Hee Haw or Lawrence Welk?

Both, unfortunately. Excruciatingly boring for a kid. I imagine they might have some camp appeal now

Definitely a Welk family. I especially remember Jo Ann Castle (honky-tonk piano), Norma Zimmer (Champagne Lady) , Myron Floren (accordian) , Bobby and Barbara (dancer), Bob Ralston (gay piano player), Neil LeVang (hot guitarist), Joe Feeney (Irish tenor) and Arthur Duncan (token black).

Neither.

We were finishing dinner, cleaning up. If we watched anything it was sports-related. I can remember PBS had oddball shows like "Meeting of Minds."

Grew up in NYC. See Haw was country. I love country music now, but back then...??

And as for Lawrence Welk...only old ladies watched it.

At least the Carol Burnett Show came on later to salvage a Saturday evening.

Hee Haw. Unless The Maharelle Sisters were on Welk that week.

I had a great aunt and great uncle who were Lawrence Welk superfans. They watched his stupid show religiously and even visited this resort he had in California. I have no idea if it's still there. This was the 80s when his show was syndicated and I think it was run several times a week. If you were over at their house when the Lawrence Welk Show came on you would have to follow them into the living room and watch it with them. As a child of the 80s I remember thinking the show was prehistoric, it was SO lame and old fashioned.

My great aunt and great uncle would say "this is REAL music" while they watched the show, i.e. none of that rock and roll shit and NO BLACKS.

They're both long dead now and my family and I still snark about them.

When you say “Family”, I read that as parents. We had only one TV for what seemed like forever and viewing choice was not normally a democracy. Finally, my brother and I were allowed a small portable in our bedroom. Oh, the answer is Welk. He puts on a “fine show” was the parental unit explanation though I think even they thought it pretty corny and dated, even then.

If we watched anything it was HeeHaw. My family is Southern and we thought it was a hoot. I still do a little.

My family found Welk fucking boring.

Gloom, despair and agony on me.

My family lived in Philadelphia until the late summer of 1976. As the OP said, Saturday nights at 7 pm, your choices were mainly Lawrence Welk or Hee Haw. There were four channels back then (five as we moved into the mid 70s), but still the main choices were Welk and Hee Haw. (The other channels offered programs that were even less interesting, if that's possible!) We usually had Hee Haw on, but just as background noise. Nobody really liked it and nobody paid attention to it. But we hated Lawrence Welk.

I was shamed at work just the other day for coming from a LW family and not HH.

I didn't realize they ran against each other. I have such a distinct memory of my parents watching both shows , and me being equally bored and annoyed with them.

I searched the world over and thought I found true love

You met another and pfft you was gone

It's crazy to think how limited entertainment choices were back then. You had three or four tv channels and that was it. Not 500 channels and the internet like now.

It was Welk. It was for my grandmother. It was the only thing she really wanted to watch all week. Later, my father would watch The Love Boat IIRC. The Two Titans of Terrible Television.

Now, strangely enough, I find Lawrence Welk reruns sort of charming. I can't watch an entire episode of it, but I will watch for a few minutes until the charm wears off. However, I can watch this clip from Lawrence Welk repeatedly!

My parents always watched Welk but luckily, I had a TV in my room, so I avoided it, but being pre-cable, there were few choices.

My most vivid memory of LW was when Arthur Duncan had just finished his tap dance routine. Welk was applauding from the sidelines and said "Arthur Duncan - a wonderful dancer and a credit to his race".

I’m black. We didn’t watch this shit.

What DID you watch, R18. If you were from this era, there was nothing else to watch.

Rerun of ‘The Lucy Show’

Sorry, I meant to direct that toward R19.

"I’m black. We didn’t watch this shit."

What DID you watch between 7 and 8 on Saturday evenings, then?

They were at work!

Playing Dominos

Raising your old white ass, R25.

^ please, most servants were home before 7pm.

They were watching the radio.

They were out on the front porch drinking and being loud as hell.

"Marcy, Mr Stevens will drive you home at 4."

"Yes Mam".

This is the conversation. I'm eldergay enough to remember it. Segregation was still in place when I was a boy.

Saturdays were also American Bandstand and Soul Train (but earlier).

In some places where I lived, I think HH came on at 6 pm.

Washington Week followed by Agronsky & Company

If we did, it was Welk. Then in 1976 the Muppet Show started opposite them and we started watching that instead. My folks weren’t big Welk fans, but we were NOT watching Hee Haw.

And capped off by Solid Gold?

R19 here. My parents liked Sanford and son and All in the Family. I loved Good Times, soul train, and the love boat (I thought that I was seeing a glimpse at how the rich lived) LOL.

If we went to my grandparents’ farm on the weekend, it was Hee Haw. At home, we watched the Muppets. I don’t think I have ever seen a single episode of Lawrence Welk.

I love both of them. I've been in the closet about that for a long time, but it's true. I let my freak flag fly upon my love of Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk once in a blue moon, but when I do, I get down.

[quote]They were at work!

Stealing hubcaps, selling weed and pimping.

I grew up in the South so it was Hee Haw. As I recall it had some funny moments. And all the big country music stars went on the show to sing their latest hit.

I grew up in the Northeast and nobody would've been caught dead watching Hee Haw.

Oh my god, I remember we would visit my mom's aunt's house for dinner on Saturday nights and after dinner, when the adults sat around the dinner table drinking and playing cards, for me and my sister, in the living room in front of the huge wooden console TV, trapped with nothing else to do, these two shows were the only options. I had totally forgotten about this!

OP- Well to do ( Upper Middle Class) households wouldn't be caught watching that HILLBILLY show or that treacly music show they would watch PBS.

Oh, Ruck you, r42. The blue collar side of my family had way more money and were way more tony in there own weird way than the white collar side. I grew-up watching both.

their, not there. I'll oh dear myself.

My memories of Hee Haw: Minnie Pearl and her hat, Roy Clark singing the (surprisingly nice) "Yesterday When I Was Young", one of the cast being murdered (Grandpa? Stringbean? I can't remember) and the Hager Brothers (who died close in time, I seem to recall).

Thank God & Greyhound, She’s Gone.

My mom aspired to Lawrence Welk but she never made it through a show, wandering off (at which point I changed the channel).

My parents never missed Hee Haw.

"for me and my sister, in the living room in front of the huge wooden console TV, trapped with nothing else to do, these two shows were the only options. I had totally forgotten about this!"

I told you! Nobody could make this shit up!

Don't be annoyed, R43. R42 is posting from his parents' basement in a "tony" Baltimore suburb.

I remember watching one of these shows and they broke in with a news alert that Salo director Pasolini had been murdered. I didn't know who he was at the time, of course, I was a pre-teen. But I remember it still because a) the murder seemed so horrific, and b) the station thought it was important enough to break into the show!

Hee Haw.

Originally Welk was on ABC and Hee Haw was on CBS. Both shows were cancelled from their respective networks in the same year, 1971, as network executives like CBS's Fred Silverman purged networks of their older and more rural-skewing shows.

Each show then went into syndication, Welk until 1982 and Hee Haw until 1993.

They saw themselves as victims of executives trying to make their lineups more sophisticated, which was true, but those changes brought shows like All In the Family, Maude, Mash, Mary Tyler Moore.

Hee Haw's Roy Clark wrote this song about it. The enemies? Hippies and executives!

In the family room, on the big TV, Mom and Dad preferred Hee Haw. However, my grandmother had a 13 inch TV in her room and watched Lawrence Welk religiously. Grandma's other favorite shows were The Waltons, featuring "John-John", and the Korean War comedy S*M*A*S*H. And of course, her "stories" every weekday.

R52 I didn't know JFK Jr. was on The Waltons.

I remember watching both Hee Haw and The Lawrence Welk Show and somehow going to 7PM mass on Saturday night. Not sure how we crammed three hours of activity into one hour.

Buck Rogers

R54: “ But as Hee Haw was syndicated and not restrained by the scheduling of a network, stations could schedule the program at any day or time that they saw fit.”

It’s possible your area showed HH and LW at different times.

Hee Haw was so bad. It was the Country version of Laugh-In which was pretty bad itself. Other than its very popular catch phrases, Laugh In had few laughs.

Yes, R45, that was Stringbean and wife who were murdered in a robbery.

Used to laugh my ass off and rewind just to hear “Starring in alphabetical order: Yodeling Zeke, Butterball Jackson…”

Hee Haw all the way. I bought a DVD set years ago (at WalMart LOL) and every once in a while pull out a disc and watch a random episode. I’m amazed how all the reoccurring bits, players, sets and songs are ingrained into my subconscious.

[quote]Hee Haw or Lawrence Welk?

Usually frantic masturbation in the bathroom.

Lawrence Welk always seemed piss-elegant to me, but harmless fun. Although honestly I have never watched an episode.

Hee Haw, which I did watch as a child with my parents, had genuine humor even if it didn’t always land. They were country musicians and performers who embraced the stereotype and portrayed themselves as backwater hicks, for laughs.

No HEE HAW thread on DataLounge is complete without mention of the Hager twins!

Anna now-a, ladiss an gennelmen, we're gonna play that great Duke Ellington a-stannard, "Take a Train."

I have no recollection. Like someone else said we were likely having dinner or finishing up, and wouldn't be watching television. I do agree with whoever said "Lawrence Welk" was for the blue-haired old biddies, but we never watched "Hee Haw" either. In fact, my best friend's parents would watch "Hee Haw" and we privately made fun of them for being trash. I grew up in a large Southern city during that time.

Am I nuts?

Why do I remember watching 'Lawrence Welk' on Sunday nights at my grandparent's home? And immediately after 'Lawrence Welk' was 'The Wonderful World of Disney.' Disney was a big deal then because it was in COLOR!

And the only reason I would ever watch Welk was because I was at my grandparent's and that was Sunday nights, not Saturday nights.

Weren't those shows on Sunday nights?

For what it's worth - if it would matter when they were broadcast - I'm in my 60s. And, it was in NYC.

R66 - I'm pretty sure both those shows were syndicated at the time, meaning they could have aired at any time on any day that the local station chose to air them.

I was a young gayling who bloomed when I saw Guy Hovis on 'Lawrence Welk'. My other crush at the time was Jethro on 'Beverly Hillbillies. Even very young, I had a certain type I liked.

Alice Lon, the original Champagne Lady, fired for "showing too much knee." She was much cooler than the corny, churchy, uptight Norma Zimmer.

Neither. Each Saturday evening we dined out. Darn!

Guy Hovis looks like a slightly handsomer version of Bert Convy. Although that sure does look like a $5 wig on his head.

Welk was camp then when I didn't even know what that meant. But "Hee Haw" was the shit!

"I searched the world over, and I thought I’d found true love, You met another, and PFFT! You was gone!”

R67

Thank you. Sanity restored.

WE'RE GON' PLAY NOW

We only saw these when visiting my grandparents. Grandma liked Lawrence Welk and grandpa liked Hee Haw, which he called the Grand Ole Opry. He called every country music show the Grand Ole Opry though. I preferred Hee Haw hands down because at least it could be funny. The Porter Waggoner Show was also on on the weekends. I was fascinated by Porter’s hair and rhinestone suits and a young Dolly Parton with the big bosoms, of course. Anyone remember Hee Haw Hunnies? That was a tits and ass spin-off from the main show.

I can’t believe PBS still runs Lawrence Welk reruns, given that the audience for that show was already elderly in 1970 there can’t be any of them left.

Wasn't alive in the 70s, but from what little I've seen of each, Lawrence Welk seems much more tolerable than Hee Haw.

[quote] I can’t believe PBS still runs Lawrence Welk reruns, given that the audience for that show was already elderly in 1970 there can’t be any of them left.

r75 Oh honey, there is a whole new generation that is enjoying this show, along with us Eldergays who remember the original and have lasting memories of a simpler time.

{quote] My memories of Hee Haw: Minnie Pearl and her hat, Roy Clark singing the (surprisingly nice) "Yesterday When I Was Young", one of the cast being murdered (Grandpa? Stringbean? I can't remember) and the Hager Brothers (who died close in time, I seem to recall).

The comedian Stringbean was the one who got murdered. It was rumored that he kept large sums of money in his house because of a Depression-era mistrust of banks. Two thugs broke in and killed him and his wife. It was very sad. Stringbean was NOT a wealthy man; he and his wife lived frugally, in a small cabin. Their only indulgences were a Cadillac and a color tv. The murderers were caught and sent to jail. One died in prison. The other was paroled after serving serving 41 years of a 198-year sentence. RIP, Stringbean.

Both awful, but "Lawrence Welk" has camp value, and "Hee Haw" does not! So Welk wins, unintentionally.

Both shows were on when I was a kid, and I sort of like "Hee Haw" when I was age 5-8, it was cheerful enough and it wasn't sports. But almost every Saturday, my parents used to drag me to my Grandmother's for dinner and to sit quietly while Lawrence Welk was on, because my grandmother really thought that hour of tasteless cheese was "classy"! It took me decades to appreciate the entertainment value of that monstrosity of a show, the completely unintentional entertainment...

My grandma used to watch Welk I think. It was bland n boring. Hee haw was stupid and annoying

"Both awful, but "Lawrence Welk" has camp value, and "Hee Haw" does not!"

HH was intentionally camp, which reduces its camp value.

LW was earnest, which gives it camp value. Especially when LW accidentally featured "One Toke Over the Line" which aggressively promoted marijuana.

Our family watched no TV on Saturday night but we DID watch The Judy Garland Show the following night!

Looking at Lawrence Welk now it seems like something from another planet. It’s so different from today.

They didn't come on at the same time in our area, in the late 1980s. Welk came on PBS at 8:00 and Hee Haw came on our local NBC affiliate at 7:00. We only watched Welk if the NBC primetime comedies were in reruns, because by that point Welk was all reruns.

[quote]Looking at Lawrence Welk now it seems like something from another planet. It’s so different from today.

It was safe, wholesome old-fashioned entertainment for older people who were fucking terrified over the huge social and cultural changes that were happening in the late 60s and early 70s. The Lawrence Welk Show was like a refuge for them.

^^^ Kinda like what's happening today.

My parents didn't like either of them but watched both a few times. One time when Arthur Duncan came on doing his robotic tap dancing my dad said "Welk manages to find the one mediocre Negro tap dancer. Typical."

I liked Hee Haw even though it made me nervous at times because the people were so dumb. As a kid I thought they were that way in real life. Roy Clark was my favorite because he usually had a solo number where he was serious and played the guitar beautifully.

At the end of the show, Mr Welk would dance with a few ladies in the audience. One time it was my aunt, the lucky girl.

[quote] I liked Hee Haw even though it made me nervous at times because the people were so dumb. As a kid I thought they were that way in real life.

You may be surprised. Those folks are probably the grandparents of the MAGA movement.

As a kid I watched Hee Haw, but only because I had a gayling crush on Buck Owens.

Many years later I was floored to read (on Datalounge?) that Buck had a long-term affair with Don Rich.

Even though the Lawrence Welk Show is corny and dated by today's standards, it is also a repository of the American songbook, preserving performances of many great songs that are little-heard nowadays.

[italic]Hee-Haw[/italic] also didn't have the complex multitalents of Miss Jo Ann Castle.

When I was a little kid, I sang this over and over to my parents’ annoyance. They thought the show was too stupid for words and never watched it, but somehow I saw bits of it. Talk about having a garbage pail brain.

My parents loved Lawrence Welk and would have cut their own throats rather than watch Hee Haw, and we're from the south. I didn't hate LW, and would watch at times. But now that I'm an old geezer I get a comforting feeling when I see the show. I wish one of the oldies channels would bring it back.

My grandparents also loved LW. Many times after the show was over the phone would ring and it would be my grandmother talking to my mother about how beautiful the costumes were. Such innocent times.

Get Smart

Neither!

No evening with Lawrence Welk was complete without the song stylings of cookie smeller Tom Netherton.

I am shocked to find that Tom Netherton is dead. Died in 2018 from, ahem, pneumonia, at the age of 70.

If people knew what was going on behind the scenes at the Lawrence Welk show they'd be shocked. I myself often performed fellatio on Bob Ralston in my dressing room.

Bitch please! Those 3 whore Lennon Sisters and I had regular orgies with most of the orchestra. I loved it when Myron Floren took me from behind while everyone stood around and watched. He could reach places in my body no other man ever has.

R94

Check your local PBS stations for LW

They're not currently playing on my PBS stations R101. I've checked repeatedly. YouTube is about the only place I've been able to find them.

This could have been a thread about old school shows only broadcast on Saturdays. Benny Hill, Are You Being Served ....

R103 Yes, especially once Saturdays stopped being programmed by the networks, PBS Britcoms were a life saver as an only child out in the sticks with no cable. Are You Being Served is a classic, along with Allo, Allo, Keeping Up Appearances, As Time Goes By, Last of the Summer Wine, the Vicar of Dibley, Blackadder, Mr. Bean, etc...

Although country music is not to everyone's taste, Hee Haw featured the country music greats singing their songs: Among their guests were: Loretta Lynn, Charley Pride, Waylon Jennings, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Merle Haggard, Sonny James, Dolly Parton, Dottie West, Lynn Anderson, Faron Young, Linda Ronstadt, Ray Charles, Bobby Bare, Sammy Smith, Mel Tillis, Ray Price, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Tom T. Hall, Porter Wagoner, Brenda Lee, Don Gibson, Jerry Reed, Hank Snow, Roy Acuff, Johnny Cash, Ronnie Milsap, Chet Atkins, The Oak Ridge Boys, Ray Stevens, Conway Twitty, Crystal Gayle, Ernest Tubb, Bill Anderson, Mickey Gilley, Freddie Fender, The Statler Brothers, Barbara Mandrell, Hoyt Axton. Lots of talent there. Elvis Presley wanted to do an episode of Hee Haw! But of course Colonel Parker would never have allowed him to go on such a lowbrow show, no matter that the movies he made him star in were lowbrow of the highest order.

Yes, Hee Haw featured talented guests singing good country music. What talent or good music was there on the Lawrence Welk show? I don't seem to recall any.

Neither-

The band on the Welk show always performed the most watered down, milquetoast version of whatever song they were playing. It was almost as if Lawrence Welk had told them to not inject once ounce of soul or emotion into their playing. Just awful, awful stuff.

At least a lot of the musicians on Hee Haw could let loose when they wanted to, even as cornpone as a lot of it was.

Welk's music was fine for what it was, dinner music. Lawrence Welk records are perfect for light background music that is neither overwhelming nor overpowering. Think dinner or cocktail parties. Hee Haw was after they'd had a lot of cocktails, and then Austin City Limits and Saturday Night Live was for their teens to watch stoned while drinking what was left behind by their parents.

R100, sorry, there were FOUR Lennon Sisters. I remember as a kid seeing my mom buy those scandal magazines, and the Lennons were constantly on the cover.

Trivial tidbit: The father of the Lennon sisters (part of a total of 11 children- what the everloving fuck? - this was Los Angeles not an Oklahoma farm) was shot dead on a golf course in Marina del Rey by one of the sisters’ stalkers the same week as the Sharon Tate murders.

The Lennon Sisters swing it to "Georgy Girl" while standing behind some fake plants because some of them are in the family way. Mr. Welk thought it was unseemly to show visibly pregnant women on TV, so he made them stand behind props or wear diaphanous caftans and ridiculous costumes (like Jo Ann Castle's Easter-bunny getup at R92).

[quote] sorry, there were FOUR Lennon Sisters.

Were they older or younger than brother John?

"Say good night, Welk"

That was the signal from my father that the show was over and it was time for my brother and me to go to bed. I had a crush on Guy (of Guy and Ralna).

A one and a two and a....

Jo Ann Castle deserved an Emmy for her facial expressions alone. I'd love to see a YouTube clip that's just a close up of her face from those performances, and then have people try to guess what the hell she's doing.

The good stuff didn't come on until prime time. The Jeffersons, MTM, Bob Newhart

Didn't AITF play on Saturday nights for a while? I also liked a sitcom called "Doc" with Barnard Hughes.

Tow of the funniest people on Hee Haw were Canadians Don Harron (KORN newsman Charlie Farquarson) and Gordie Tapp.

WTF is AITF?

All in the Family

Oh. Thanks. I used to watch that and Maude in their original runs when I was little kid. I also did get hooked on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman later on as a tween in syndication. Never really liked the other Norman Lear shows though (Jeffersons, One Day, Good Times, Sanford, etc.).

Hee Haw was for hicks. Lawrence Welk was for geriatrics. Both were revolting.

I still watch LW on PBS every Saturday at 7pm. The blinding pastel outfits, the corny sets and so much hairspray, I can almost smell it through the TV.