Like Hee Haw, Lawrence Welk was picked up for syndication in the fall of 1971, and there were some markets where the same station aired both programs.

The song was also sung at Bush's 2005 inauguration by Guy Hovis, former cast member of The Lawrence Welk Show.

Lawrence Welk ( March 11, 1903 – May 17, 1992 ) was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982.

In 1996, Welk was ranked # 43 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

Welk was born in the German-speaking community of Strasburg, North Dakota.

He was sixth of the eight children of Ludwig and Christiana ( Schwahn ) Welk, ethnic Germans who emigrated to America in 1892 from Selz, Kutschurgan District, in the German-speaking area north of Odessa ( now Odessa, Ukraine, but then in southwestern Russia ).

A common misconception is that Welk did not learn English until he was 21.

The same year, he began producing The Lawrence Welk Show on KTLA in Los Angeles, where it was broadcast from the Aragon Ballroom in Venice Beach.

After Welk and his band went on television, she appeared as a guest on the show, where she sang Latin American songs and favorites that were popular when she was traveling with the Welk band.

Welk never lost his affection for the jazz numbers he had played in the 1920s, and when a Dixieland tune was scheduled, he enthusiastically led the band.

Befitting the target audience, the type of music on The Lawrence Welk Show was almost always conservative, concentrating on popular music standards, polkas, and novelty songs, delivered in a smooth, calm, good-humored easy listening style and " family-oriented " manner.

Much of the show's appeal was Welk himself.

Welk was not pleased with Freberg's parody ( a hit single that year ) and denied he ever used the phrase " Wunnerful!

Though Welk was occasionally rumored to be very tight with a dollar, he paid his regular band members top scale-a very good living for a working musician.

Welk himself was indifferent to the tune, but his musical director, George Cates, said that if Welk did not wish to record the song, he ( Cates ) would.

The Lawrence Welk Show continued on as a first-run syndicated show on 250 stations across the country until the final original show was produced in 1982.

Welk was the general partner in a commercial real estate development located at 100 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, California.

It was informally named " The Lawrence Welk Champagne Tower.

Welk enjoyed playing golf, which he first took up in the late 1950s, and was often a regular at many celebrity pro-ams such as the Bob Hope Desert Classic.

Welk was awarded four US design patents:

A devout, lifelong Roman Catholic, Welk was a daily communicant, which is corroborated in numerous biographies, by his autobiography and by his family and his many staff, friends and associates throughout the years

One of his sons, Lawrence Welk Jr., married fellow Lawrence Welk Show performer Tanya Falan ; they later divorced.

She is married to Richard Maloof, who played double bass and tuba on the Welk show.

( The success of Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk in syndication, and the network decisions that led to their respective cancellations, were the inspiration for a novelty song called " The Lawrence Welk-Hee Haw Counter-Revolution Polka ," performed by Clark ; the song became a top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in the fall of 1972.

Welk decided on a career in music and persuaded his father to buy a mail-order accordion for $ 400 ( equivalent to $ as of ).

Welk also reserved one number for himself to solo on his accordion.

Welk replied, " Well, if it's good enough for you, George, I guess it's good enough for me.

In fact, Welk headlined two weekly prime-time shows on ABC for three years.

Lawrence Welk at ground breaking for the new Union Bank N. A.

One of them, grandson Lawrence Welk III, who usually goes by " Larry Welk ," is a reporter and helicopter traffic pilot for KCAL-TV and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles.

After retiring from his show and from the road in 1982, Welk continued to air reruns of his shows, which were repackaged first for syndication and, starting in 1986, for public television.

A resort community developed by Welk and promoted heavily by him on the show is named for him.

From the late 1950s to the mid-1980s, the Welk Group was known as " Teleklew ," in which tele stood for television and klew was Welk spelled backwards.

* The Lennon Sisters-mainstay singers for Welk from 1955 to 1968

After this band broke up, four years later Fountain was hired to join the Lawrence Welk orchestra and became well known for his many solos on Welk's ABC television show, The Lawrence Welk Show.

Probably the person best known for having a " German from Russia accent " in English ( a result of having learned English as a second language ) was Lawrence Welk.

The catalogue, except for recordings by Lawrence Welk, is today owned by Universal Music Group.

They soon learned that Welk and Lomi Plo had made off with the spacecraft Anakin had intended to use for their getaway, taking with them Raynar Thul, an old friend of Jaina and Jacen.

As a child, Fromme was a performer for a popular local dance group called the Westchester Lariats, which in the late 1950s began touring the U. S. and Europe, appearing on The Lawrence Welk Show and at the White House.

* March 11 – ABC cancels The Lawrence Welk Show after sixteen years on the network.

For many years after that, Geritol was largely marketed on television programs that appealed primarily to older viewers, such as The Lawrence Welk Show, What's My Line ?, Hee Haw, and Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour.

In the years since first-run syndication ended, The Lawrence Welk Show has continued to reach new audiences through repeat episodes, broadcast in the United States by Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS ) stations.

( During later years, a number of Welk cast members appeared in commercials for many of the show's sponsors, filmed specifically to air during Welk broadcasts.

After two years and a string of short-lived vocalists, Norma Zimmer was hired, starting in 1960. Zimmer stayed with Welk for the rest of the show's run.

Welk retired in 1982 ; at the time of his retirement, he was 79 years old, making him the oldest host of a regularly scheduled entertainment television series to date ( a feat later surpassed by Bob Barker in 2003 ).

After 1945, Welk ceased his literary work for a few years.

Despite their young ages ( in 1958 Alan was 9, Wayne 7, Merrill 5, and Jay 3 ), within a few years, the boys ' talent and stage presence were strong enough that their father, George Osmond, took them to audition for Lawrence Welk in California.

Welk Music Group revitalized the label, reissuing much of its extensive folk and popular music back catalogue ( a good deal of which had been out of print for several years ) on CD, as well as signing a number of new artists ( such as Matt Nathanson, Mindy Smith, Greg Laswell, and Trevor Hall ) along with established musicians ( such as Merle Haggard, John Fogerty, Chris Isaak, Robert Cray, Shawn Mullins, and Linda Ronstadt ).

During her twelve years on the show, she sang as part of a female trio with fellow Welk stars Gail Farrell and Sandi Griffiths, various group numbers, and song-and-dance numbers with Jack Imel ; she also danced with the maestro himself at the end of each show.