Lawrence Welk lives on

Did you know that The Lawrence Welk Show
draws the largest audience of any program on public television? I didn't.

But former squeezeboxer Doug Fischer writes in The Ottawa Citizen that the show plays on 280 TV stations and pulls in 5 million viewers a week.

What's more, Larry's show still tours!

"A dozen members of the TV show, including two from the 1955 cast, still take Welk's comforting recipe of singing, dancing, cornball humour, ruffled shirts and pastel dresses on the road several times a year," Fischer reports.

Singer Mary Lou Metzger says the ensemble outings are winning new fans in addition to the nostalgia buffs who grew up watching the show.

"People are always telling me how much fun they had when it was the last thing they expected," she said. "We get as many as four generations at a single show. The Welk musical family has always been about bringing other families together. I think that is still the appeal."

BTW, they rehearse in Dearborn, Mich., the birthplace of TDA's fearless leader, Paul Rogers.