Nearly 10 years ago (February 2013) I wrote a blog entry about the late entertainer, Jerry Clower. You can read that blog entry when you click this LINK. In that blog entry I provided some detail about his life and career in addition to remarking that I have a copy of all of his albums in one format or another (vinyl, cassette, CD).
Earlier today I purchased three books that he wrote...yes, you read that correctly...he was an author/co-author of several entertaining books. The books featured his commentary and recollection of his past, partial copies of some of the humorous expressions/catchphrases from his comedy stories, and how life in America dramatically changed...some for the good but some aspects of progress changed the country in a negative way. His religious convictions were interwoven into his comedy stories and can be found in each of his books...particularly the first one. The books with Jerry Clower's name as author/co-author are:
1. Ain't God Good? (1975)
2. Let The Hammer Down! (1978)
3. Life EverLaughter (1987)
4. Stories from Home (1993)
The first book was a massive success and sold so strong that it had at least 3 reprintings...and it inspired a documentary. Jerry Clower recorded all of his comedy albums for MCA Records...except for one...a 1977 release on Word Records (a religious imprint) titled Ain't God Good?. The album was a follow-up to the 1976 documentary and the 1975 book. In addition to comedy records Jerry was also a consistent presence on syndicated radio and television programs...and local/regional television commercials. As an entertainer he toured all over the South and Midwest heavily. In a separate career he was indeed a major radio and television personality. On radio he was a co-host on the Country Crossroads program...a syndicated radio series with a religious overtone created by Bill Mack. In fact, Bill Mack hosted the series solo in it's early years. Jerry Clower and Leroy Van Dyke came on board as co-hosts and interviewers. Jerry's debut on the series happened in 1973...and he stayed with the program for several decades. In addition to the local/regional TV and radio commercials he also found time to co-host the syndicated country music television show, Nashville on the Road. He co-hosted this travel show with Jim Ed Brown for 6 seasons, 1975-1981. Jerry Clower was a member of the Grand Ole Opry from 1973 until the year he passed away in 1998. He recorded a 1978 album on the stage of the Opry. The publishers/editors and readers of various country music magazines awarded him Country Comic of the Year throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s.
He always remarked that he backed into show business...that he would have been perfectly content making a living working for the Mississippi Chemical Corporation...had it not been for some of his sales pitches for the chemical been recorded and sent to radio stations and record companies. He inserted comical stories into his sales pitches and recordings of those stories began surfacing...and eventually one thing led to another. Ralph Emery played Jerry's comical story of racoon hunting and, as Jerry Clower often recalled, that one airplay turned this chemical/fertilizer salesman into a stand-up country comic seemingly overnight. Born in 1926 as Howard Gerald Clower, the nickname Jerry was derived from his middle name, he was 44 going on 45 when Decca Records came calling on his services...or "how I backed into show business" as he would say.
Lemon Records issued a comedy album on Jerry in 1971...and this was picked up by the much larger Decca company (eventually retitled MCA). From 1971 until 1978 Jerry released one comedy album per year. Following a 1979 Greatest Hits release he launched another string of releases in which one comedy album per year was released from 1980 until 1995. I was never able to find out why but he didn't release a comedy album in 1996 but what turned out to be his final comedy album shown up in 1998...released after he passed away. It was an album recorded, mostly, in Clanton, Alabama.
Here's the Jerry Clower album discography. I don't include any of the greatest hits compilations to surface after 1998. Charlie Douglas introduces Jerry on the 1975 album. Charlie, at the time, was a fixture of WWL radio before moving to WSM radio. Ralph Emery does the introduction on the 1986 album...recorded in McEwen, Tennessee on 'Ralph Emery Day'. I include the 1979 release because it's a Gold selling album as are his first two albums. His 1988 album is a live album from Ocilla, Georgia where the selections are newly recorded performances of some of his previously told stories. The 1994 album commemorates Jerry's military service and features a photo of him from 1944 in his Navy uniform. He served in the Navy during WWII (1944 to 1946) and received multiple service medals including an Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal.
In 2010, more than a decade after he passed away, he was included in a list of dozens of other Mississippi-born performers to receive a historical marker. His marker was unveiled in 2011 in Liberty, Mississippi (his birthplace).
Howard Gerald "Jerry" Clower
September 28, 1926 - August 24, 1998
1971: From Yazoo City, Mississippi Talkin'**
1972: Mouth of Mississippi**
1973: Clower Power
1974: Country Ham
1975: Live In Picayune
1976: The Ambassador of Goodwill
1977: On the Road
1977: Ain't God Good? (Word Records; religious testimony)
1978: Live from the Stage of the Grand Ole Opry
1979: Greatest Hits**
1980: Ledbetter Olympics
1981: More Good 'Uns
1982: Dogs I Have Known
1983: Live at Cleburne, Texas
1984: Starke Raving!
1985: An Officer and a Ledbetter
1986: Runaway Truck
1987: Top Gum
1988: Classic Clower (a live album in which Jerry re-tells some of his classic stories)
1989: Let There Be Light!
1990: The Mouth of the Mighty Mississip' (this was his 20th album on MCA)
1991: Racoonteur
1992: Sidewinder
1993: Stories Told Funny
1994: Jerry Joins the Navy
1995: Fish 'n Frogs, Hawgs 'n Dawgs
1997: Live at Dollywood
1998: Peaches and Possums (this was his the last album he recorded)
**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.
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.
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...
As RFD-TV continues to air Hee Haw on Sunday night at 8pm (with a repeat airing the following Monday at 10am), the series has progressed into the 1973-1974 season. Sunday night's episode, originally broadcast in early 1974, was the last episode of the 1973-1974 season. It starred Lester Flatt with sporadic appearances by the other guest, Hugh Hefner. In addition to Lester Flatt, the rest of the music was provided by the show's regulars: co-hosts Roy Clark and Buck Owens plus Gunilla Hutton, Buddy Alan, and a song from the Hager twins. Marty Stuart fans should get a kick out of seeing that particular episode because Marty's featured in Lester's band. At that time Marty was 15 years old! These performances of Lester Flatt, for those who want to view it, are on You Tube at the moment. Marty's vocalizations are featured in the "Bluebirds are Singing For Me" and he plays mandolin, as I mentioned, on that performance as well as the earlier performance, "Salty Dog". I've embedded the performance where Marty is heard singing...
Sandwiched between all of this were the sing-a-longs with the cast and the recurring comedy sketches. Archie Campbell, in a few sketches, wore a bunny suit while trading one-liners with Hugh Hefner. There was a storytelling segment with Tennessee Ernie Ford which I assume had been taped well in advance due to the fact that he wasn't mentioned as a guest in the opening. He appeared in this form of sketch in several other episodes, too. Stringbean usually appeared as the headliner of this storyteller sketch, which always began with him announcing that he'd just received a letter from home, but for a series of episodes in late '73 through early '74 Tennessee Ernie Ford headlined this newer segment. The 'letter from home' phrase was only used during the sketches that starred Stringbean. The reason for this is explained in the 1996 book, Life in the Kornfield: My 25 Years at Hee Haw, from Sam Lovullo and Mark Eliot.
In the early '80s Grady Nutt would headline a similar sketch where he'd tell humorous stories with a religious overtone. In each of these various storyteller sketches a small collection of cast-members would be seated down in front...sitting either on crates or on bales of hay while the storyteller was often seated on a larger hay bale, elevated from those who were hearing the story. Whenever Jerry Clower guest starred, his appearances were taped in this fashion, too.
Howdy...fresh off of You Tube comes this nearly 7 minute promo piece for Hee-Haw that aired on an Oklahoma news program. The news story inserts clips lifted from the DVD collection I wrote about in Part 12. You will also see footage taken at the Hee-Haw exhibit which runs through the first half of 2012. Most of the clips shown in the video embed below come from the program's first season but toward the end of the embed they feature clips of later seasons, too. The DVD collection is available for purchase at Country Family Reunion's web-site.
RFD-TV is currently airing the 1972-1973 season. During the last several weeks saw the debut of Gordie Tapp's sketch, The Naggers, which featured an uncredited Roni Stoneman. George Lindsey, Gailard Sartain, and Roni Stoneman began making appearances uncredited during this time period. Of course, the reason I use the phrase "uncredited" is because their names weren't called during the familiar opening sequence (where the announcer runs through the cast-list). The Naggers would ultimately turn out to be a long-running sketch that often appeared twice in an episode (one per half hour) and it was still a part of the show for the rest of Roni Stoneman's involvement with the series (through 1991). The sketch was so popular that Gordie and Roni often appeared in-character as Laverne and Ida Lee Nagger during other comedy sketches. Examples being the Justus O'Peace sketch with Archie Campbell where the Naggers often complained to the Judge about their married life, The Kornfield one-liner segment, and in the early '80s the Hee-Haw Honky Tonk sketch. As the series went on The Naggers acquired a son, Elrod, played by cast member Kenny Price. Also, Ida Lee's mother became a frequent presence. The mother was played by Wendy Suites, a member of the show's back-up group, The Nashville Edition.
I'll be purchasing my copy of the Salute to the Kornfield DVD collection, hopefully around the end of this month. The cost, before taxes, is $79.80. The collection comes with 4 DVD discs plus an additional DVD of behind the scenes/backstage excerpts. This salute will eventually air on RFD-TV in 2012 but on-line shoppers can order the program prior to it's national airing.
A few minutes ago I came across a web-site originating from Oklahoma. I discovered that a Hee-Haw exhibit is taking place at the Oklahoma History Center. Those of you are familiar with the area or in the vicinity of Oklahoma City will probably know where the venue is. If not, the information can be found here along with a video clip of Roy Clark, Vince Gill, and Garth Brooks giving their comments on Hee-Haw and it's lasting impact. There's a nice article/write-up about the show and it mentions that although the show's been out of production since 1992 it's continued to find audiences through reruns. It reran on The Nashville Network (TNN) for nearly four years starting in the fall of 1993. Those reruns were a ratings success for the network and it helped promote the stage revival at Opryland Theme Park called Hee-Haw Live which got underway in the summer of 1994.
Upon the conclusion of the closing credits of the television rerun there would typically be a promo for Hee-Haw Live complete with ticket information, address, and phone number. Later, commercials for the future best-selling home video, Hee-Haw Laffs, began airing on TNN. The stage show featured just a small group from the regular cast and a few newcomers performing sketches and routines associated with Hee-Haw. Off the top of my head I think the members of the stage show were Lulu Roman, Grandpa Jones, Gunilla Hutton, George Lindsey, and theme park regular Jason Petty (now known as the definitive Hank Williams, Sr. in various stage productions). It was also around this time, the mid '90s, that the show's producer, Sam Lovullo, released his Life in the Kornfield book. I'll also add that the DVD releases from the middle part of last decade (2004-2006) have also helped introduce the program to multiple generations...especially since a lot of those episodes have turned up on You Tube and other video hosting sites within the last several years. Then a couple of years ago RFD-TV started airing the program...starting with the debut episode in 1969 and moving forward. Last night's episode was from 1972 with Porter and Dolly as special guests.
The Hee-Haw exhibit article states that the exhibit will be on display for exactly a year and so you'll have until sometime in April or May of 2012 to catch the exhibit. I had been watching Hee-Haw clips on You Tube earlier and it inspired me to do a Google news search and that's where I found the story about the Oklahoma City Hee-Haw exhibit. Strangely enough I didn't come across this article in May or June or I would've mentioned it then.
According to the one who uploaded the above video this is from the final episode of Hee-Haw which aired on May 30, 1992. I've never seen a complete episode from the last season but in the above video we see a sketch called the Bus Stop. In the background you can hear the familiar banjo playing away and so I assume this was the urbanized version of the Kornfield. Gary Morris, Sweethearts of the Rodeo, and Hal Ketchum were the guests on what turned out to be the final first-run episode of the series. The series that appeared in the fall of 1992 was the "best-of" series called Hee-Haw Silver, which ran through the summer of 1993. In the above video you'll see Roy Clark, Grandpa Jones, Gordie Tapp, Mike Snider, Gary Morris, and several others trade jokes standing on a city street at a "Bus Stop".
In the video below we see a commercial for the Miracle Nose. It features Gary Morris and the Norris Twins. From 1969 through 1986 the program featured the Hagers, twin brothers who performed a lot during the show's earliest days. The arrival of the Norris Twins in 1992 marked the first time since the Hagers that twins were part of the series.
In the video below you'll see the relatively small cast...Roy Clark was the lone host during the show's final two seasons, 1990-1992. Roy had been joined by a different guest co-host each week between the years of 1986 through the spring of 1990. Prior to the fall of 1986 Buck Owens had co-hosted the show with Roy each week. Roy and Buck were the co-hosts from it's debut in 1969 through the spring of 1986.
The videos were uploaded by a fan of Gary Morris. I have no idea if other video from Hee-Haw's final episode exists but I'd like to see an episode from 1992 in it's entirety. As most people who read this blog are aware of I was never able to see the last season of the series because the local TV stations in my area didn't carry the show anymore. The final episodes that I saw were in 1991.
Trivia: What other television landmark came to a close in May 1992?
Answer: The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.
Yes...that's right! The last Tonight Show that Johnny Carson hosted aired on May 22, 1992...which was on a Friday. 8 days later, on May 30th, Hee-Haw ended production of new episodes after a 24 season run.
The actual 40th anniversary of this show begins in June...June 15th to be exact. It was on June 15, 1969 over CBS-TV that Hee-Haw went on the air for the first time. The show was an unexpected hit and it's initial season lasted from June 15, 1969 through September 1969. It went off the air and probably not many were thinking it would return again...but CBS ordered more episodes and these new episodes started airing in December 1969 and lasted until April 1970. The ratings were pretty high even still and the show returned in the fall of 1970 and would remain on the CBS network until July 1971. The last episode for CBS had aired in February 1971 but reruns continued through the summer months.
The show didn't go away after being dropped from CBS as we all know. It was picked up in syndication and from September 1971 through February 1991, the show aired uninterrupted, 20 straight years. After the February episode it went into it's rerun period and as I touched on in a previous entry the show didn't return in the fall...instead it returned in January 1992 and would run until May before going out of production for good. The guests on the first show of 1992 were Barbara Mandrell, Vern Gosdin, and Joe Diffie. A few weeks later Garth Brooks, Diamond Rio, and Trisha Yearwood were guests.
It's a testament to the show's popularity and longevity that virtually every country music singer made an appearance on this show...some made plenty of appearances as it was one of the few national programs spotlighting country music. Also, the various styles of country music were spotlighted front and center on this program, too. There were several episodes that celebrated country-pop artists...one in particular was an episode with Jerry Lee Lewis, another with Ray Charles. Celebrities outside of country music made appearances. There were episodes with Oral Roberts and his wife...even a few episodes with Billy Carter, brother of Jimmy Carter. There was an episode with Robin Leach who spoofed his LIFESTYLES program and went through Laverne and Ida Lee Nagger's dump. Doc Severensen made a guest appearance...so did Ed McMahon. Johnny Bench made an appearance...Sonny Shroyer, the actor who portrayed Enos on "Dukes of Hazzard", made an appearance. Jonathan Winters was a cast-member of the show in the early 1980's...often appearing in group segments...but he didn't have any skits starring himself. Gailard Sartain's style was similar to Jonathan's.
After Archie's death, Gunilla continued playing the role of the Nurse in which female cast members would show up as patients and she'd dish out advice about men or one of the younger male cast members would be a patient who'd flirt with her, that sort of thing.
Hee-Haw had a lot of merchandising during it's early years. There were lunch boxes and comic books and a magazine. The show also became popular for some of the women cast-members, known collectively as the Hee-Haw Honey's. Through all of my years watching the show and knowing of the show I can say that there was never anything blatantly off-color or dirty when it came to the Hee-Haw Honey aspect...there was and there's always been a critical disdain for the show as a whole because of it becoming a hit. Country music itself was never really considered mainstream to begin with...and here you had a TV program reaching millions of people each week not only spotlighting country music, but also bluegrass and gospel in addition to the corny jokes...there were a lot of people angry that the show was a success.
And so, male viewers no doubt appreciated seeing the women on the show...there was a look to a Hee-Haw Honey...each of them wore usually the same style of clothing: short shorts and tight t-shirts. This was several years before Dukes of Hazzard came along so they weren't called 'Daisy Dukes' at the time...but you get the idea. Gunilla Hutton, Misty Rowe, Lisa Todd, Linda Thompson, Jeannine Riley, and Marianne Rogers were the more notable of the Hee-Haw Honey's although just about all of the women were put under the Honey umbrella. The women who were not considered a "Honey" were Roni Stoneman, Minnie Pearl, and Lulu Roman...these women were mostly cast as eccentric or bizarre characters and not known or thought of as eye candy...whereas with Minnie, she played the role she'd been playing at the Opry for years as the older woman trying to find a companion.
Barbi Benton was on the program in the early to mid 1970's. She is more widely known for her Playboy-related appearances instead of being a Hee-Haw Honey given her connection to Hugh Hefner. She was Hefner's girlfriend for eight years...Barbi left Hee-Haw in 1976, the same year she and Hefner broke up...and she continued to appear in various TV programs throughout the 1970's and 1980's.
As for Linda Thompson, she was once a part of Elvis Presley's inner circle...she was his girlfriend during his later years. You can look her images up on-line and see a lot of pictures of her taken at Graceland.
She was married to Bruce Jenner in the early '80s and in the episodes of the show in the early 1980's she's referred to as Linda Thompson-Jenner and she was also married to David Foster, having married him in 1991, but she separated from him in 2005. Linda was on the show from 1976 through 1992.
Linda's recurring skit involved playing the daughter of Kenny Price. The routine often started showing a haystack and you'd hear a lazy harmonica playing and Linda would sigh "Paw..." and Kenny, usually raking hay, would turn and say something like "yes, daughter" and she'd go on to him about her problems with her boyfriend, known as Billy Bob. By the end of the routine she'd slip out some sort of secret and go "oops" to which Kenny would storm off huffing and puffing saying things like "i'm gonna kill him!".
Linda, as well as other Honey's, were often seen in a routine known just as "the Haystack" where the camera would show the shot of a haystack and then drop down to show one of the Honey's and usually Jim or Jon Hager...sometimes Buck Owens...acting as a boyfriend to one of the Honey's of the show.
Irlene Mandrell was one of the Hee-Haw Honey's as well. On the show she typically played the Kornfield Kounty telephone operator. She could also be seen in the All-Jug band and for a short period of time she was one of the women in the exercise skit where a few women would be shown exercising and telling jokes back and forth. Irlene was on the show from 1984 to 1992.
The Hee-Haw Honey's were spun off into their own program, titled obviously "The Hee-Haw Honeys". In this series several of the show's cast played character's with the last name of Honey. Kathie Lee Gifford, not a part of the Hee-Haw show, was cast in this series. She played Kathie Honey. Gailord Sartain was on the show as Willie Billy Honey. Kenny Price and Lulu Roman were like the parental figures. The show ran for one season.
Lulu was one of the big parts of the show. In addition to her being in The Culhanes skit she was also in the All-Jug band plus she was often one of the gossipers in the Rumors skit. Her signature skit was "Lulu's Truckstop" where she played a sassy waitress and Gailard Sartain played the cook/romantic interest, Orville. The food served there was awful...in one scene in a later episode Dub Taylor complained that just being in the place was giving him indigestion before having eaten anything.
Another aspect of this series were the animated animals that often popped up on screen. In addition to the animated donkey which appeared at the start and close of every episode you also had various farm animals that would comment on the jokes being told. A duck or a pig would hold up signs reacting to the joke...much like the coyote in the Road Runner cartoons. They often used a cow or a donkey as commercial bumpers, too. A goat was often seen chewing up the show's title only for him to hiccup and the title would be shown in reverse and then he'd look at the camera and go "Hee-Haw will be right ba-a-a-a-c-c-c-k!". If the show ran bloopers, for example, they'd show a cow holding up a sign reading "they're milking this joke". Bloopers often happened as part of the cornfield segment when people would pop up and start to talk but mess up their lines...in Junior's case he couldn't pronounce a lot of big words and so they'd tape him trying to say all kinds of words and insert it into the show. In one example, Grandpa Jones broke a string on his banjo while taping a performance. On any other show this scene would never have made it on the air...but on Hee-Haw not only was the blooper shown, but the camera taped Grandpa fumbling with the banjo and arguing with it as he put a new string on it.
When Reverend Grady Nutt was a cast-member, he'd tell stories inside Archie Campbell's barbershop set. After his skit was through, typically you'd see the scene cut to an animated donkey holding up a sign that read "Let us Bray". Of course, a lot of acts got the dancing pig treatment. if a song was a sing-a-long or if one of the show's own cast-members were performing a song, it wasn't uncommon to see a row of dancing pigs come dancing along the screen kicking their legs. This happened during a Hank Williams, Jr song...another instance was when Kenny Price was singing "Crawdad Hole".
In addition to the Hee-Haw gospel quartet, the show also featured the Million Dollar Band. This segment would become a fan-favorite as well...it included Roy Clark, Chet Atkins, Johnny Gimble, Floyd Cramer, Boots Randolph, Jethro Burns, and Danny Davis. Charlie McCoy, the show's musical director and a harmonica player, was often featured in music pieces like this, as well, where only music was played, no singing.
The Hee-Haw Salute was one of the recurring routines that would appear twice or three times during a show. Roy Clark or Buck Owens during the early episodes would mention a city or town in America and salute it...sometimes this was done for comedy and they would spotlight a town with a population of 28 or something. The routine would go something like this:
Hee-Haw salutes Dusty Trail, Texas; population 58
Then the camera would pan to the cornfield where everyone would in unison holler "SALUTE!" but in rural speech it would sound like "SA-LOOT!". Not all of the salute's would be comical...some towns were major cities with thousands and thousands of people. Also, personalities from local TV stations that aired Hee-Haw would stop by for a visit and the local town was saluted in that segment.
The great cast shake up of 1986 was when the show let go a lot of their cast-members except a handful. Buck Owens was not among those being let go but he wanted out of the show and so when the 1986 season opened up, there was no Buck Owens as co-host. Instead, the show began a policy of guest co-hosts each week with Roy Clark. The guest co-host or co-hosts depending on if it were a duo, would fill-in during Buck Owens' routines...the sing-a-long's and musical numbers that had become fan favorites. This guest co-host policy remained until the end of the 1989-1990 season. Afterward, Roy hosted the show by himself, 1990-1992.
Changes were made throughout 1986-1988 and a lot of it had to do with the deaths of two long-running cast-members: Kenny Price and Archie Campbell. The two of them passed away in 1987...so that was two more losses, in addition to the others who were let go in 1986, in addition to Buck leaving the cast. The show continued on just as before...largely due to the fact that a lot of recurring skit's and routines were being inserted into the show with more frequency...with the Hee-Haw Salute, for example, airing up to four times throughout one episode...Roy's quick "Empty Arms Hotel" skit would sometimes air three times during the hour...but then there were some new skits popping up every so often, too. Kenny Price passed away between production cycles and so he continued to be featured as a cast-member into 1988 with material he taped before his death.
The cast members let go in 1986 were Don Harron, Lisa Todd, The Hager Twins, and without Buck Owens as a co-host his back-up group, The Buckaroos, left the show in 1986 as well. Jackie Phelps passed away and so he of course was no longer featured on the show from 1986 onward. Jackie had been featured as the bartender in the "Hee-Haw Honky Tonk" skit plus in the early years he was a comedy partner of Jimmy Riddle, the two of them billed on the show as Riddle and Phelps.
Critics and historians like to say that Hee-Haw was losing their audience during 1990-1991 in a way that suggests viewers were tuning the show out but I say the show never lost it's audience voluntarily...I believe the show lost affiliate stations, and that would drive audience numbers down because less people were seeing the show than before. Here where I live the local stations stopped airing the show in 1991...so I never got to see the last season. I know some area's stopped carrying the show in 1990 and some in 1989...so with stations dropping the program it's no wonder ratings started to suffer...but I don't believe audiences were turning the show off themselves as critics would have you believe.
The producers of the show, amidst station loss and the stunning sales hikes of country music in the early 1990's with it's rock/pop overtones, had no choice but to revamp the program because for the first time in the show's history it's rural imagery and purposely cornball approach was seen as more hurtful than helpful by a whole host of "new country" singers popping up during this time period refusing to appear on the show because of it's "look" and potentially harmful effect an appearance could have on their career. About the show's look: an episode from 1991 could easily be shown back-to-back with a show from 1981...the look and formula of the show was that consistent year after year.
Several new additions came to the show during the 1989-1990 season and in 1990, Phil Campbell joined the show. After the 1990-1991 season wrapped up, word was sent that everyone except a few were going to be dropped from the show. Those who were dropped from the show were many: Roni Stoneman, Marianne Rogers, Cathy Baker, Dub Taylor, Mike Snider, Jeff Smith, Vicki Byrd, Misty Rowe, Terry Sanders, Minnie Pearl. Dub Taylor came aboard in 1985 while Jeff Smith came along in 1984 and Mike Snider joined the show in 1987. Vicki Byrd had joined the show in 1989 playing the quirky, confused type. Minnie Pearl had been a part of the show since 1971...Roni Stoneman was another long-time cast member let go as were Gunilla Hutton, Misty Rowe, and Marianne Rogers. Williams and Ree, a comedy duo who gained their popularity on The Nashville Network, was a part of the show during 1989-1991. Terry Sanders was often seen in Minnie's "Grinders Switch Gazette" skit playing an office boy...his tenure on the show was 1989-1991 as well. The last episode of the old Hee-Haw as fans refer to it was in July 1991.
You may be asking...with so many cast members let go at the end of the 1991 season, who was left? There were a few people left standing plus they brought in newcomers...
Roy Clark remained as the show's host. Grandpa Jones, Gordie Tapp, Lulu Roman, George Lindsay, Irlene Mandrell, Linda Thompson, Gailard Sartain, Charlie McCoy, and Phil Campbell all returned in 1992.
The new additions were unknowns pretty much. Gary Mule Deer, one of the new cast-members, gained some fame as a stand-up comedian. There was also a pair of women known as The Norris Twins...and some others...but they never aired the program in wide distribution so I can't make a decision either way since I'd never seen any of the 1992 episodes...but with the cornfield gone and other parts of the show that were fan favorites eliminated, I don't believe the program should have kept the name of Hee-Haw since the very name of the show suggested country life, cornfields, donkeys, haystacks, etc etc.
The 1992 episodes, which began airing in January 1992, were not aired here but from what I read, the episodes angered the viewers who didn't want to see these changes and wanted the "old Hee-Haw" back. Sam Lovullo recounts this period in time and the entire show from start to finish in his book, Life in the Kornfield.
After these 1992 episodes aired and were repeated, the show went out of production for good...re-runs of the show returned in the fall of 1992 under the name of "Hee-Haw Silver". These special episodes were designed to commemorate the program's 25th season on the air.
There were 52 episodes of this Silver series...each hosted by Roy Clark and featuring Cathy Baker aired during the 1992-1993 television season. Afterward, the show became an on-again/off-again show for TNN and later, CMT. On TNN they aired reruns on a frequent basis: Saturday nights at 10pm following "The Statler Brothers Show". Ultimately, though, the reruns were taken off the air and shifted to CMT...and it's here that the show aired infrequently. Time Life got into the act around this time...they had begun promoting a VHS home video called Hee-Haw Laffs during the show's rerun life on TNN. An Opryland production called Hee-Haw Live had been a success during this same time period. The VHS compilation arrived in 1996...the show continued to pop-up in reruns on TNN and later, CMT, through 1998 when it appeared to have aired for a final time...but fast-forward a decade to 2008...
By this time the show had become a sales success on Time Life through a series of DVD's...and RFD-TV took notice of the audience that the show continued to pull in. One of the unique things about Hee-Haw today is a lot of the fans of the show are young people who had often heard about the show from their parents or grandparents and checked the show out for themselves through the DVD's and various clips that appear on video hosting sites. No doubt the dated look appeals to nostalgia buffs; and, the personalities who starred on the show and the guests have some historical value among country music circles. Some of this latter-day praise is for it's simplicity as compared to the complex and complicated forms of entertainment on TV now...others simply find the show fascinating to watch...remember, the under 30 crowd of today were barely into their teens when the show was leaving the air...so there's not a nostalgia feel for the show from that age-group. I first saw the show when I was 5 or 6...it was the early 1980's. I grew up with this show in the background...every Saturday was Hee-Haw at 7pm.
The program is currently airing in reruns on the RFD-TV channel. The air-time is 8pm Sunday nights and it repeats at 10am Monday mornings. There have been a series of DVD's released by Time Life of the program as I made mention of...so for those who want to have some of the episodes in your personal collection you should seek the DVD's out until RFD-TV becomes more available.
Hee-Haw was one of my favorite television programs and it had a long, successful run before ending production in 1992. The program is rather polarizing because you can have millions of people praising the show and then you could have just as many wondering why the show was a success. This sort of fever-pitch for or against runs rampant today as it did when the program was on the air. Hee-Haw came along in 1969 as a replacement show. CBS-TV replaced The Smothers Brothers Show with Hee-Haw and right from the start there was a reaction, both pro and con. The series did so well that it became a weekly series. The production cycle of the show was rather unique...it would tape all of it's content in bits and pieces and the editing department would piece the shows together. The music numbers for the season were all taped in one taping session...the comedy skits were all performed in one session..and so forth. It took usually two months in the summer to record material for a season's worth of shows...and then in the fall everyone returned to tape material for the following season, that's how well-oiled the show's production unit was, but when the sessions were completed the editors would piece together one episode at a time.
As you can see from that early cast-member shot, Roy Clark and Buck Owens were the co-hosts. The rest of the people were cast-members ranging from comics to members of back-up groups on the show. It was a country version of Laugh-In with a high emphasis on cornball humor and rural situations...but unlike Laugh-In, Hee-Haw would feature two or three guest stars each episode performing country music. As the show became an enormous hit, a typical episode would have at least 5 guests and even guest stars from other TV shows that stopped by...people who had nothing to do with country music dropped in from time to time.
The series gained a loyal audience during the 1969-1970 seasons but trouble was brewing behind the scenes at CBS. They wanted their network to be a place for youthful programs...entertainment that had a topical feel almost. CBS was at the time the home to a lot of country and rural programs that pulled in monster ratings but the age group that the shows were pulling in were not what CBS or mainstream advertisers were wanting. After the 1970-1971 season, CBS made the decision to rid it's line-up of all of the country shows currently in production: Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Mayberry RFD, and Hee-Haw are the stand-out programs. On another network, Lawrence Welk's long-running TV series came to an end in 1971 for much of the same demographic reasons the country shows faced. Red Skelton, a long time fixture on TV since 1951, saw his series come to an end in 1971 as well.
Skelton would continue appearing on TV and do personal appearances for decades after his show ended. Lawrence Welk and his company went into first-run syndication as did Hee-Haw. The decision had been made to continue the show off-network...with local affiliates airing the program usually in it's same time-slot, Saturday night at 7pm, Eastern Time, 6pm in Nashville. Viewers, of course, had no idea that the show was not on the network anymore...for them, the show was airing just as before.
Lawrence Welk's show often ran in competition with Hee-Haw and in some places they aired back-to-back...from one extreme musical taste to the next. A lot of cast in the early days on CBS were not on hand when the show moved into first-run syndication...the show hit it's core line-up fairly early and with the additions of a few more key players the cast would remain intact for the next 10 years or so. Among the most celebrated of the Hee-Haw cast were the following cast-members:
1. Archie Campbell: He was credited with being one of the show's main writers, typically writing the material for himself and others in the skits in which he was the star. Archie was also noted as a painter plus he was a member of the Grand Ole Opry. He died in 1987, working on Hee-Haw from 1969 right up through 1987. Archie starred in several skits with "Doc Campbell" being one of the most popular due to it co-starring Gunilla Hutton as Nurse Goodbody. There was also a long running skit with him as a barber and another one with him as a judge...in addition to this, Archie often introduced the serious segment at the end of the show, the Hee-Haw gospel quartet.
2. Junior Samples: This cast-member became notorious for bloopers and reading his cue-cards wrong because he couldn't pronounce a lot of the words that the writers would purposely have on the cue cards. Dick Clark once commented that Hee-Haw's deliberate airing of bloopers was years ahead of the blooper craze of the late 1970's when it seemed every network aired their own blooper specials. There was a time when he stopped messing up his lines because he genuinely wanted to be taken seriously...according to the show's producer, Sam Lovullo, once Junior saw episodes of the show with a serious display of himself he went back to messing up his lines because it was funnier. His long running skit involved him playing a car salesman, often with Misty Rowe as his assistant. He was also in the Culhanes skit as well. Junior passed away in 1983.
3. Gordie Tapp: This comedian came down from Canada, as did the show's creators, John Aylesworth and Frank Peppiatt. Gordie was like Archie when it came to writing. Gordie wrote pretty much his own material...his most popular contribution to the show was a domestic skit featuring a married couple who lived in a dump. The Naggers were exactly that...they both nagged at each other. Gordie played long-suffering husband, Laverne, who looked like he hadn't had a bath in weeks while Roni Stoneman played the wife, Ida Lee, who wore rags in her hair and was typically threatening to hit her husband with a rolling pin or an iron. Aside from this, Gordie was also in the skit that took place in a general store, often cast opposite Gailord Sartain. Also, Gordie was popular as the southern Colonel...whose spoiled daughter was played on the show by Marianne Rogers.
4. Grandpa Jones: This cast-member, like Archie Campbell, had a long career on radio and records and was also a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Grandpa, played by Louis Jones, was in his 20's when he started playing the Grandpa character. He often told the story of how a man in radio gave him the name of Grandpa because his voice during his early years sounded much older. So, Louis started dressing up as an old man with tiny reading glasses, a fake mustache, and older-style clothes...years later he joked that he doesn't need any make-up to play the part now. Grandpa Jones was a part of the Hee-Haw gospel quartet and he played in the Culhanes skit. He was often seen in the barbershop and was one of the drunks in the Moonshiner's skit. He was also in the "Gloom, Despair, and Agony" sing-a-long's as well. His most popular skit in which he was the star was the "What's For Supper?" routine where he'd be asked what's for supper and he'd recite something in rhyme. Often he'd be greeted with a YUM-YUM but on occasion if he didn't have much to offer, the response would be YUCK! Grandpa is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was on the show from the start until the end. He passed away in 1998 at the age of 84.
5. Don Harron: This cast-member came down from Canada and isn't remembered much by his actual name...but mention the character he played on Hee-Haw and you will no doubt get smiles. Don played newscaster Charlie Farqheson...who wore a beat-up grey sweater and flat cap...tiny reading glasses...and a four day beard. He'd deliver the news from KORN which was set inside a chicken coop...with bright orange egg crates decorating the place. His routine was to make commentary about a local news item and then he'd start to ramble and garble a lot of his phrases. A lot of the times he'd deliver "on-air" assessments of the news he was covering and say things that were so far off the wall that you could hear actual stage-hands laughing...sometimes he'd come really close to breaking up but he'd compose himself and continue on reading the nonsense. He'd end each "broadcast" by running his finger across his neck, sign language for "cut!". Don has hosted interview shows in Canada, as himself, in addition to appearing as his Hee-Haw character. He is still active to this day.
In addition to those five there was also the presence of Minnie Pearl. She came to the show in 1970 and remained with the program until 1991. George Lindsey, ironically, became a cast-member in 1972. The reason it's ironic is because he was a cast-member of "Mayberry RFD", a show that was canceled in 1971 by CBS. George continued playing his Goober Pyle role and eventually had a skit created for him that was set in a car repair shop. George Lindsey was with the show until the end. Kenny Price came aboard in 1976 and he would remain with the show until his death in 1987.
At the time of Hee-Haw's biggest years, there were other country programs on TV as well. These programs were in syndication and aired on the weekends. Porter Wagoner's TV show was never in competition with Hee-Haw, but it was one of the biggest country music shows on the air during Hee-Haw's life-span.
Another program that ran quite long was "Pop! Goes the Country" which Ralph Emery hosted for six years, before Tom T Hall took over during the show's last years. Ralph was at the helm from 1974-1980 and Tom T remained until 1982. Yet, another show that was very popular was "Nashville On the Road" which starred Jim Ed Brown and Jerry Clower. A lot of these syndicated country music shows were riding on the fame Hee-Haw had created with first-run syndication...by-passing the major networks. I'll pick up with part two of my Hee-Haw essay in a later blog entry.
