My Grandmother's Special Brand of Torture: Lawrence Welk

I would like to know who thought it was a good idea to close all available shopping on Easter. I have nowhere to go today and thus am stuck on the couch with my grandmother who will only watch reruns of the Lawrence Welk show. Not just any rerun, the Easter special. My parent's say she isn't aware. I think this is all part of her covert plan. I could tell she was just waiting for the remote to be left unattended to make her move. No sooner had this happened and there we were, Lawrence Welk.

This particular show was from the early 80's and as far as I could tell it seemed to be a lot of men with "Reno 911" style mustaches playing acoustic guitars. I might have said that was the highlight, but I think it actually might have been a close second to the dudes in baby blue tuxedos. I never thought I would say this, but I'm sad that the game show network was taken out of the channel line up. At least that was slightly more tolerable.

She's enthralled, tapping her foot, singing along. I wonder if she knows that Lawrence Welk is dead. My money is on no. Enter the happy singing people in pastel with parasols and men in top hats doing the foxtrot…

I’ve decided that PBS is evil. How else can you explain this programming? About that point I was starting to have delusions of a hostile take over of the remote control. Of course I could never do that because I'm really not that mean.

Then enters a man in a bad hair piece, sweating profusely, singing about being nailed to a cross…strangely he sounds a bit like Josh Grobin. I started praying that she would fall asleep so I could change the channel.

It's was clear at that point that it wasn't a rerun but some sort of montage flashback sort of deal with a lady named Ralna English who sang gospel music on the original show with her husband. She is now divorced but came back to sing a song about Mary…in what appeared to be a sky blue stretch polyester pants suit. The camera cut between her in the jumpsuit and renaissance paintings of Mary & Jesus.

Nowhere to go but up from there. Wait, I was wrong…giant super duet – two dudes with mutton chop side burns and two chicks in lemon yellow off the shoulder chiffon…all grinning manically while singing "Put a Little Love in your Heart".

And the last thing I saw before admitting defeat and leaving the room, a big dude with a gold pinky ring playing the organ. Nothing says Easter like a little bling.

And people call reality television terrifying and mind numbing. I'll take Brett Michaels any day over this. Don't believe me? Check this out and I think you may change your mind: www.welkgirls.com