the show. Besides the Mexican girl who only sang in Spanish, Arthur was the only Welkie of color. Period. Arthur did sing, yes, but his special skill was ... tap dancing. Naturally.
Diversity, you might be thinking right now, is not a word coined by the Germans. True. But, for the record, though he retained a "Wunnerful" German accent his entire life, Lawrence Welk was born in North Dakota. (Another hotbed of diversity.) Consider that Welk didn't learn to speak English until he was 21, living in the smack-dab middle of the United States.
Still. 27 years on American television. Lawrence Welk was the second richest television entertainer of his time. Only Bob Hope had more dough. Someone besides my grandparents thought he was hot. You gotta respect that in a guy.
Lawrence Welk brings back memories of happening Saturdays nights in the 70's with my racist Great Grandmother. She watched The Lawrence Welk Show religiously and always referred to him as "The Little Nazi". In doing a little Wiki resaearch, I come to find out much of his family came to the states via Odessa in the Ukraine, same as my dad's side of the family. Maybe she didn't want to us to notice she also had the hots for him.
Posted by: Herb | January 24, 2008 at 09:02 AM
Well, who didn't, Herb? That was some kinna Odessan/Arian-heat he had.
Maybe she called him "my little Nazi" in the same way I call Tom Cruise "my little crazyman."
Why are all the pretty ones insane?
Posted by: Shawna | January 24, 2008 at 02:51 PM
Some of us had no choice but to watch Lawrence Welk on Saturday nights, since we only got one TV station. It was that or nothing. So I watched it and soon could name all of the singers and sing right along with those show tunes and oldies. Since they always referred to themselves as family, I always wondered about the inevitable squabbling that went on behind the scenes. "How come Norma Zimmer gets more solos?" "Because he likes her best!" And how about the one show when Bobby was dancing with ladies in the audience where one woman wanted to lead (he had to restart three times and let her know HE would lead, thank you), and then as they were whirling in a polka, her wig flew right off! I loved that show!
Posted by: Innkeeper | January 25, 2008 at 07:08 AM
Guilty-pleasure alert, Innkeeper!
I, too, will tune (now and again) into PBS's re-runs to get that shot of gosh-wasn't-ignorance-bliss big band fun. Actually, my radio alarm went off this morning playing a Welk tune, and I suspected it was the spirit of old Lawrence, himself, thanking me for being a light in the darkness for those of us who remember, but didn't go all Branson on him.
I DO remember the wig dance! WOW!
Posted by: Shawna | January 25, 2008 at 07:16 AM
And a one, and a two...was that Welk's intro to conducting some forgettable tune? I would go into my grandmother's room...and visit a bit...and then run out for some 60's rock and roll. Being an older blogger, my first single record was "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones and my first LP was Jimi Hendrix. Never got off that bus!
Posted by: Wendy Brickman | January 26, 2008 at 07:23 PM