The Lawrence Welk Show - Format

Format

The show would often open by showing bubbles floating around and was accompanied by a sound effect of a bottle of champagne opening. Each week, Welk would introduce the theme of the show, which usually inspired joyous singing and/or patriotic fervor. He was most known for delivering these monologues in a distinctive German accent, which was parodied in popular culture (even by Welk himself: the two books he authored, Wunnerful, Wunnerful! and Ah-One, Ah-Two! were so titled because they were his catchphrases). This was evident from his mispronunciations of script on cue cards. On one such story, related by Jo Ann Castle on the Mike Douglas Show, has him introducing a medley of World War I tunes as "songs from World War Eye". Also, from his autobiography Wunnerful, Wunnerful! he bemoans his accent, and in some of his pronunciations of "wonderful" in the show he can be heard forcing the D.

If the number was more of a dance tune, Welk would frequently dance with ladies from the audience, for which he wh became somewhat known. For certain songs (mainly the instrumentals performed by the orchestra), the couples in attendance were also allowed to dance at the Ballroom. Many of the show's songs were performed as part of a skit; while a handful of skits were common throughout the show's run, during a short period in mid-1970s (about the same time The Semonski Sisters were featured performers on the show), the show consisted almost entirely of them.

Welk often demonstrated multiple times on-camera how the champagne bottle sound was created, by placing a finger in his mouth, releasing it to make the popping sound, and making a soft hissing sound to simulate the bubbles escaping the bottle. One such instance is part of the opening sequence of the public television reruns seen today.

Welk frequently had performers sing and play standards from the big band era and the first half of the 20th century (Welk had a particular admiration for contemporaries Hoagy Carmichael, Henry Mancini, Johnny Mercer and similar composers), although the show's repertoire was in reality much broader and would often include pop songs from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s as well as country music, patriotic music, and religious music, especially if it was thought to appeal to older listeners (and, as Welk stated in 1956, "as long as it's done in the champagne style"). In one of his most infamous incidents, he asked singers Gail Farrell and Dick Dale to perform Brewer & Shipley's hit song "One Toke Over the Line" (a mock gospel tune riddled with drug references) as a modern spiritual, apparently oblivious to the meaning of the word "toke." Brewer responded that although it was "absurd," the duo "got more publicity than we could pay for" from the out-of-place performance. Despite other stations having banned the original song from the broadcast airwaves, neither Welk nor anyone else received any sort of punishment from the FCC for playing the song.