The Lawrence Welk Show

Saturday nights are the dead zone of prime time TV nights. Usually, most people are out doing better things than watching TV on Saturday night. So the networks and most cable channels dump the shows nobody else wants to watch on Saturday nights.

It's been that way as long as I can remember.

One demographic who never seemed to mind staying home watching TV on Saturday night was the elderly. Usually because they simply can't/don't want to leave the house. But more in fact, one particular show was their only excitement for the week. Hosted and produced by a graying former accordionist with a funny German accent who LOOKED like them.

His name was Lawrence Welk.

The Lawrence Welk Show was a staple of Saturday evenings over most ABC affiliated TV stations from 1955 to 1971 and in syndication until 1982.

The show was a sort of throwback to the musical variety show of the '50s, where you can see/hear everything from polka music, ragtime, lounge, big band, waltzes, some religious hymns, dressed-up country and Irish ballads. Lots of dancing and costumes. But absolutely NO rock n' roll or current music in ANY form.

                                        (VERY bizarre exceptions were made sometimes.....)

                           (Yes, Myron Floren, we "knew" that was just a frog in your throat.....)

Welk, and his frequent sideman, Myron Floren knew his target audience. Staid, conservative (back when that word meant something TOTALLY different than what it means today.) Whiter than a percale sheet. And as square as the screens of the TV sets his show was beamed into.

These were people who still grumbled about the Beatles (One of the most surreal moments of my life came while visiting an elderly neighbor who regularly watched Lawrence Welk and she complained how music to her went south since the Beatles came "Why can't they make nice music anymore. like this?....." The song they were singing on the show was "Yesterday".)

That was the Lawrence Welk crowd.

And all between pitches for Rose Milk hand lotion, a regular sponsor of the show (which Welk confessed to using too.)

"It's vun-derful"

This show was everything I, a kid of the '70s HATED. I wanted to see the cars get smashed (like on CHiPs and Dukes of Hazzard) and foxy babes. But something my mom, who came of age in the late '40s/early '50s when this kind of entertainment was your average network TV fare, watched RELIGIOUSLY.

Between the bubble machine (which accented his music description as "champagne music"), the campy acts and the hand lotion pitches, gay America secretly also LOVED this show as much as the Geritol drinkers.

But it all came to an end when Welk's syndicator cancelled the show for good. Welk went into semi-retirement, moving his old shows to PBS where they ran for decades to this day as a "best-of" series.

Lawrence Welk himself passed away in 1992. But the show continues to run on some PBS stations with various former cast members hosting the performance segments.....

Coloured Toilet Paper

It was once EVERYWHERE. But IMPOSSIBLE to find at virtually every supermarket today. And it is a question I get asked a lot. And as an authority on forgotten junk, I've had a hard time trying to answer this one (especially with a straight face.) But here goes:

Whatever happened to the coloured toilet paper of the '60s and '70s?

Well, the simplest answer would be look at the most common colours of toilet paper back then themselves. Pink, Green and Powder Blue.

Northern and Scott were ubiquitous in EVERY home with coloured bathrooms

In the '50s and '60s, many new homes were manufactured with bathroom sinks, tubs and toilets in matching colours of - of course, Pink, Green and Powder Blue. Women of that day expected a perfectly matching colour scheme in the bathroom.

Another place was the kitchen. Where appliances, countertops/cabinetry and fixtures also had to PERFECTLY match (Avocado Green anyone?)

But by the late '70s, fewer homes were made with such creepy colour matches. What looked good for one time rarely looked good in another and "colour neutral" became the trend in the '80s and '90s. And what could be more colour neutral than no colour at all?

A second answer is the environment. Although coloured and printed toilet paper began disappearing in the late '80s, it's long been said the dyes and perfumes used in coloured toilet paper then were harmful to the environment. But not a single iota of actual PROOF of this has ever been established.

In reality, the first answer is the most logical one. Times and popular taste had simply changed. Many of these old homes from the '50s and '60s underwent massive remodeling in the '80s to today and one of the first things to go was the old bathroom and kitchen fixtures.   

But ironically, coloured bathroom and kitchen fixtures are making a comeback. In wilder colours than ever. And, in spite of all environmental claims about it, there's even a demand for matching coloured toilet paper again.

Kaleidoscopes

A toy that had been around since the early 1900s and never lost favour with little kids. If ever.....

Certainly not with acid eaters......

They were cheap and fun to smash to see what made them work. I went through countless kaleidoscopes as a kid.......

Black & White TV

I had a Packard Bell B&W TV exactly like this one in my bedroom when I was a kid. And I really didn't care if there was no colour or HD (Hell, I didn't even have cable!) It was a TV of my own!

AMAZING TV/Car Stereo from the '80s!