History Main / PolkaDork

-> ''"Everybody polka!"''

* ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'s owner Jon Arbuckle likes polka music and he also plays accordion. He is perennially shown to be about as unhip as someone can be. In one comic, his idea of getting "wild" was shouting "EVERYBODY POLKA!" while putting on an {{impossibly tacky| clothes}} suit. The series has taken so many [[TakeThat pot shots]] at the accordion that real-life accordion enthusiasts have [[DudeNotFunny actually gotten pissed off]].

** Pinkie Pie. She carries a huge one-man band around on her back and the Cheese Sandwich episode points out how similar she and Cheese are.

* Offbeat comedienne Judy Tenuta's stage personality is a quirky accordion player.

* Used as a signature RunningGag by Music/WeirdAlYankovic, who does polka versions of popular music; nearly every one of his studio albums features a track of over a dozen pop music hits set to polka, and he's done original polkas of contemporary topics such as ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' and ''Theater/{{Hamilton}}''. Needless to say, Al is [[https://twitter.com/alyankovic/status/1242648876013608960 highly]] [[https://twitter.com/alyankovic/status/1027472873630253056 skilled]] with the accordion, as he's been playing since the age of seven. This started when a traveling musician came to his family's house selling music lessons (either accordion or guitar), and his parents chose accordion so there would be ''two'' world-famous accordion-playing Yankovics besides Frankie (who they weren't actually related to).

* Used as a signature RunningGag by Music/WeirdAlYankovic, who does polka versions of popular music; nearly every one of his studio albums features a track of over a dozen pop music hits set to polka. Al is also highly skilled with the accordion, as he's been playing since the age of seven. This started when a traveling musician came to his family's house selling music lessons (either accordion or guitar), and his parents chose accordion so there would be ''two'' world-famous accordion-playing Yankovics besides Frankie (who they weren't actually related to).

* Music/LawrenceWelk. While wildly popular with the older crowd, his music was considered square and dorky by the younger generation and even by his contemporaries and has often been parodied. (Example: Creator/StanFreberg's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArUCLh8pdkE "Wun'erful, Wun'erful!"]]). Even in polka circles Welk was considered considered kind of bland, since he played the more staid German-influenced polka style, as opposed to the livelier Slovenian style favored by stars like "America's Polka King" [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Yankovic Frankie Yankovic]].
* Used as a gag by Music/WeirdAlYankovic, who does polka versions of popular music. He plays the accordion. As an interesting note, allegedly this dates back to his childhood, when a traveling musician came to his family's house and offered to give him either accordion or guitar lessons. They chose accordion, so that there would be ''two'' accordion-playing Yankovics (besides Frankie, who they weren't actually related to).

-->-- '''Jon Arbuckle''' from ''Comicstrip/{{Garfield}}''

* Offbeat comedienne Judy Tenuda's stage personality is a quirky accordion player.

* WeirdTheAlYankovicStory: Inverted. Polka is (satirically) portrayed as a hip and rebellious counterculture in the film. Al's father is convinced that accordions are the Devil's squeezebox, going as far as to assault an accordion salesman and destroy Al's when he gets one. As a teenager, Al [[BookAndSwitch hides polka mags in his textbooks]] and goes to "[[WildTeenParty polka parties]]" where he jams out on an accordion.

* In ''Film/MyFavoriteYear'', "Anyone who plays the accordion professionally" is on Benjy's list of people who cannot be funny. When K.C. [[CannotTellAJoke completely muffs the joke he gave her to tell]], he hands her money. When she asks what's it for, he replies "Accordion lessons".

* Music/LawrenceWelk. While wildly popular with the older crowd, his music was considered square and dorky by the younger generation and even by his contemporaries and has often been parodied. (Example: Creator/StanFreberg's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArUCLh8pdkE "Wun'erful, Wun'erful!"]])
* Used as a gag by Music/WeirdAlYankovic, who does polka versions of popular music. He plays the accordion. As an interesting note, allegedly this dates back to his childhood, when a traveling musician came to his family's house and offered to give him either accordion or guitar lessons. They chose accordion, so that there would be ''two'' accordion-playing Yankovics, the other being "America's Polka King" [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Yankovic Frankie Yankovic]].