Don Messick on camera...

Hello all...there are several video clips on YouTube that feature the late Don Messick on camera. There have been uploads of the sitcom, "The Duck Factory", which Don co-starred in as Wally Wooster. There's a clip of him and Daws Butler performing primarily as Boo Boo and Yogi Bear (plus Ranger Smith)...and then there's a video clip I came across yesterday while searching YouTube. Don's birthday happened to be yesterday (born September 7, 1926) and so I did some video searching. I came across this video clip (uploaded a couple of weeks ago) from 1982 (I think). Don mentions a couple of times that he'd been working for Hanna-Barbera for 25 years and given that Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera started their studio in 1957 that means the video clip is from 1982...or possibly early 1983. The video is an interview which lasts a little over 8 minutes.

If you're a dedicated fan of classic cartoons and are familiar with Don Messick's work you'll definitely get a kick out of seeing him perform some characters on-camera. The figurine of the Smurf character in the screen shot is Jokey Smurf (a character June Foray gave voice to) that the interviewer mistook for Papa Smurf. Remember...the interviewers aren't necessarily what you'd call die hard fans of cartoons...but they gave Don a grand opportunity to display his incredible vocal talents. I wish he would've performed the voice of Klunk on camera...I'd love to have seen Don's facial contortions as he spoke in that character's voice. If you're not familiar you'll have to look up video clips of a cartoon called "Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines". Don voices Muttley, Zilly, and Klunk in addition to providing the opening narration which sets the scene. Klunk has a very distinctive vocalization.



Don Messick: September 7, 1926 - October 24, 1997.

June Foray: 1917-2017

A couple of days ago the news broke that June Foray had died at the age of 99. Since the news broke there have been hundreds of on-line tributes to her career in the voice-over field. I gave her a nickname that probably others have given to her as well, Voice Acting Goddess, and she's totally and completely deserving of the title. Is she the first lady of voice acting? Some may argue that she is...certainly she's the most famous and had the longest lasting career of her contemporaries Mae Questel and Janet Waldo...but some may bestow such a lofty title on Mae given that her career as the voice of Betty Boop dates back to the early '30s and it wasn't until the early '50s that June began to make a powerful mark in animation voice overs....hitting her stride in the mid '50s and beyond with a host of vocal performances in theatrically released cartoons. A lot of her earlier voice work happened to be for Disney and MGM. She had a lengthy career on radio that shouldn't be over-looked. A series she wrote, created, and hosted titled Lady Make Believe aired for a couple of years (1937-1939). The big break in radio came later in 1944 when she was chosen to be among the ensemble cast of a comedy program hosted by Ed McConnell. Smilin' Ed's Gang happened to be the show's title but many on-line sources cite the program under the title of The Buster Brown Program (the sponsor happened to be a shoe company named Buster Brown). Concurrently, 1947-1949, June appeared in a lot of comedy routines on a series titled Smile Time, hosted by future television comedy pioneer Steve Allen. June continued to pop up on various radio programs (comedy and drama) throughout the '50s...and this included the famed 1957 series, The Stan Freberg Show. By this point in time June had established herself as a top voice artist in animated cartoons. She had racked up a number of credits for Disney and MGM.

Some of her famed roles for those studios included Lucifer the Cat in 1950's Cinderella and several characters in Goofy and Donald Duck cartoons...and in one of those Donald Duck cartoons, 1952's "Trick or Treat", she portrayed a character named Witch Hazel (not to be confused with another character by that name...more on that, later...); she gave voice to a couple of characters named Mary in the MGM cartoons "One Cab's Family" (1952) and "Little Johnny Jet" (1953), both directed by Tex Avery. In 1955 she gave voice to the Warner Brothers character, Granny, for the first time. She replaced original voice artist, Bea Benaderet. The cartoon in which June makes her Granny debut is 1955's "Red Riding Hoodwinked" (directed by Friz Freleng; starring Sylvester and Tweety). Her next vocal appearance as Granny arrived later that same year in Friz Freleng's "This Is a Life?". In this cartoon Granny played the part of an audience member becoming increasingly disgusted/irritated with Daffy's obnoxious comments and opinions about Bugs Bunny and in a recurring visual gag she hits Daffy on the head with her umbrella several times to get him to be quiet. In the cartoon Bugs is being given the star treatment in a spoof of This Is Your Life. The following year, 1956, Warner Brothers released the Chuck Jones directed cartoon, "Broom-Stick Bunny". In this cartoon June takes over the role of Witch Hazel. The character had previously appeared in Chuck's "Bewitched Bunny" (1954) voiced by Bea Benaderet. June originally turned down the role of the Chuck Jones character of Witch Hazel because she felt he stole it from Disney. She'd voice the Chuck Jones character in three cartoons: "Broom-Stick Bunny" (1956), "A Witch's Tangled Hare" (1959); and "A-Haunting We Will Go" (1966) although the final appearance happened to be in a cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. June would next voice Witch Hazel in an episode of the Duck Dodgers series in 2003.

The same year that she took over the role of Witch Hazel (1956) she originated the roles of Knothead and Splinter in the Woody Woodpecker series. This series was released through Universal Studios, directed by Paul J. Smith, and produced by Walter Lantz. Knothead and Splinter are the niece and nephew of star character, Woody, and they're usually creating mischief...often appearing to be too smart for the villain of the episode. She voiced the siblings during all of their theatrical appearances...their first being "Get Lost" in 1956. 

1959 is a pivotal year in June's career as it marked the first time she voiced a starring character in an animated series. By this point in her career she had provided voices for dozens of cartoons from a group of iconic studios: Warner Brothers, Disney, MGM, and Universal; and she displayed her vocalizations in a string of comedy recordings by Stan Freberg (and she became one of the cast members of his 1957 radio show). In 1958, with made for TV cartoons being a product of the not too distant future, she was selected to voice the role of a male squirrel named Rocky for the Jay Ward studio. The series never made it to air until a year later, 1959, on ABC. The program broke ground in the area of cartoon humor. So many puns, one-liners, satire, and self-awareness by the characters flew over many of the children's heads no doubt but older children and young adults (and even older adults) watched the show. The program, "Rocky and His Friends", debuted on November 19, 1959. The show was ahead of it's time. It happened to be the shared creation of Jay Ward, key writer and voice actor, Bill Scott, and Alex Anderson. June was assigned the roles of Rocky and the Russian spy, Natasha; she also provided vocals for Nell Fenwick in a supporting segment, Dudley Dorite of the Mounties. Her co-stars in the Dudley Dorite segments were Bill Scott as Dorite, Paul Frees as Inspector Fenwick, and Hans Conried as the villain, Snidley Whiplash. She lent her voice to the other supporting segments, too: Peabody's Improbable History, Aesop and Son, and Fractured Fairy Tales. In the latter segment June and Daws Butler starred in the majority of installments. June often portrayed the fairy Godmothers or Princess characters...and many times the good or evil witches depending on the story...and Daws portrayed all of the male characters...sometimes Paul Frees would also contribute in this segment.

In time the series changed networks and title. Jumping from ABC to NBC in 1961 the series became "The Bullwinkle Show" with only slight differences. June later added the roles of Ursula and Marigold to her growing list of characters. Ursula was the mate of George, a Tarzan-like character, in Jay Ward's "George of the Jungle". In a supporting segment, Tom Slick, June voiced Tom's girlfriend, Marigold. The oddity in these characters is that, vocally, they're the same as Dudley Dorite and Nell Fenwick and yet it's not something that you actually think of when you watch the cartoons. The show is still funny but at the same time you love hearing those voices...and Jay Ward knew that.

In an interview June gave in 1987 for a Daws Butler documentary she commented that both she and Daws had performed the same voices several times for multiple characters in one session. She remarked that they recorded 5 episodes of Fractured Fairy Tales a night and they brought it to Jay's attention that she did a voice similar to Marjorie Main in 2 episodes and that Daws did his Charles Butterworth impression on several episodes in the session. After inquiring if Jay would like them to re-record the lines with different voices so there wouldn't be a feeling of sameness Jay replied that he wanted those voices. You can't fault him for that. As I watch the DVD of Season 2 of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" it never enters my mind that there's a voice similar to another character...I'm too busy grinning, giggling, or laughing to even care to notice. The same is true for Jay's other main series, "George of the Jungle".

There is another series, "Fractured Flickers", which a lot of the Jay Ward fans rate pretty high but I'm not as familiar with it because it didn't play on TV much, if at all, during my childhood (the '80s and early '90s). It's a live-action series hosted by Hans Conried in which footage of old movies (mostly silent films) are played with re-dubbed, comically-infused dialogue from June, Paul Frees, and Bill Scott. Here's an episode...June can be heard in the first re-dubbed presentation. Paul is the narrator.



June's autobiography, Did You Grow Up With Me, Too?, which you see in the photo above arrived nearly 50 years after the debut of "Rocky and His Friends". The book hit in 2009. I wrote a review of it back then and posted it on Amazon's website in addition to posting the review here on my blog. She never received any industry awards (speaking of Oscar or Emmy recognition) at the time of the book's release but several years later, in 2012, she received her first Emmy trophy at the Daytime Emmy Awards. She won for her role as Mrs. Cauldron in the CGI "The Garfield Show". At the time of her win she was 94. Speaking of industry accolades...she was instrumental in getting animation included in several awards organizations. In 1988 she received the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award (given out during The Eisner Awards). In 1995 the organization she created in 1972, The Annie Awards, began awarding The June Foray Award. The Oscars began recognizing animated feature films on a more consistent basis starting in 2001...and a lot of that had to do with June's behind the scenes efforts at getting the Academy Awards to consider animated films in the same light as live-action films. There's drama and comedy in live-action films and there's animated films that are either dramatic or comedic...so what's the difference? In both cases you have actors (on-screen or voice-over) and you have characters (live-action or animated). In 2013 she received the Governor's Award at the Creative Arts Emmy gala. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards spotlight mostly non-traditional categories which rarely get spotlighted on the televised Prime Time Emmy Awards.

In the collage to the left are just a few of the hundreds of animated characters that June gave voice to. I attempted to single out the various animation studios that she provided voices for. This of course is meant as a tribute collage but by no means is it definitive. I hadn't even mentioned, until now, her work for Rankin/Bass or her iconic role as Cindy Lou Who in the Chuck Jones classic, How The Grinch Stole Christmas. In the 1980s she gave voice to Jokey Smurf and Mother Nature in "The Smurfs" and Aunt May in "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" cartoon. So don't let this memorial blog completely satisfy you...I encourage all of you to seek out her career and delve into it and find out so many other aspects of her contributions to animation that I hadn't even touched upon. The best way to do that is to purchase her autobiography (obviously!) but also visit YouTube or Amazon and see all of the available on-line cartoons that she lent her voice to. Her two enduring characters are Granny and Rocky. She voiced Granny the longest...from the theatrical cartoons of the '50s and '60s to the various made for TV cartoon specials and later television productions from Warner Brothers: "The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries" (1995-2000), "Baby Looney Tunes" (2001-2003; 2004-2006), and "The Looney Tunes Show" (2011-2014; recurring character). Ma Beagle is a character that appeared on the Disney series, "DuckTales", as did Magica De Spell (she's the duck character in the first panel of the collage). Ma Beagle, located in panel seven, and the short tempered Grammi Gummi, located in panel nine, were both given June's Marjorie Main voice. Marjorie, for those that don't know, portrayed Ma Kettle in a string of comedy movies. Knothead and Splinter are in panel 6. The Chuck Jones version of Witch Hazel is in panel 2. Granny can be found in panels 3 and 8. When June took over as Granny in 1955 the character appeared in that kind of physical design. Later, the animators returned the character to her more familiar design seen in panel 8. In panel 4 it's Rocky the flying squirrel. In the center of the collage is a publicity photo of June at a recording studio which I opened the memorial blog post with.

June was involved in a car accident sometime in 2015...and although she survived you could say it ended her prolific, legendary career. She never lent her voice to any animated program or video game after 2014. Her voice lives on, though, in numerous animated programs and video games. How many people, I wonder, learned through her obituary that she was the voice of Talky Tina in one of the famed episodes of "The Twilight Zone"? I knew of that fact for years but many others are probably finding it out and probably rushed to YouTube to see if they could find the episode. It's an episode titled Living Doll and it stars Telly Savalas. It originally aired November 1, 1963.

June Foray was born June Forer on September 18, 1917 and died of cardiac arrest at the age of 99 on July 26, 2017.

Sam Lovullo: 9/30/28 - 1/3/17

The passing of television producer Sam Lovullo back on January 3rd of this year (age 88) is something that I couldn't compose a blog entry about because of the impact he indirectly had on my own upbringing and life through a certain television program. I'm not going to say that his death impacted me in the way it did those that personally knew him (those in the entertainment business and his own family) but it was something I didn't want to write much about. If you're familiar with my blog entries about Hee Haw then you'll know how much I loved that program and how it was must-see television every Saturday, and later, Sunday, during the weekends in which I'd spend with my grandparents. Eventually I'd stop spending the weekends with them but I continued to watch Hee Haw any chance I could get at my own house (I have several siblings, two of them older than I, so a lot of the time I didn't "control" the second TV...but the times that I did I made it a point to catch Hee Haw!). Just this past Sunday night (June 11th) the episode of Hee Haw that aired on RFD-TV guest starred Bobby Goldsboro and The Oak Ridge Boys (from October 1978).

Born on September 30, 1928 Sam Lovullo became identified for most of his adult life as the driving force behind Hee Haw and as a result of being such a driving force it caused me to appreciate him even more. He didn't come off as a cynic or the kind of producer that distanced himself from the program's that carried his name. In Sam Lovullo I saw a television producer who was just as enthusiastic and a fan of the program as the viewers happened to be. In other words he wasn't a turn-off. Lovullo wrote about his professional career (with some backstage offerings added in) with the help of another author, Marc Eliot, in a book published in 1996 titled Life in the Kornfield: My 25 Years at Hee Haw.

The career of Sam Lovullo is often traced back to the CBS variety series, The Jonathan Winters Show, which aired for 2 seasons, 1967-1969. Several key people associated with Hee Haw were also involved in Jonathan Winter's program. Key people? None other than Hee Haw creators John Aylesworth and Frank Peppiatt. Lovullo happened to be an associate producer of Jonathan's program. In interviews and in the 1996 book, Lovullo stated that the ratings in the Southern states spiked whenever country music artists appeared on Jonathan's program and eventually this rating fact and the popularity of Laugh-In inspired the creation of Hee Haw in 1969. It hit the air this week on CBS in 1969 (actual debut being June 15, 1969). Sam Lovullo was not only the producer but he was also the casting director. This assignment gave him an even more hands-on approach to the show as it was Lovullo in charge of picking and choosing who was going to be part of the show's main cast (including the co-hosts, Buck Owens and Roy Clark).

The show had a summer run and after which it then went on hiatus. It returned later in the year as a mid-season replacement and was canceled once more in early 1970. Eventually, however, CBS picked the show up once more and added it to their 1970-1971 line-up. It was canceled one final time by CBS after the end of the 1970-1971 television season.

Not wanting to see the series end (and certain unemployment for almost all of it's staff...including the cast) Lovullo, more than anybody else connected with the show, believed the show could thrive in syndication...offering the show to local affiliates across the country to program during the local access time slot. The FCC had mandated that a certain time of the day were to be turned over to local affiliates to air local programming (Prime Time Access Rule) rather than every channel being consumed by national/network programming. This rule, instituted in 1970, aided the syndicated market in a big way...and first-run syndication broadcasts eventually became just as profitable and just as attractive to sponsors as network broadcasts. Interestingly, this FCC rule was repealed in 1996, the year Sam's Life in the Kornfield book hit the stores.

As history shows, Sam Lovullo remained a vital part of Hee Haw and he remained it's driving force throughout it's entire 22 years in syndication (1971-1993). The 1992-1993 season, however, was a compilation series of sketches and music performances to celebrate the program's Silver Anniversary. The final first-run episode of Hee Haw aired on May 30, 1992.

In addition to The Jonathan Winters Show and Hee Haw, Sam Lovullo produced several variety programs in his career. A majority of those were one-time specials rather than a series. One of those one-time specials starred John Wayne...the 1970 NBC special, Swing Out, Sweet Land. Lovullo happened to be the associate producer, technically. It was filled to the brim with all kinds of celebrities from all time periods...and those celebrities mostly all portrayed historical figures from all different time periods...and you can watch it on YouTube. Roy Clark is on the special as a banjo player for Andrew Jackson's inaugural ball.

Yet the most notable of Sam's non-Hee Haw efforts, which happened to be a weekly series, is Nashville Palace. The program aired in the early 1980s and it featured a lot of cross-over with the stars of Hee Haw but the Palace was a conventional variety series. In fact, Roy Clark hosted the first episode of Nashville Palace (airing October 24, 1981). The Palace series happened to be one of the last regularly scheduled, country music-oriented, variety programs on network television for more than a decade. It also aired prior to the 1983 launch of cable television's The Nashville Network, also known as TNN (1983-2000). Reruns of Hee Haw would air on TNN for four years (1993-1997).

From 2009 until 2011 Sam was the President of the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters organization. 

The Oklahoma Historical Society put together a salute to Hee Haw in 2014 (the 45th anniversary of it's 1969 debut) and a video retrospective/documentary was also put together. You can see that video by clicking HERE. As you could imagine Sam Lovullo is featured several times throughout the video clip.

TVLEGENDS, a YouTube channel, has a 10-part interview with Sam Lovullo. Some, if not all, of the segments have extremely low volume, though...so you may need to adjust your device's volume. You can see part 1 by clicking HERE. You can access the rest of the clips once you're over on YouTube.

This book is something that I highly recommend. Although I do not think it is in print anymore it never hurts to check on-line auction sites. I purchased this book when it was 'hot off the presses' in 1996. At the time of the book's release Hee Haw had been airing in reruns on The Nashville Network since 1993 and Time Life had been offering a VHS called Hee Haw Laffs. TNN originally aired their reruns of Hee Haw on Saturday night at 7pm Eastern and they would re-air at 10pm. By the time the book hit the stores TNN had re-arranged it's Saturday night line-up and Hee Haw no longer aired at 7pm but it remained in the 10pm slot following The Statler Brothers Show. The Opryland Theme Park had also began staging a live production of the series...an hour program called Hee Haw Live which featured recreations of sketches, characters, and imagery on a sound stage at the Opryland park. If I remember correctly the half hour program was broken into 2 segments: 30 minutes of comedy and 30 minutes of serious performances of country and gospel music. I think this production lasted a couple of seasons. Several of the show's longtime cast members (Lulu Roman, Grandpa Jones, George Lindsey, and Gunilla Hutton) appeared in this Opryland production in addition to several newcomers (one of them a guy named Jason Petty...who later became extremely popular as Hank Williams in the Lost Highway production). In the book Sam tells the story behind Hee Haw and it's massive popularity in first run syndication. A cast-member and selected guest star section is featured as is an exhaustive break-down of the behind the scenes crew. A lot of the information from the book is also covered in those TVLEGENDS YouTube video clips I earlier mentioned.

Gordie Tapp: 1922-2016

On December 18, 2016 the entertainment/comedy world lost the talents of Gordie Tapp at the age of 94. Born Gordon Tapp on June 4, 1922 in London, Ontario, Canada he became a starring attraction on Canadian television in the mid 1950s but before that he had a lengthy career on Canadian radio. He hosted a radio series titled What's on Tapp? as early as 1946. Another series, Main Street Jamboree, hit CHML radio in November 1952 (hosted by Tapp) and it moved to television via CHCH in 1954. A lot of the technical information comes from research easily obtained on any social media biography site but to distinguish my memorial blog posts from the numerous tribute blogs out there in cyberspace I tend to personalize the blog posts with my own commentary and remembrances...so that it doesn't come off as a list of credits. I'd say the series that made him a superstar in Canada happened to be a program called Country Hoedown which hit the air in 1956 on CBC television. In the previous programs Gordie often appeared as a rural character named 'Cousin Clem'. Gordie hosted Country Hoedown for a period of 9 years (10 television seasons) from 1956 to 1965. A couple of titans in Canadian entertainment, Tommy Hunter and Gordon Lightfoot, were members of the cast during the course of the 10 season run. Eventually Tommy Hunter became the legendary emcee of his own self-titled program (which crossed over into America in the 1980s via The Nashville Network) and Gordon Lightfoot became a hugely successful pop singer in both Canada and the United States. Tommy began his program on radio in 1960 and it moved to television in 1965.

Are you looking for some irony? Tommy's self-titled series replaced Gordie's Country Hoedown on the CBC schedule.

From there Gordie's next accomplishment came along in the most uncertain of fashions in the summer of 1969...not on Canadian television but on American television. CBS had recently canceled a controversial series hosted by The Smothers Brothers. That series remained on the CBS schedule, in reruns, until June 8, 1969. All during this chaotic time a series designed to be a country music/rural America answer to Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and Lawrence Welk was in the works. After the Smothers Brothers program received it's abrupt cancellation in April of 1969 (several weeks after it had been picked up for another season, 1969-1970) the producers/writers of this upcoming series had at least 2 months in order to be ready to hit the air on June 15, 1969. In this short span of time everything had to be taped in batches and then edited together (music performances, cast and guest introductions, comedy sketches, etc.). That summer series, titled Hee Haw, ran on CBS from June 15, 1969 until September 7, 1969.

Gordie Tapp happened to be tapped as one of the program's writers and stars from the beginning. The program's creators, Frank Peppiatt and John Ayelsworth, were Canadians. The program's production company happened to be named Yongesteet Productions, named after a street in Toronto. Another of the main cast-members and one of it's writers, Don Harron, had a career that nearly mirrored that of Gordie Tapp. He and Gordie happened to be Canadian entertainment legends prior to their association with Hee Haw. The show's producer and casting director, Sam Lovullo, had ties within the television industry and had been involved with "The Jonathan Winters Show". (Note: Sam Lovullo, sadly, passed away last month at the age of 88 on January 3rd). I'll post some sort of memorial blog in the future. I had planned on posting one for Sam Lovullo but I couldn't bring myself to do it and I'll explain more in the blog post that I'll eventually write.

In the meantime, after the summer run of Hee Haw ended on September 7, 1969, all of the cast members and it's co-hosts (Roy Clark and Buck Owens) thought they were finished with the series and it would fade away in the memories of television viewers by the fall and be remembered by almost nobody...but not so fast. CBS picked up the series as a mid-season replacement and more episodes had to be constructed by it's next air-date: December 17, 1969. This second run of Hee Haw on the CBS schedule ended on April 8, 1970.

CBS then picked the series up for a more conventional fall debut. On September 15, 1970 the series returned for a third season on CBS. By this time the unique Hee Haw production method had become a fixture. The production of the series was constructed in bits and pieces from material recorded during 2 production periods per year. In the summer production cycle the cast and crew gathered together to tape enough material for the first 13 episodes of the season. In the fall this practice was repeated and viola there you'd have the 26 episodes needed (plus the 26 repeats) to complete a 52 week calendar year. The series aired what turned out to be it's final episode on the national CBS schedule on February 23, 1971. Later in the year CBS canceled all of it's rural programs. Once again the cast and crew of the series didn't know the future of the program and like times past some of the cast opted to move on to other things. Behind the scenes, however, the series producer, Sam Lovullo, embarked on attempting to sell the program in syndication. The series gained a list of local television affiliates and advertisers and by the fall of 1971 Hee Haw, once again, hit the air. This fourth season (it's debut in first-run syndication) began on September 18, 1971 and the series eventually became the #1 nationally syndicated program on television and in it's peak it aired on more than 250 local television stations across the United States. The series made the Canadian legends, Gordie Tapp and Don Harron, major stars on American television. The syndicated run of Hee Haw ran uninterrupted for 21 more seasons...airing it's final first-run episode on May 30, 1992...and Gordie happened to be a cast-member from start to finish.

Gordie Tapp, Junior Samples, Grandpa Jones, Lulu Roman

In these earliest of episodes Gordie appeared as Cousin Clem in both one-liner material and as a member of The Culhanes, a recurring sketch featuring Gordie, Grandpa Jones, Lulu Roman, and Junior Samples. The premise of the sketch, a spoof of radio soap operas complete with organ intro and off-camera announcer, happened to center around each character having a conversation but each family member spoke a line at a time...and in monotone...for example...

Cousin Clem: "How's the weather outside, Cousin Grandpa?".
Cousin Grandpa: "Awful...it's terrible...".
Cousin Lulu: "Cousin Junior wants a flea collar...".
Cousin Junior: "That's right...it's raining cats and dogs.".

At the conclusion of the sketch and the utterance of an intentionally bad, but sometimes clever one-liner, you'd hear the sting of the organ and everyone would take turns looking at the family member that said the bad joke before the fade out to another sketch or to a commercial break. 

In addition to the Cousin Clem role he had another recurring character, Samuel B. Sternwheeler (visually a Mark Twain spoof). In this guise he'd walk out of the door of a house and deliver brief editorials about life and his thoughts on everything he witnessed in his day to day life. He'd deliver the messages in a better-than-you condescending tone, typically ending with a bad one-liner, upon at which time he was punished for the joke by getting hit over the head, or on the side of the head, with a rubber chicken. This character would later morph into Col. Daddy in a series of sketches also starring Marianne Rogers as his spoiled rich daughter. Those particular sketches aired in the late '70s and into the mid '80s. Eventually Gordie's character no longer appeared in the sketches but was referenced to by his spoiled daughter in almost every sketch.

One couldn't properly recap the career of Gordie Tapp without spotlighting the lovable loser, Laverne Nagger. This character became one of Gordie's most popular on Hee Haw. A lot of the charm of the sketch tended to be his rude one-liners and of course the sparring with his wife, Ida Lee, played by Roni Stoneman, happened to be the highlight of the sketch. The sparring, or nagging, is actually the inspiration for the character's last names. Each one constantly nagged at the other over bills, money, her family, his drinking, etc. This sketch, in it's earliest incarnation, had a very dark overtone but was comical and combative at the same time. Ida Lee typically hit Laverne with a rolling pin or threatened to throw her iron at him many times during an argument. Each sketch began the same: you'd hear a dreary guitar note and then Ida Lee screams "Laverne!!!" usually because he's either asleep in his bowl of food or in a daze with an ever present moonshine jug in hand. The couple lived in a shack and in later episodes they're joined by a son, Elrod, played by Kenny Price and in later installments Ida Lee's mother appears in the sketches (played by one of the program's backup singers, Wendy Suits).

Gordie and Archie Campbell (another of the show's main writers) popularized the sketch referred to as "Pffft...You Was Gone!". Each sketch included a performance of the aforementioned song starting off with the lyrics "where, oh where, are you tonight...". Gordie often appeared with his back to the camera, sometimes he'd appear asleep with a hat over his face, or he'd be standing in profile looking at Archie as he sang the opening verse. As the song reached it's chorus Archie would elbow Gordie who would then jolt into action and join Archie in the singing of the song's chorus. As the series became increasingly popular a lot of the country music and non-country music guest stars wanted to sing the song and so usually 2 sketches appeared per show. In the first half hour Archie or Gordie would be joined by one of the special guests and in the second half hour another guest star would perform the sketch with either Archie or Gordie. In the 1980s George Lindsey often performed the sketch with one of the guest stars that week.

Another of Gordie's long running characters happened to be Mr. Gordon...the owner of the Kornfield Kounty General Store. For this character Gordie essentially played himself. The sketch, in it's earliest incarnation, comically exaggerated the frugality of rural customers and it often created opportunities to do consumer/retail industry jokes but it didn't really take off, in my opinion, until Gailard Sartain joined the series and the subsequent creation of the Maynard character. The friction that existed between the stern and serious Mr. Gordon and the overly anxious and eager to please, but usually clumsy and moronic, Maynard, created a comical dynamic lacking in the earlier sketches.

In the 1980s some of the long established cast members were passing away and it impacted some of the sketches that Gordie appeared in. Junior Samples died in 1983 and The Culhanes added Mike Snider in the role once played by Junior. After the 1985-1986 season came to a close the producers let go most of it's cast (including Buck Owens, Don Harron, and Roni Stoneman among many others); both Archie Campbell and Kenny Price died in 1987. In 1989 Gordie no longer was credited as one of the show's writers and several other long-time writers for the series like Bud Wingard and Barry Adleman ceased writing for the series in 1989. Gordie, however, remained on the series and even appeared in a new sketch which also starred Phil Campbell (one of Archie's sons). This sketch featured the duo as a pair of police. The sketch title happened to be Kornfield Kops. Steve Campbell, another son of Archie, became one of the new writers in 1989.

In 1990 Gordie was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.

In mid 1991 another cast shake-up happened which resulted in nearly all of the cast-members, except for a handful of long-time regulars, being let go. Gordie, fortunately, happened to be among those that were kept under contract and he returned to the series later that year to tape episodes in an urban setting and with hardly any rural, rustic decor in sight. Since Hee Haw was going through a visual make-over, as well as a major cast change following it's final first run episode of the 1990-1991 season, the production of new episodes didn't begin until the fall of 1991. The taping sessions for the series had always taken place during the months of June and October of each year but since there wasn't a taping session in June 1991 that meant when September 1991 rolled around there weren't any new episodes ready to air to kick-off the new television season. So, with that, the 1991-1992 season began with repeats from previous seasons until new episodes were ready to air.

The first episode of the 1991-1992 season finally hit the air in January 1992...and the backlash happened almost immediately. The series, for whatever reason, had also changed it's official title to The Hee Haw Show. The jokes/one-liners remained intentionally bad and corny but the graphics and set designs changed big time. I think if the setting remained rural and everyone continued appearing in the cornfield and the haystacks remained prominent the 1992 episodes may have gone over a little bit better even with the casting changes...but it's hard to tell. The cast, staff, and crew nevertheless did an incredible job...pulling off 22 episodes in less than half a year's time.

After Hee Haw ended production Gordie settled into a post-Hee Haw life as did everybody else connected to the series. He remained active and in 1998 received the Order of Canada for humanitarian efforts. In 1999 he received the Order of Ontario. He often appeared at Hee Haw events/reunions and remained one of the biggest supporters of the series and spoke highly of it and seemed grateful for it's impact on his life and career. Reruns of Hee Haw aired on The Nashville Network during a four year period (1993-1997). After the reruns became property of RFD-TV in 2008 several surviving cast-members delivered commercials promoting the reruns.

On January 6, 2012 RFD-TV aired a tribute to the series called "Salute to the Kornfield" in which it's producers attempted to reunite every surviving cast-member of the series. They succeeded in rounding up the core surviving members of the cast and they even enlisted the talents of Barbi Benton, a cast-member for several years in the 1970s, but she departed the series for a Hollywood career. Gordie happened to tape a commercial for RFD during the Salute festivities. It used to be on YouTube but it's been removed. There happened to be well over 500 episodes of Hee Haw...and for some reason or another obituary and memorial sites have mistakenly credited him with appearing in 90 episodes. As a series regular from start to finish Gordie appeared in every episode.

A photo from it's final rural-themed season, 1990-1991. Gordie, George Lindsey, Gailard Sartain, and Minnie Pearl stand in front of one of the props, a southern house used as a background set for the various country music performances that took place during this point in the show's history. He published his life story in 2007 and portions of it can be read on-line. It's called What's on Tapp?: The Gordie Tapp Story.

Gordie had been married to a woman named Constance (often referred to by her middle name, Helen) for more than 70 years at the time of his death in December 2016. As it's likely to happen in marriages that last so long once a spouse passes away the surviving spouse often follows soon after and that's just what happened several days ago. His widow passed away on January 29, 2017 at the age of 94.

The Canadian news organization, CBC, did a great look back at Gordie's career and I'm providing the link HERE. It's a fascinating memorial and includes a lot of inside information that only those that worked in Canadian television and radio could share and that's how I'd like to conclude this blog entry on Gordie Tapp and his impact on Canadian television but especially here in America through his involvement in Hee Haw.

Gordie Tapp: 1922-2016