Roy Clark: 1933-2018

A couple of days ago the legendary entertainer, Roy Clark, passed away at the age of 85. Born in Meherrin, Virginia on April 15, 1933 he grew up in a musically inclined family. His mastery of the guitar, banjo, harmonica, and fiddle (just to name the more notable) was astounding...and he spent most of his life in the music business in some form or another...at first competing in and often winning music/instrumental talent shows. His talents on the banjo, for example, helped give him several titles as Top Banjo Player in those local talent shows. He played the instruments I made mention of during his teen years in the mid to late 1940s. The family had moved from Virginia to New York City during the Depression but at age 11, according to on-line biographies, the family moved to the Washington, D.C. area. It was in this area where Roy would eventually established himself in those local talent shows and even appeared on television for the first time at the age of 16 (!) in 1949 on local station WTTG which was affiliated with the DuMont Network. Roy continued on his musical journey throughout the first half of the 1950s touring with the likes of Stringbean (a future co-star of Roy's in a certain television program I'll mention later). Roy had even appeared as a guest on the Grand Ole Opry at age 17 on the strength of his second win in a National banjo competition!

In 1954 Roy became associated with the incomparable Jimmy Dean. Hired as the lead guitarist in the band it afforded him the opportunity to appear on the local radio and, later, television program in the Washington, D.C. area that Jimmy hosted. The series Jimmy hosted was called "Town and Country Time" and episodes aired on WARL-AM radio and then, when it moved to television, WMAL. Although the association with Jimmy Dean was brief it became retroactively famous due to the circumstances surrounding the break-up and the consistent recollections of it in the years and decades that followed. As most of you reading this should already know he was let go by Jimmy Dean due to punctuality or lack thereof. It's long been reported that Jimmy valued punctuality from members of his band and after several years of tardiness Roy was let go. The firing never interfered with their professional careers nor do I think it had any impact personally...given the fact that during the decades to come each of them joked about it and Jimmy often remarked how Roy was the greatest talent and musician he ever had to fire. In fact, Roy would appear on Jimmy's television programs of the 1960s, long after being let go from the band in the mid 1950s...but let's back up a few years.

What might be considered a watershed moment in Roy's career occurred when he joined Wanda Jackson's band which also meant he played on some of her recording sessions and it led to his recording contract with Capitol Records. By 1960 Roy had re-located to Las Vegas. It's through his association with Wanda Jackson that led to his life long association with the Jim Halsey Agency. Perhaps not entirely coincidental is the fact that when Roy began making recurring appearances on "The Beverly Hillbillies" in the late 1960s he appeared as a character named Cousin Roy Halsey (in a duel role Roy appeared in drag as Myrtle Halsey). Roy became a national recording artist through Capitol Records and he recorded a series of albums and released numerous singles for the label in a four year stretch. He had previously released a series of regional singles, though, in the late '50s and early '60s. In 1966 he was part of the cast of the NBC series, "Swinging Country", which ran for two seasons. Roy signed with Dot Records in the mid '60s and it's this label upon which the bulk of his widely known recordings are associated. The lone exception being his 1963 recording of "Tips of My Fingers" for Capitol Records. Roy's version became a Top-10 hit on the country music charts...it was his first appearance on the national music charts...and while several single releases made the charts in the aftermath he wouldn't have another major Top-10 hit until six years later in 1969...

"Yesterday, When I Was Young" was not a new song when Roy recorded it but his rendition became the definitive recording. The song, according to on-line sources, was recorded by Roy in January of 1969 but released several months later in May. This is rather ironic in the career time-line of Roy Clark because a month later his career was changed forever while "Yesterday, When I Was Young" was climbing the charts.

Conceived as a rural version of "Laugh-In", ironically, by two Canadians by the names of John Aylesworth and Frank Peppiatt, they created a program titled "Hee Haw". It's producer, Sam Lovullo, was in charge of casting and he assembled an ensemble for a series of programs initially meant to air on the summer schedule for CBS. The debut episode of "Hee Haw" aired on June 15, 1969 with Roy Clark as one of it's co-hosts. The other co-host happened to be Buck Owens. It's long been said that the teaming of those two, in particular, stemmed from their individual experiences working on television in the years prior to "Hee Haw" and the fact that each artist complimented the other. Buck had a string of huge country music hits dating back to the late '50s and he had connections within the country music industry and could perhaps help get a lot of major recording artists in country music to appear. Roy, on the other hand, didn't have the sort of track record with hit recordings but he come off as a natural comedian/entertainer, had lengthy experience on both local and national television appearances, and could play a multitude of instruments. The other component to the nucleus of the show was a trio of cast-members by the names of Archie Campbell, Don Harron, and Gordie Tapp who doubled as writers for the program but rounding out the nucleus was Junior Samples, Grandpa Jones, and Stringbean...all three (in addition to Archie Campbell) were famous for their country/rural comedy routines with Grandpa, Stringbean, and Archie having been fixtures on the Grand Ole Opry for more than a decade prior to the launch of "Hee Haw" in 1969. Practically everyone associated with the show during the summer 1969 season didn't feel it had any chance of success. After the summer season wrapped up CBS, to the surprise and shock of perhaps all involved, later ordered more episodes due to an opening up on the schedule...it was needed to fill the gap left by the cancellation of "The Leslie Uggams Show". Minnie Pearl, the legendary country comic, joined the cast of "Hee Haw" as a regular in 1970.

Roy and Buck were billed equally as co-hosts...but according to Sam Lovullo's 1996 memoir, Life in the Kornfield, the managers of each artist argued over which co-host would receive top billing in the introduction at the start of each episode. This is why some of the episodes that aired early on featured cast introductions by the announcer stating "starring Roy Clark and Buck Owens" and other episodes having a "starring Buck Owens and Roy Clark" introduction. I don't know the specifics off the top of my head but eventually the opening "starring Buck Owens and Roy Clark" became the one heard at the start of every episode...with the announcer stretching out Roy's name for comic effect...which also gave it a more lasting impact, too...so it came out as "starring Buck Owens and Roy-y-y-y-y-y-y Clark!!" to which Roy would react "...and the whole Hee Haw gang!!!".

To say "Hee Haw" was a surprise hit is putting it mildly. In spite of it being a Top-20 hit show CBS canceled it in 1971 as a result of the Rural Purge taking place on nearly all of the networks. Rural programming and shows appealing to non-Urban areas and older audiences were removed and replaced by so-called hipper programming with a youth driven social-commentating bent. However, in spite of CBS canceling the program, new episodes continued to be produced for the possibility of local television syndication. "Hee Haw" returned to the airwaves in the fall of 1971 on many local affiliates of CBS (the network that canceled it) and in many markets it aired at the same time as it did while on the network (Saturday nights at 7pm Eastern). In conjunction with the Rural Purge and everything going on in network television Roy recorded a timely, satirical song with the eye-catching title: "The Lawrence Welk Hee Haw Counter-Revolution Polka". Roy performed the song on the first episode of the 1972-1973 season...



Roy's career flourished as a result of his involvement in the series. He was nominated and won several awards at the annual ACM and CMA festivities throughout the 1970s. The CMA named him 'Comedian of the Year' in 1970. In 1972 the ACM awarded Roy the top prize, 'Entertainer of the Year', and then, in 1973, both the ACM and CMA awarded Roy as 'Entertainer of the Year'. For those curious ACM stands for Academy of Country Music while CMA stands for Country Music Association.

By the mid '70s "Hee Haw" was established as a major non-network hit program syndicated all over the country. In it's peak it was carried by more than 200 television stations. Roy's career, as mentioned, skyrocketed. His albums and single releases for Dot Records were consistently in the Top-40 of the country charts. In fact, his highest charting album came along in 1973...the LP Roy Clark's Family Album reached the runner-up position on the Country Album chart. The same year another LP from Roy, Come Live With Me, hit number four. The title track of that album was the only single of his career to hit #1. Roy and fellow musician, Buck Trent, became a notable performing duo. It helped that Buck Trent was also a "Hee Haw" cast member and regularly appeared in instrumental performances. As a result of their performances the CMA named them 'Instrumental Group of the Year' in both 1975 and 1976. Also in 1976 Roy had made international headlines when he decided to tour the Soviet Union...the first country music performer to do so.

The label he'd been recording for since 1968, Dot, was merged with ABC Records in 1974 and that label, renamed ABC/Dot, was taken over by MCA in 1979...resulting in Roy's recordings now being on the MCA label. This take over proved unsuccessful for Roy's recording career, though. The four studio albums MCA released on Roy never charted...rather peculiar considering all of his studio albums for Dot and later, ABC/Dot, all made the sales charts in a 10 year period...several of his single releases for MCA did make the charts, however...so it wasn't as if the label never promoted his music at all. In 1977, 1978, and 1980 the CMA awarded Roy 'Instrumentalist of the Year'.

My Top-10 Roy Clark recordings are as follows:

10. "I'm a Booger" (a funky bluesy song from 1982 you can hear HERE )

9. "Come Live With Me"

8. "I Never Picked Cotton"

7. "Tips of My Fingers"

6. "Alabama Jubilee" 

5. "Yesterday, When I Was Young"

4. "If I Had To Do It All Over Again"

3. "Thank God and Greyhound"

2. "Honeymoon Feeling"

1. "The Lawrence Welk Hee Haw Counter-Revolution Polka"

Anyway, Roy's career had become so successful on the concert trail and through his weekly exposure on "Hee Haw" and other high profile endeavors that the need for commercial hit recordings seemed irrelevant, actually. The show began it's 10th season in 1978 and a 2 hour special was taped to celebrate the event. Earlier I mentioned that Roy's career flourished as a result of co-hosting the show but unfortunately for Buck Owens the opposite effect happened. Buck had built up a long list of hit recordings and spearheaded a movement in recording music referred to as The Bakersfield Sound which operated outside of the Nashville system. Buck's image of being a hardcore honky-tonk singer with his outlaw/maverick tendencies when it came to making music was in sharp contrast to the lovable, happy go lucky, sing-a-long 'Cousin Buck' characterization that came across on "Hee Haw". Even though Buck remained a co-host of "Hee Haw" for many years he ultimately stepped away from the program following the 1985-1986 season (it's 17th). Roy opened up a theater in Branson, Missouri in the early 1980s...he may have been the first or one of the first to do so...and he appeared there regularly until closing it. In 1986 Roy and Mel Tillis starred in a comedy western movie, 'Uphill All The Way', that I personally like even though it was critically panned nationwide. He became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1987 which, in a way, was kind of odd considering the membership happened several decades after he had already established himself in the music industry...but hey, having 'Opry member' attached to your career isn't anything to shrug off...and he no doubt loved being a member.

Grandpa Jones, Roy Clark, and Minnie Pearl.

The photo above shows Grandpa Jones, Roy Clark, and Minnie Pearl and a cake that celebrates the the show's 21st season (1988-1989). A season earlier the show celebrated it's 20th (1987-1988) with a 2-hour television special just as it had a decade earlier when it hit the 10 year mark during the 1977-1978 season. The 1988 celebration saw the return of Buck Owens, but as a special guest, since he had left as co-host at the end of the 1985-1986 season. Coincidentally that same season marked the final for several other long serving cast-members as well (Don Harron, Jackie Phelps, Lisa Todd, The Hager Twins, and numerous others). After the cast shake-up Roy was joined each week by a special guest co-host and he/she or they (if it was a group) appeared along side Roy in the sketches previously occupied by Buck. Roy became sole host at the start of the 1990-1991 season. However, behind the scenes more changes were on the horizon. The series survived what Sam Lovullo described as "the great cast shake-up of 1986" but more pressure was being added to comply with the changing trends and tastes of syndicated television and the cost was rising (advertising rates). Following the conclusion of the 1990-1991 season and a prolonged repeat cycle that took up the rest of the calendar year the series returned for it's belated 1991-1992 season in January of 1992. The series removed it's long standing backwoods decoration (gone was the haystack, hay-bales, cornfield, and other sets) and these were replaced with Urban decorations. The title of the program had changed to "The Hee Haw Show". There were only a few hold-over cast-members while 90 percent of the cast was all-new.

The episodes that aired from January until May of 1992 were billed as the show's 24th season (1991-1992). After production had officially ended on first-run episodes in 1992 the series returned later in 1992 as "Hee Haw Silver". Unlike the previous pattern of 26 first run episodes followed by 26 repeats, "Hee Haw Silver" episodes weren't repeated...52 first-run episodes were assembled from clips of past episodes. To give the season some exclusive material it featured Roy providing introductions/commentary and wrap-ups for every installment as well as Cathy Baker closing each episode saying "That's All!!" as she had during the run of the regular series. This clip-filled season (1992-1993) officially celebrated the series 25th season on the air. Roy released his autobiography in 1994 titled My Life in Spite of Myself. The Nashville Network began airing reruns of "Hee Haw" in the fall of 1993 and the reruns enjoyed high ratings for several seasons. CMT would later air reruns of the program albeit briefly. Roy also appeared in a television commercial advertising his own signature guitar which also come with a How-To guitar course. He had appeared on commercials in the past for several products during the peak years of his "Hee Haw" popularity.

In 2009 Roy Clark received the country music industry's highest honor when he was elected a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was elected the same year as Barbara Mandrell and session musician, Charlie McCoy. The irony is Charlie happened to be the long-time music director of "Hee Haw" and regularly appeared playing harmonica as part of the Hee Haw Band.

In his later years Roy was more or less retired and his health began to decline. A long time resident of Oklahoma he was often honored by the local civic organizations and a school was named after him in 1978. After a battle with pneumonia Roy Clark passed away at the age of 85 on November 15, 2018.

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

Hee Haw: 1969-1992, Part Twenty...

In this 20th entry in my Hee Haw tribute posts I'm here to spread the word about a couple of Hee Haw related happenings that took place this month that the general public might not be aware of yet. On September 8th Time Life issued a new DVD project titled The Hee Haw Collection: 3 DVD Set. The project is highlighting the inclusion of episodes previously unavailable for commercial/retail purchase. It's only been available for 3 days and here's a PRESS RELEASE about the project and it also features a link to Amazon. There are 5 episodes total in that collection spanning the years 1969-1973.

A YouTube video/commercial appeared several weeks ago (August 4, 2015) for a similar collection being sold exclusively on Time Life's site. I never posted the video clip because I knew very little about the project and the fact that there's the other DVD project I felt it may create confusion...

If you visit Time Life's site it'll have a page advertising 2 separate Hee Haw DVD projects on the same page. There's a DVD package that consists of 11 episodes, 8 discs and there's a DVD package that consists of 23 episodes, 14 discs. Each package includes the Hee Haw Laffs collection of famed comedy sketches from the summer 1969 season and a disc of interviews of surviving cast members. You can visit the Time Life page by clicking this LINK. It's pretty self-explanatory on how to purchase the 2 items.

Here's the YouTube commercial advertising the 8-disc version...



The Hee Haw Laffs is something that's been circulating for close to 20 years. The compilation debuted on VHS in 1996 as a response to the popularity of the reruns on cable TV channel The Nashville Network and in addition to this Opryland had featured a live, stage-version of Hee Haw for several seasons during the mid 1990s consisting mostly of musical numbers, re-creations from the long running series, and it featured a newcomer named Jason Petty...billed as the newest Hee Haw Hunk (the term given to the male equivalent of the female Hee Haw Honey). This Opryland stage show that launched in the summer of 1994, titled Hee Haw Live, coincided with the reruns of the series on TNN. The cast of the Opryland series was very small and it had no official hosts although I'm sure either George Lindsay or Gunilla Hutton acted as emcees. Sam Lovullo, the producer of Hee Haw, released his memoir in 1996 titled Life in the Kornfield.

During the making of that book Hee Haw had become a major success story all over again thanks to TNN's airing of reruns. During it's run on TNN it aired, usually, at 7pm Eastern (6pm Central) Saturday evening. This is the same time slot it had held across most of the country throughout the '70s and '80s before local newscasts and syndicated game shows expanded from 5 to 6 days a week in the early '90s (causing Hee Haw to move from an early Saturday evening time slot to scattered weekend afternoon time-slots across much of the country in it's final 2 seasons). After about a year TNN moved the program from 7pm Eastern to 10pm Eastern following the hour long Statler Brothers television program on the Saturday night schedule. I don't remember the reason for the schedule shift from 7 to 10pm Eastern but it remained at 10pm for the remainder of it's time on TNN.

The Nashville Network, referred to as TNN, had been airing reruns of the program on it's Saturday evening line-up since October 1993. The half hour sketch compilation (Laffs) that appeared on VHS in 1996 has the distinction of being the first commercially available footage of Hee Haw and in the next decade Time Life began releasing DVDs of entire episodes of the program for the first time ever. It filled a demand from fans who had long expressed their desire to have complete episodes of the program available for purchase.

In the years before the DVDs came along, and after the reruns had stopped airing rather abruptly on CMT in 1997 (after a 3 and a half year run on TNN), Roy Clark often mentioned that his fans always asked why episodes of the program had never been made available for purchase or why hasn't reruns of the program surfaced on television again, etc. etc., but Time Life filled the desire with their release of numerous DVDs...and then, in 2008, RFD-TV rescued the series from an almost certain fate of limbo (as far as television airing is concerned) and reruns of the program started airing on the RFD channel and they've aired there ever since. Reruns of the series, by 2008, had never been aired on any television outlet since their final appearances on cable TV in the mid 1990s.

The on-going popularity/fascination with this series via it's exposure on RFD-TV and video clips on YouTube helped spawn a tribute program called Salute to the Kornfield which aired exclusively on RFD-TV in 2012. It's since been released on DVD. A Hee Haw exhibit was unveiled last year in Roy Clark's home state of Oklahoma during the 45th anniversary of the program's debut in 1969. Country Weekly magazine published a nice salute to the program's 45th anniversary celebration.

This year a musical surfaced titled Moonshine: That Hee Haw Musical. It's currently making the rounds of various theatrical venues.

Here's another site that promotes the 3-DVD Hee Haw release...it's a bit longer and has some detail and some opinion but it provides a link to Amazon, too...

3-DVD COLLECTION

Hee-Haw: 1969-1992, Part Five

Given that this is the fifth installment of my Hee-Haw blog it shouldn't come to nobody's surprise that I love the show! I can't really give an opinion of it's 24th season in 1992 because I've never really seen it but judging by things I've read through the years it wasn't what the doctor ordered...the overhaul of the show's image and the termination of long-running sketches and cast members...it was a mistake. The thing that made the show was it's look...as well as the corny jokes...also, the energetic banter among the cast and whatever guest stars were on the show that week. When the show debuted in 1969 it was met with a lot of harsh criticism not only from big city television critics but also music critics within country music. The country music industry was wanting to push the label of 'Country and Western' which sounded more marketable. Hee-Haw stood in sharp contrast to that marketing idea because of it's heavy use of haybales, farmer's daughter wardrobes, bib overalls and other rural imagery that pushed the 'Hillbilly' image that the country music big-wigs on Music Row were wanting to distance itself from. The enormous success of the show meant that the program would continue to air; and after it's cancellation by CBS in 1971, it went into first-run syndication and would remain a syndicated program for the rest of it's life-span. 

 Season One: June 15, 1969 - September 7, 1969 

Season Two: December 17, 1969 - April 8, 1970 

Season Three: September 15, 1970 - February 23, 1971 

Season Four: September 18, 1971 - April 1, 1972 

Season Five: September 16, 1972 - March 24, 1973 

Season Six: September 15, 1973 - March 23, 1974 

Season Seven: September 14, 1974 - March 8, 1975 

Season Eight: September 17, 1975 - March 13, 1976 

Season Nine: September 18, 1976 - March 26, 1977 

Season Ten: September 17, 1977 - March 25, 1978 

Season Eleven: September 16, 1978 - March 24, 1979 

Season Twelve: September 15, 1979 - March 22, 1980 

Season Thirteen: September 13, 1980 - March 21, 1981 

Season Fourteen: September 12, 1981 - March 30, 1982 

Season Fifteen: September 11, 1982 - March 19, 1983 

Season Sixteen: September 17, 1983 - March 17, 1984 

Season Seventeen: September 22, 1984 - March 16, 1985 

Season Eighteen: September 21, 1985 - March 15, 1986 

Season Nineteen: September 20, 1986 - March 28, 1987* 

Season Twenty: September 19, 1987 - May 21, 1988** 

Season Twenty-One: October 1, 1988 - May 20, 1989** 

Season Twenty-Two: September 16, 1989 - March 24, 1990 

Season Twenty-Three: September 15, 1990 - February 23, 1991*** 

Season Twenty-Four: January 4, 1992 - May 30, 1992^^ 

Season Twenty-Five: September 1992 - April 1993**** 

 *-beginning with the 19th season, Roy Clark was joined each week by a different guest co-host. 

 **-There were no episodes that aired during the month of March during these production cycles. As a result, the season expanded further into the spring, to make up for the loss of air-dates. 

 ^^-After the rural/backwoods version of the show was canceled in February 1991, the show went on a hiatus while producers/advertisers behind the scenes were plotting a new urban twist to the show. The new citified version of the show began in January 1992, the show's 24th season. The outcry from fans was so severe that the show went out of production in May upon the conclusion of it's 24th season. 

 ***-Roy Clark became the solo host beginning with season 23. 

 ****-This is the season known as Hee-Haw Silver to commemorate the program's 25th season in syndication. Roy Clark gave intro's for each rerun while Cathy Baker appeared with new recordings of her sign-off line, "That's All!!". After the Silver series wrapped up in the spring of 1993 reruns began to surface on The Nashville Network for a period of time. A lot of the reruns that TNN aired were the late 1970's and early 1980's episodes. At one point in time TNN's Saturday night line-up was must-see television: Hee-Haw from 7-8pm; Opry Backstage from 8pm to 8:30pm; The Grand Ole Opry from 8:30pm-9pm; and the Statler Brothers show from 9pm-10pm. After the reruns left TNN they began to air infrequently on CMT. 

There was never a serious effort on CMT's part to air the show and as a fan I felt insulted by the way CMT treated the program by not airing it on any consistent basis. TNN eventually ended it's run of country music oriented programming in 2000. It was renamed The National Network and consisted of reruns of mostly 1980's television programs. Later on the network was renamed again to Spike TV. Hee-Haw currently airs Sunday nights at 8pm eastern on RFD-TV. The episode replays on Monday mornings at 10am eastern. The reruns that air are typically the earliest of episodes from 1969-1971. I've yet to see an episode on RFD-TV from the late '70s or the 1980's. I hope they start to air those episodes, too.