Premiering in 1955 on Saturday nights at 9:00pm (it moved to 8:30pm in 1963), The Lawrence Welk Show gained an ever-growing loyal audience of older and family viewers, and in the process managed to become that rarest of ABC programs from the 1960s: a Nielsen Top Twenty hit. ratings and broadcast the show nationally (helped along, as well, by carmaker Dodge's initial participation). A growing hit with viewers, Welk's program lasted four years at the local level until fledgling 'Big Three' network ABC, trying hard to get something into the Nielsen's, saw the potential in Welk's L.A. Gradually gaining success during the 1940s at the big-city hotel ballrooms and in the recording studios, Welk and his orchestra found a permanent home base in Los Angeles when local television station KTLA produced The Lawrence Welk Show in 1951, where it was broadcast live from the famed Aragon Ballroom in Venice Beach. Once free from his family obligation in 1924, Welk began touring the Midwest with other small bands until he formed several of his own, evolving from jazz and ragtime influences to a smooth, easy-going big band sound that Welk eventually termed 'champagne music' for its bubbly, light feel. The personification of the 'American Dream,' Lawrence Welk, the son of dirt-poor North Dakotan German immigrant farmers (by way of Russia), learned to play the accordion at an early age after he convinced his father to buy the expensive instrument in exchange for Lawrence staying on the farm until he was 21 years old. No extras.unless you count a couple of episodes that still have their vintage commercials for Geritol®, Polident®, and Chiffon Margarine® intact (and you vintage television fans know we live for those kinds of extras). 1 - 4, a 4-disc, 12-episode collection of black and white kinescopes of ABC's long, long running musical variety show, hosted by that 'wunnerful' accordion-playing, baton-wielding maestro, Lawrence Welk, and featuring his 'Musical Family' of 'Champagne Music Makers.' Representing the show during its peak network years (1960-1968), these kinescopes aren't all complete, and they're certainly rough from an A/V standpoint.but baby, that is some sweet, sweet, easy-going music getting laid down here: I'm proud to finally declare myself a born-again Welk-oholic. Synergy Entertainment has released The Lawrence Welk Show: Classic Episodes, Vol.

You can take the boy out of the bubbles, but not the bubbles out of the boy.

'Now, until next week, stay happy, and keep a song in your heart.

Lawrence welk dvd