Back when cable TV first became a thing, Bruce Springsteen sang about “57 Channels and Nothing On.”
Well, 57 channels won’t even cover basic cable in most systems now, but there are still plenty of days when the entertainment pickings get a bit slim.
On the other hand, you can find channels that cater to very specific audiences. Cable television is sort of the ultimate in niche marketing. There is no hobby, pursuit or subject so obscure that you can’t find a cable channel filled with programming about it.
Even stations that have a broader fan base feature a heavy dose of programming catering to specific folks, like polka fans.
I recently got DirectTV. It has a station that’s called The RFD Network. It’s got things like old “Hee Haw” reruns and other programming featuring second-tier country and western singers. It’s also got something called “The Mollie B Polka Party.”
It’s sort of a Lawrence Welk knockoff, but it bears the same relationship to Lawrence Welk as 1960s pro wrestling broadcast from the local studio bears to WCW, or whatever Vince McMahon has now.
The host, Mollie B, is a rather chirpy but attractive blonde woman; I suspect given the apparent target demographic, she aims to make her viewers think of a daughter, or at least a beloved daughter-in-law.
Now, I often get a kick out of watching Lawrence Welk. As an aficionado of cheese, I can tell you that Welk is the gold standard. From the polyester suits – I hope nobody ever lit a match in the studio – to the occasional weird arrangement of rock songs — Google “Lawrence Welk” and “One Toke Over the Line,” and I’m serious – nobody embodies artless art like Larry, Myron and Da Boys.
But Mollie B and her guests take things to a whole different level. You really have to see it to believe it. Don’t get me wrong; my hometown was so Polish that my church parish once had a polka mass. It was pretty weird, especially during communion, when instead of wine and wafers they served beer and kielbasa. A polka is one of the few dances I actually can do without totally humiliating myself.
But I don’t think RFD is available to a lot of people in Fargo-Moorhead. So, keeping in mind my sacred journalistic duty to shine a light where none has heretofore been, when I stumbled across the show while channel surfing I knew I had to watch it just for you, dear reader.
Here is my chronicle:
9:10 p.m.: The band, which wears matching bowling shirts, has played “El Rio,” apparently a modern polka tune, and is wrapping up a swingin’ version of “In the Mood.” Band shots are intercut with shots of couples, many of whom apparently met during the Crimean War, polkaing, or something, in what appears to be a gymnasium. Occasionally, the camera focuses on an attractive blonde woman who appears to be dancing with the creepy, skinny old guy from “Poltergeist.”
9:11: Commercial for the Polka Spree Cruise hosted by Mollie B and, good Lord, Jimmy Sturr -Eight hundred forty-nine bucks per person plus taxes and gratuities.
9:12: Commercial for the renewable fuel standard. I don’t know what that is, but the commercial featured a ventriloquist’s dummy. My guess is that in the sequel he murders T. Boone Pickins.
9:14: MOLLIE B IS ON TOUR! FOR CHRISTMAS!
9:14: Mollie B is back. She’s surrounded by kids. “We’re having a good time, aren’t we, kids?” she chirps. “Yeah,” the kids reply, in a tone of voice that indicates they’ve all been promised hot tubs full of Lucky Charms.
9:15: Back to dancing in the gym. Did you know RFD is “Rural America’s Most Important Network?” It says so right on the logo, which is plastered all over the gym.
9:16: One of the dancers looks like Gary Busey in a homburg hat.
9:17: Kids dancing in a circle. Looks vaguely Satanic.
9:17: Another dancer looks like Nikita Kruschev.
9:18: Different band; red polo shirts. Look like fast-food employees, rather than bowlers. They’re hawking CDs.
9:19: Dancing continues to a song by the famed Six Fat Dutchmen. It’s always amazed me they could produce timeless polkas while they played football for Knute Rockne.
9:21: The band is the Texas Dutchmen. I sense a theme here.
9:21: Another commercial for the cruise. Mollie B’s backup musicians call themselves The Squeezebox Band. Does Roger Daltry know this? I wonder if Mollie B ever sleeps at night.
9:22: Mollie B has a smile like The Red Skull.
9:24: Now the band is Hauser’s Hotshots. Mollie B is interviewing the leader. It’s apparently a 100-year-old family band. Well, not the current guys, but it’s a family thing. Although the bandleader looks pretty old.
9:24: Oh my God. They’re playing “You Make My Pants Get Up and Dance.” And I SWEAR TO GOD I AM NOT MAKING THAT UP.
9:25: It has lyrics. Lyrics.
9:26: Actually, it’s “You Make My Pants WANT TO Get Up and Dance.” From the lyrics, I think it’s about Richard Speck.
9:28: As the song finishes, the bandleader, who apparently learned English entirely by watching the Welk show, says with delight, “We got a lot of good pants-dancing here today.” Again, I SWEAR TO GOD I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
9:32: Commercial for, and I could not be less surprised, Branson, Mo.
At that point, I went into cheese overdose. I think there was another half-hour to go, but given the length of time since I lived among large numbers of Poles I had pretty much reached my oom-pah limit. Don’t worry, though; after massive infusions of Black Sabbath my blood evened out.
Still, the thought of my pants getting up and dancing haunts me. I guess I’ll just have to live with it and hope it never happens in public.