Wun'erful, Wun'erful!

"Wun'erful, Wun'erful" is a 1957 Stan Freberg single for Capitol Records spoofing The Lawrence Welk Show. The sketch began as a routine on The Stan Freberg Show, used in the August 11, 1957 broadcast, expanded for two sides with an epilogue. The record version was utilized on Sam and Friends, edited to fit the show's running time, broadcast on September 4, 1959.Shemin, Craig. Sam and Friends: The Story of Jim Henson's First Television Show. p. 391
Freberg impersonates Welk, but the bubble machine (creating the champagne bubbles used on the TV show) keeps turning back on, eventually flooding the ballroom which floats out to sea. Several of Welk's then regulars are also spoofed, played by Stan Freberg Show vocalist Peggy Taylor (Alice Lean, spoofing Alice Lon) and giving featured parts to Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires chorus members Chuck Shrouder (as Larry Looper) and Loulie Jean Norman and Gloria Wood (the Lemon Sisters, spoofing the Lennon Sisters). The epilogue at the end (which would have exceeded the Sam and Friends timeslot) features Freberg as a ship's captain and Daws Butler as his mate.
The accordion medley for the faux-Welk character is played by Billy Liebert, who led the orchestra on Freberg's "Heartbreak Hotel" (also used on Sam and Friends).
==References==
* Freberg as Welk, with a thick accent, repeatedly thanks the folks "out there in television lant" (insisting on the hard T sound, to the point of correcting his vocalists), and it even becomes a key lyric in the song "Thank You" (lyrics by Freberg, music by Billy May). Kermit the Frog references the line in his November 25, 1971 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, greeting the audience "out there in TV lant."
==Sources==
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Category:Sam and Friends Segments