I watched that show all the time. It was that or a farm report, and the farm report didn't have guitars, so I watched Welk.
Polka is wrapped up in a lot of cheese, but it's folk music, and was roots music for all those first and second generation upper Midwest iron range transplants from Germany and Scandinavia. Polka is still popular here and in Mexico. They call it Banda, but take away the vocals and it's straight up polka. And the trumpet/trombone/saxophone horn sections from Banda were appropriated by Jamaican ska and reggae musicians in the late 50s, 60s and 70s, which just goes to show you - something. Maybe it shows that you can draw a line from Lawrence Welk to hip hop and all the connections make some kind of absurd sense.
Though you could probably draw a line from Welk to Hitler just as easily. I don't know anything about the guy, but it doesn't seem like much of a stretch. He talked like a Nazi. And all those blond girls in dirndls...that was some Master Race shit going on there.