#LAWRENCE WELK CAST DECEASED TV#
Reruns of the weekly TV show - more than 1,000 episodes were taped - now run on 279 public television stations, along with new interviews with the cast. "We always felt we were serving an older demographic, but we had no idea how big until we put up 'The Lawrence Welk Show."' Allen said, he learned something about the nature of public television. "And once they make a pledge, they fulfill it.
"Commercial stations don't want the older demographic because they're set in their preferences, so they won't change their toothpaste." But they are also more likely to donate money to support their interests, he said. Allen said, was suited for public television. Allen said, recalling Welk's German-inflected speech.īut Welk's aging constituency, Mr. "People thought his accent was corny," Mr. Allen said, station executives were dubious. Allen, executive director of the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, acquired the rights to syndicate reruns to public television stations. In 1987, after Welk had retired and the show had fallen off the air, Robert L.
#LAWRENCE WELK CAST DECEASED SERIES#
ABC dropped his series in 1971, though it had high ratings, and Welk began syndicating it himself, selling it to stations individually. Welk owes his unlikely legs to a legacy of both resilience and opportunism. But Lawrence Welk encourages us old people because he didn't get famous until he was old enough for Social Security, so it shows that there's life after midlife." "After retirement, my life had come to a screeching halt. "It really changed my life," she said of the show's online community.
Her immersion in the Welk nation began four years ago when she got WebTV for her 80th birthday. Hutchinson wore a gray dress and attended three tapings at the Welk Resort Champagne Theater, which stages live performances of a Welk show here. For the Internet discussion group, it was an occasion. 2 and 3, 15 members of the Welk television cast taped a PBS fund-raising special that will commemorate the 50th anniversary of Welk's first series. It has outlasted the Twist, the New Look, the 1970's, the 1970's revival and the Macarena, to say nothing of the vogue for all things crunk. That music, which was considered square even in its heyday, is not so much back as it is unexpungeable, a vein of American taste that survives despite the best efforts of critics, television programmers and cultural gatekeepers. "I had to learn to tolerate rock and roll because I had teenagers, but the kind of music Lawrence Welk plays, you never get tired of it." Hutchinson, who came here as she does every year, to see members of the Welk cast perform onstage. "I don't watch much TV because it doesn't interest me," said Ms. His viewers outnumber those for MTV, VH1 and BET on Saturday nights.ĭefying a half-century of cultural momentum, they are the counterculture that time forgot. Twelve years after Welk's death, "The Lawrence Welk Show" is the highest-rated syndicated show on public television, reaching an audience of more than three million households. She will chat about it for hours online.Īnd she will not be alone. She will tape it and make copies for friends. Lawrence Welk disappeared from commercial television 20 years ago, but Alice Hutchinson, 84, will watch a rerun of his show on Saturday night, as she does every week.