Born on this day in 1903: Lawrence Welk, the bandleader from North Dakota who hosted his own variety show on TV from 1951 to 1982. If you haven’t seen Saturday Night Live’s recreation of the show with Kristen Wiig from a few years ago, you’re really missing out.
Fun flatware related fact: Lawrence Welk played the spoons and often incorporated them into the skits on his show. There’s even a local Seattle connection to this story: The guy who owned Fiddler’s Inn in Wedgwood sold the tavern in the 1960s and went into business manufacturing musical spoons with Lawrence Welk in California.
In honor of Mr. Welk’s birthday, here’s a tiny, tacky spoon with his name on it!
The shield at the top of the spoon is Lawrence Welk’s favorite color (baby blue) and I believe it’s haunted by Mr. Welk himself. In fact, if you hold the spoon up to your ear, you’ll hear the whole cast of his show gaily singing their closing song: “Adios, au revoir, auf wiedersehen…goodnight!”
Try to get THAT earworm out of your head. Oh, you’ve never heard it? Here you go: