My Review of "Song of the South"...

I was expecting to get this Song of the South DVD next week sometime...based on the Amazon shipping data the window of delivery was to be somewhere between July 20th and July 21st...but I got it today (July 17th)...well ahead of schedule. I've seen this movie, in bits and pieces, and screen caps on animation history documentaries for several decades. I'm writing this as the DVD is playing on a TV nearby...Uncle Remus has just began singing "Zip-a-Dee Do-Dah" and the animation has become part of the movie. There's still a lot of movie left to go but as of now the DVD is NOT skipping or freezing as a dozen or so customers have mentioned. Perhaps on a repeated play the disc may have a glitch but for now it's playing without a problem. In the beginning of the movie it's made clear, without a whole lot of dialogue, that the kid, Johnny, has apparently never been in the South...he gets wide eyed looking at all of the African-Americans walking around on his grandmother's plantation...suggesting that he'd never seen people of a different color before. Later, as Uncle Remus is telling a story, Johnny peaks out from behind a tree. This is interrupted shortly after by a couple of servants from the mansion seeking Johnny's whereabouts. The film originated in November 1946...having it's premiere in Atlanta, Georgia on November 12, 1946 and the rest of the country on November 20, 1946. 

The film takes place during the Reconstruction era, after slavery was abolished, although some of the people who call themselves historians have, for decades, mistakenly tied the movie to the American Civil War.    

There's a comical scene where Johnny and Toby, the son of one of the kids from the plantation, play with a frog and later, the next day, go frog hunting. Toby removes his hat and reveals there's a frog sitting inside it. Johnny later meets a girl named Ginny. Whenever Johnny gets into any sort of dilemma or is feeling depressed he runs to Uncle Remus and is told more stories about Brer Rabbit's misadventures which, in the end, serve as inspiration for Johnny to deal with whatever is going on in his life. 

One of the funniest animated segments is when Brer Rabbit gets into a fist fight with a phony person made of tar, a trick conceived by Brer Fox. In these animated segments the Brer Bear is portrayed as a dopey sidekick of the Fox. Elsewhere in the storyline we're introduced to Ginny's brothers, Joe and Jake, two of the most bratty boys you'll ever see, who infrequently show up to either get Johnny in trouble or taunt him into arguments and fights.

The uptight mother and grandmother eventually come between Johnny and Uncle Remus' friendship. Johnny, in their view, had been following Uncle Remus around and listening to his stories so much Johnny forgot to attend his own birthday party. There's some heavier drama later when Johnny gets injured taking a shortcut through a pasture and meets up with a bull. I've tried not to include too many spoilers or stuff like that since I know this is a movie that's rare and is one that's highly subjective.

The movie, overall, is absolutely wholesome and the animated segments are cute...the reputation that it's received for decades, in my opinion, is a deliberate assault on the movie itself...sort of like manufactured controversy. The main criticism, as far as I can tell, stems from the way in which the southern African-American characters speak...and based on that flimsy criticism the movie's been forever labeled "controversial, racist..." when the storyline nor the characters have no racist overtones at all. The animated segments are spectacular. The movie, as of this writing, is nearly over. Yes, I've spent close to 2 hours composing this review...adding in things and editing things...and I'm at the scene where Uncle Remus, who'd left at the instruction of Sally, has returned following Johnny's injury and he tells another story. The ending features Johnny and Ginny singing "Zip-a-Dee Do Dah", joined by Uncle Remus and the animated characters, skipping off into the sunset. 

Uncle Remus (James Baskett) is the co-star of the film along side Johnny (Bobby Driscoll). Hattie McDaniel is a supporting player as Aunt Tempe. Ruth Warrick co-stars as Miss Sally, Johnny's mother. Luana Patten co-stars as Ginny. James Baskett is also the voice of Brer Fox. Nick Stewart voices Brer Bear. Johnny Lee is the voice of Brer Rabbit. 

Rush Limbaugh: 1951-2021

This is the Rush Limbaugh, in the photo off to the left, that I became familiar with as a teenager in the early 1990s. I was aware of who he happened to be when a local television station did a story on talk radio. The report stated that talk radio was something of a phenomenon on AM radio and it was pulling in millions of listeners, millions of callers, and millions of dollars. The concept of talk radio wasn't actually brand new but in the report it was said that Rush Limbaugh was the driving force behind it. Until this point in time I hadn't heard of Rush Limbaugh or talk-radio. Whenever I listened to the radio it was usually for music...sometimes I'd listen to a comedian on an AM radio station in Cincinnati, Gary Burbank, but that was about it. I became aware of Rush and discovered that a local radio station in the area carried his show. However, I could never listen to it because I was in school during the time of day it was on and this quite a few years before the internet came along and the advent of podcasts so you either had to live in a town where a radio station was broadcasting his nationally syndicated show live (12pm to 3pm, Eastern) or live in a town where his show was on tape delay and would air at some point in the late afternoon or early evening. The radio station where I found Rush aired the show from 3pm to 6pm, Eastern. I caught Rush in the months leading up to the 1992 Presidential election. He branched out into television in 1992 and the local television stations in my area programmed his show in the late-night hours. In one of his monologues and it became something of a running gag for awhile but whenever he said the name, Bill Clinton, the band would play "Hail to the Chief". 

I don't know how long the syndicated television show ran in my area...being a high school student I couldn't stay up late at night unless it was a Friday or Saturday. The official years of production are 1992-1996 but given it was a syndicated television show it didn't mean the local affiliates in my area aired it for it's entire run. I don't remember it airing for 4 years here...but I do remember watching it. He wrote several books...the one out at the time of his television show's debut was The Way Things Ought To Be. The popularity of his radio show and of conservative politics, in general, spawned a lot of other conservative radio talk shows and his presence on television inspired a sitcom that Henry Winkler starred, Monty. It was also during this time frame when there was an updated version of WKRP in Cincinnati. In one of the episodes they dealt with what the episode described as a 'shock jock' named Lash Rambo. It was an over-the-top spoof of Rush based on how he's perceived by his critics...and oh yes, Rush had his share of critics. 

Some of those critics are celebrating and applauding that Rush passed away. In their minds they've always seen Rush as a modern equivalent of Hitler or the personification of the Devil. The fact that he popularized conservative talk-radio and that he was described as being the leader of the conservative talk-radio industry, and, the fact that it was a multi-million dollar success meant that the critics were very loud, very vocal, and unapologetically harsh and heartless in their criticism of talk-radio, in general, but more specific: Rush's success. He became the target of the left's wrath simply because he was the most popular conservative on a national platform and never mind the fact that leftists and liberals controlled network television news and the newspaper industry, the fact that conservatives had firm control on talk-radio sent shock and alarm throughout the left-wing and liberal factions of the Democrat party. Ever since Rush's radio program and those that followed became incredibly popular and profitable on AM radio the Democrats have been on a crusade to crush all conservative opinion. For some reason the Democrats think the popularity of conservatism on talk-radio is harmful and dangerous...yet Democrats have controlled the flow of information on broadcast newscasts and in newspapers for decades...but nobody within the Republican party is launching boycotts or attack ads demanding that the Democrats loosen their grip on broadcast newscasts. It's never a two-way street with Democrats...they want to control everything and everyone. 

Rush popularized conservative talk-radio and he made it successful. He was the recipient of several Marconi Awards for Radio Personality of the Year. Anyone recall the commercial he did for Pizza Hut when the stuffed crust was brand new? His radio show remained the most listened to from the early '90s to the present day. 

There hasn't been any announcement as to who takes over that 12pm - 3pm time slot for those out there who may be wondering. Some suggest that the radio show Sean Hannity hosts nationally from 3pm - 6pm should be moved into the 12pm - 3pm slot and that Mark Levin's show, which airs nationally in most markets from 6pm to 9pm, should inherit the 3pm-6pm slot that Hannity currently occupies. I've loved the outpouring of sympathy and remembrances of Rush's life and career that have aired throughout the broadcast day on Fox News Channel. I was listening to Hannity's radio program earlier today and he played audio clips of Rush and the announcement made by Rush's wife, on radio, that Rush had passed away at age 70 of lung cancer. 

1951-2021

Hee Haw: Newly uploaded Interviews...

**Author's Note (July 17, 2021): This blog entry originally had two video uploads...one an interview with George Yanok and another with Lulu Roman. They've since been removed from YouTube. The uploader is still on YouTube and so I don't know if the uploader took those videos down or if YouTube removed them. I'm still keeping the blog entry up because it includes my reviews of each of the interviews.**

Hello all! I've written more than 20 blog entries focusing on the television series, Hee Haw, over the years. In a lot of those previous blog entries the video clips I embedded have since been removed from the internet. There were clips on-line featuring comic sketches from the obscure 1992 season. There were clips on-line from episodes that aired in 1990. Those video clips are no longer on-line and as a result some of my previous Hee Haw blog entries show blank video screens. The show, for those new to Hee Haw, aired in first-run production from 1969 until 1992. The show aired on CBS for it's first two seasons, 1969-1971, but beginning in the fall of 1971 it started airing in syndication on local television affiliates. A majority of the local affiliates were owned by CBS but it wasn't uncommon to see Hee Haw airing at 6pm Eastern on a local ABC station and then see it airing on a local CBS affiliate at 7pm Eastern. It's official time slot during it's decades in syndication was 6pm Central on Saturday evening. It's home base was in Nashville, Tennessee and during it's first 12 seasons it was taped at the Channel 5 television studios. The production moved to a studio in Opryland in 1980 and it remained there until it's final episode in 1992. 

A YouTube channel called Tee Vee Classics has uploaded a couple of interviews with those who worked on the Hee Haw show. One interview is with cast-member, Lulu Roman. The other interview is with one of the show's main writers for a number of years, George Yanok. The interview is engaging and informative. The writer talks about the complex production of the show and how editing was the driving force behind the series...mentioning that the show won an Emmy in the category of 'Best Electronic Editing of a Primetime Series'. He mentions the show's hosts, Roy Clark and Buck Owens, and makes mention of several other cast members and why it was important to tape the show in Nashville, Tennessee rather than have the cast fly out to Los Angeles. 

In the interview with Lulu Roman. She speaks about her upbringing and how so far removed she was from the country music scene and the country music world she had no idea, at first, that she was sharing the stage with legends of country music. She tells how it was Buck Owens who 'discovered' her several years before Hee Haw was even created. Buck had a hit television show that was locally syndicated and for the first several years while co-hosting Hee Haw he remained host of his own television show. He eventually had to give up his own show because, if I'm recalling correctly, it became competition as Hee Haw began showing up on local television affiliates that were carrying Buck's television series. 

(July 17, 2021): I know it's not the same as having the two video uploads...but this is the big reason why I usually don't want to include video uploads in most of my blog entries.