Tuesday, February 2, 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.   

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