Hee Haw at 50...1992 episode...

I discovered several minutes ago that an episode of Hee Haw from 1992, in it's entirety, is available on YouTube. The 1991-1992 season consisted of 22 episodes...as opposed to 26 episodes...and the footage was taped in the latter half of 1991 with the episodes making their way to the television screen in January 1992. This season is often referred to as the non-rural season or, in some descriptions, the season in which the series lost it's soul...but I don't get overly dramatic about the change of scenery; but it had long been something of a curiosity of mine to see a full length episode from this season and now I have. There have been clips from this season make their onto the internet over the years and in each instance I'd rush to embed the clips in a blog entry like this. The video clip I'm including in this blog entry features Garth Brooks, Louise Mandrell, and Billy Dean as guest stars. It originally aired February 22, 1992 (episode 8 of Season 24). The clip was taped straight off of television and so it isn't in top quality but it's certainly watchable and it features the cast roll call for those interested in who all made the cast line-up during this season. In addition to the changes in scenery it also changed it's title somewhat...gone was the braying donkey and in it's place was a simple title card that read The Hee Haw Show. In Garth's first song, "What She's Doing Now", he performs without his guitar...it looks unusual, to me, to see him just standing there behind a microphone without a guitar. Later on in his second performance, "Papa Loved Mama", he looks more familiar.

Louise Mandrell, for both appearances, does an elaborate performance with loads of choreography and she was the long established artist of this episode. In each performance there was a lot of dancing and highly suggestive choreography but then, perhaps by design, she completely counters these sensual performances in an appearance in which she's dressed as a slightly overweight clown and along with a posse of other clowns they kind of tap dance on a giant keyboard (picture the keyboard scene from the movie, Big, featuring Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia). In typical circus clown performance they all fall to the ground to signal the finale of the performance.

Although Garth Brooks was still a relatively newer artist when this episode was taped the actual newcomer, by comparison to both Louise and Garth, was Billy Dean, in an appearance performing his breakthrough hit, "Only Here For a Little While". That song had been released in November of 1990 but by the time this episode was airing in February 1992 Garth had become a gigantic media mogul and even though Billy had released a series of Top-10 hits in the same span of time the differences in their individual career progressions were dramatic. Billy's second performance is "You Don't Count the Cost". Notice that Garth and Billy performed single releases in both performances. In past episodes you'd have the guest stars singing their current single release (if they had one) and a previous hit or the guest would perform a recent hit and then later on perform a classic hit or sometimes the guest would perform their current hit and something from their current album. I don't know if Garth's "Papa Loved Mama" had been released as an official single when this episode was taped but in retrospect both of the songs he performed were major hits for him...the same goes for Billy Dean's choice of songs.



Gailard Sartain has a sketch in this episode called Fast Freddie's Used Cars. Ironically George Lindsey was still a cast-member of this season and he had long been the star of a sketch called Goober's Garage. In the cast roll call he appears in his Goober clothing and there's a Goober sketch in this episode with Lulu Roman. George appears a couple of other times, too...particularly near the end in a sketch called Bus Stop in which he has some banter with Garth Brooks. Earlier he appears in a sketch, Crime and Punishment, as a washed up comedian delivering awful jokes to the prisoners (Grandpa Jones and Gordie Tapp). Roy Clark does a routine which is probably meant as a substitute for the Pickin' and Grinnin' segment...but it plays like the Hee Haw Honky-Tonk sketch of the early to mid 1980s. Roy plays the guitar, offers a one-liner, plays the guitar some more and then the playing comes to an abrupt halt as the camera pans to the 'customers' at their table who deliver one-liners, and then Roy begins playing his guitar once again, etc. etc.

Stand-up comedian Gary Mule Deer was among the cast-members this season...in this episode he has a brief sketch with Gailard Sartain (playing a marriage counselor). Gary also appears as a preacher and later a cowboy. Roy Clark is involved in a clever wordplay sketch using a James Bond reference while Gordie Tapp and the Norris Twins are in a sketch where Gordie plays a jerk offering tips on how to be a successful jerk.

My opinion of this episode: I found it entertaining...filled with lots of singing and intentionally bad joke telling...with the only thing most obviously missing was the backwoods scenery and cornfields. Does it rank high when compared to episodes featuring the haystack, hay bales, moonshine jugs, pitchforks, and Kornfield? I don't think it does...but to write off this season, and I'm only basing it on this one episode I've seen so far, but to write the season off as horrific or pretend this season never existed, as some fans do, is a bit extreme and so my final thoughts of the non-rural episodes is a C+ if I were to grade it...and I'm confident in the fact that most, if not all, of the episodes from the 1991-1992 season had the same formula and sketches and so I'm confident in rating the entire non-rural season of Hee Haw with a C+ based on that episode I embedded.

Norris Twins and Gordie Tapp, 1991