![lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1026 lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1026](https://www.alleewillis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1026.jpg)
Lawrence Welk was always too square for me except that that’s where I could continue to get my Mickey Mouse Club fix when, in 1961, Mouseketeer Bobby Burgess won a dance contest to Welk’s hit, “Calcutta” and became a regular on the show two years after the mouse ears left the air. Though Bobby went from being a hip kid to an excessively corny adult as soon as he hitched to Mr. Wunnerful Wunnerful’s wonderful wagon, I still appreciated his move as otherwise I may have missed Lawrence Welk and his jaw droppingly cheesy production numbers that became a primer in my neverending education in Kitsch. Combine that with the fact that I never learned how to play an instrument and you end up with my excitement about these musical spoons which became one of the first instruments I “played” when I started to write songs.
![lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1025 lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1025](https://www.alleewillis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1025.jpg)
Forget the spoons, the packaging on this is fantastic. With not an inch left uncovered, it boasts “Get on the beat!”, “Be a champion!”and “The international pastime – spooning!” Perhaps so, but not that kind of spooning.
![lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1019 lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1019](https://www.alleewillis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1019.jpg)
![lawrence-welk-musical-spoons lawrence-welk-musical-spoons](https://www.alleewillis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lawrence-welk-musical-spoons.jpg)
![lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1022 lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1022](https://www.alleewillis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1022.jpg)
![lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1023 lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1023](https://www.alleewillis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lawrence-welk-musical-spoons_1023.jpg)
Bobby Burgess went on to become Welk’s longtime accordionist, Myron Floren’s, son-in law. Here they are doing The Chicken Dance, which, according to them, is “one of the most popular dances in America” and which, according to me, “wasn’t”.
![lawrence-welk-chicken-dance lawrence-welk-chicken-dance](https://www.alleewillis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lawrence-welk-chicken-dance.jpg)
Here’s Welk’s biggest and only Top 10 hit, “Calcutta”:
![Lawrence-Welk--calcutta Lawrence-Welk--calcutta](https://www.alleewillis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Lawrence-Welk-calcutta.jpg)