Hee Haw: Newly uploaded Interviews...

**Author's Note (July 17, 2021): This blog entry originally had two video uploads...one an interview with George Yanok and another with Lulu Roman. They've since been removed from YouTube. The uploader is still on YouTube and so I don't know if the uploader took those videos down or if YouTube removed them. I'm still keeping the blog entry up because it includes my reviews of each of the interviews.**

Hello all! I've written more than 20 blog entries focusing on the television series, Hee Haw, over the years. In a lot of those previous blog entries the video clips I embedded have since been removed from the internet. There were clips on-line featuring comic sketches from the obscure 1992 season. There were clips on-line from episodes that aired in 1990. Those video clips are no longer on-line and as a result some of my previous Hee Haw blog entries show blank video screens. The show, for those new to Hee Haw, aired in first-run production from 1969 until 1992. The show aired on CBS for it's first two seasons, 1969-1971, but beginning in the fall of 1971 it started airing in syndication on local television affiliates. A majority of the local affiliates were owned by CBS but it wasn't uncommon to see Hee Haw airing at 6pm Eastern on a local ABC station and then see it airing on a local CBS affiliate at 7pm Eastern. It's official time slot during it's decades in syndication was 6pm Central on Saturday evening. It's home base was in Nashville, Tennessee and during it's first 12 seasons it was taped at the Channel 5 television studios. The production moved to a studio in Opryland in 1980 and it remained there until it's final episode in 1992. 

A YouTube channel called Tee Vee Classics has uploaded a couple of interviews with those who worked on the Hee Haw show. One interview is with cast-member, Lulu Roman. The other interview is with one of the show's main writers for a number of years, George Yanok. The interview is engaging and informative. The writer talks about the complex production of the show and how editing was the driving force behind the series...mentioning that the show won an Emmy in the category of 'Best Electronic Editing of a Primetime Series'. He mentions the show's hosts, Roy Clark and Buck Owens, and makes mention of several other cast members and why it was important to tape the show in Nashville, Tennessee rather than have the cast fly out to Los Angeles. 

In the interview with Lulu Roman. She speaks about her upbringing and how so far removed she was from the country music scene and the country music world she had no idea, at first, that she was sharing the stage with legends of country music. She tells how it was Buck Owens who 'discovered' her several years before Hee Haw was even created. Buck had a hit television show that was locally syndicated and for the first several years while co-hosting Hee Haw he remained host of his own television show. He eventually had to give up his own show because, if I'm recalling correctly, it became competition as Hee Haw began showing up on local television affiliates that were carrying Buck's television series. 

(July 17, 2021): I know it's not the same as having the two video uploads...but this is the big reason why I usually don't want to include video uploads in most of my blog entries.   

Jack Burns: 1933-2020

The news broke earlier today while I was sleeping (I'm a night-owl that works overnights but I'm on vacation but keep my routine) but the news broke that comedy writer/actor, Jack Burns, had passed away this past Sunday at age 86 but the news didn't become public until today. I first became aware of him by way of his appearance as Warren in episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. I used to watch the repeats of the show on TBS in the early to mid 1990s. However, I didn't realize I had been hearing Jack's voice prior to that...he was the voice of a Crash Test Dummy, along side Lorenzo Music, in a long series of television commercials about seat belts. In my youth I wasn't as focused on detecting voices as I feel that I am now...but yet I immediately realized the other dummy was being voiced by 'Garfield' (even though I had no idea of the voice actor's name at the time). 

I'm not familiar with Jack's comedy with George Carlin although I've learned of the comical pairing. I am way more familiar with the Jack Burns you'll see in the video clips below showcasing the lengthy pairing between him and the actor with the wild mustache, Avery Shreiber. For those interested YouTube has the comedy album that Jack Burns and George Carlin recorded together in 1960.  

In the video clips below you'll see Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber performing variations of their taxicab routine...





In the memorial/tribute articles I've read, so far, the authors always bring up his being a part of Hee Haw but there's no specifics actually given and so I'll supply some specifics. He was a member of the show's writing staff when it was on network television for two and a half seasons (1969-1971) but had no further involvement in the series after it began it's syndication run in the fall of 1971 until he began showing up, non-credited, in a series of sketches with George Lindsey in which Jack's character is a con-artist trying to peddle an assortment of junk and sometimes stolen items onto Goober. Those sketches were hilarious but I don't know the exact years those sketches appeared but my guess is some point in the early 1980s. 

It was in this time period that Jack became a writer, co-producer, and announcer of a sketch comedy show called Fridays. The sketch that's remembered from this two season, 58 episode series happened to involve Andy Kaufman. He pulled an elaborate stunt in which he and the cast/crew got into a wild fight on stage...on live television no less. The key to having it appear as if it were real and spontaneous is the fact that nobody, except a few key figures involved with the show (which included Jack Burns), knew it was being staged. The audience in the studio and home viewers believed it to be real. In an effort to further keep it believable, on the very next episode, Andy Kaufman apologized for the incident.

Although I couldn't find any video footage of Jack Burns and George Carlin, at the moment, I came across a brief video of Jack and Dick Cavett. Almost immediately after the routine begins Dick Cavett nearly loses his composure as the 'straight man' and holds back laughter...but from then on he lets loose several giggles for the remainder of the brief banter.



The sketch shows two things: First, that the super-serious reputation/image of Dick Cavett can be chiseled into every now and then and second, it shows just how incredible Avery Shreiber was as a straight-man to Jack Burns and how valuable a straight-man happens to be in a comedy team. Jack lent his distinctive voice to a variety of narration and voice over roles. The two most notable include his vocalization of Ralph Kane on the animated series, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home. In this role his character was a super exaggerated Conservative who lived next door to a moderate Conservative, Harry Doyle, voiced by Tom Bosley. The animated series ran for two seasons in syndication, 1972-1974, and a total of 48 episodes. The other most notable vocalization is his contribution to the Crash Test Dummies. In a long running series of television commercials for seat belt awareness and safety the two dummies, Vince and Larry, are shown getting into crashes and the effects of wearing a seat belt. The co-star in these commercials was Lorenzo Music. The catchphrase in those commercials was "you can learn a lot from a dummy".

In the early 1990s he lent his voice the Animaniacs animated series in the role of villainous Sid the Squid while former comedy partner, Avery Shreiber, voiced the dimwitted Beanie the Bison. Sid and Beanie appeared in the same episodes together: "Hurray for Slappy", "Scare Happy Slappy", "Rest in Pieces", "Macadamia Nut", and "Star Warners". If any of you reading this aren't familiar with the work of Jack Burns, or if you think his only claim to fame was portraying Deputy Warren for a few episodes on The Andy Griffith Show, you can easily seek out Jack's lengthy career on YouTube and other video hosting sites and see what you've missed.

Jack Burns: November 15, 1933 - January 26, 2020

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

Norris Twins and Gordie Tapp, 1991

Hee Haw at 50...Kornfield Friends...

Hello once more...I don't keep this blog as active as I should but it's only because I'm more focused on my main blog page...but ever so often I'll leave a blog entry here. It should come as no surprise that one of my favorite television programs happens to be Hee Haw. The recent blog entries here tell as much in addition to the series of blog entries I did several years ago or perhaps quite a few years ago detailing some sort of milestone that the series was either reaching or nearly reaching. This time around I'm blogging about the series making the 50th anniversary of it's debut. The series debuted in the summer of 1969 on CBS and remained on their schedule until early 1971. In the fall of 1971 it entered first-run, off-network syndication and remained in production until early 1992.

The official 50th anniversary date is June 15, 2019 (the series made it's debut on CBS on June 15, 1969). In the months leading up to this date and for the remainder of the year (2019-2020) there will be a traveling 50th anniversary tour starring four of it's cast-members: Buck Trent, Misty Rowe, Jana Jae, and Lulu Roman. The tour is titled Kornfield Friends and there is an official website and several confirmed appearances are posted: two in March, two in May, and two in August. I'm sure there will be more added. You can visit the site by clicking HERE. As of this writing once you click that link and you come to the confirmed appearances section there are two August dates in between the two appearances in May. I'd contact their website for exact dates, times, etc. or you can visit the websites of the venues the tour will be stopping at.

One of those venues is in the Ford Theater at the Honeywell Center in Wabash, Indiana on August 9th. I visited the website of that venue and the show is listed on their site. Tickets go on sale February 9th (this Saturday). If you're in the general area and happen to be a fan of Hee Haw or just want to see four of the cast-members trade jokes, tell stories, perform, and interact with the audience click HERE for all the information.

Over the weekend on the Mike Huckabee Show on the Trinity Broadcast Network he had the four stars of the tour on his show. Mike also recreated a Kornfield joke segment and he appeared in it...at first wearing a straw hat...but eventually it disappeared. You can see the segment featuring the Kornfield Friends cast and sketch in the video embed below...

Hee Haw episode from September 1990...

Howdy there...some later episodes of Hee Haw have become available, for the moment, on YouTube. The debut episode of the 1990-1991 season (it's final rural season) is available on YouTube. This episode marked the first time that Roy Clark was the sole host of the series. Upon the departure of Buck Owens following the 1985-1986 season the series introduced a guest co-host policy over the next four seasons and it was popular; and fans of the artists loved seeing their favorite bantering with Roy Clark but the guest co-host policy ended after the 1989-1990 season. The premiere episode of the 1990-1991 season featured special guests Garth Brooks, Suzy Bogguss, and tuba player Stan Freese. Also, given the recent passing of Roy Clark, this is a timely upload in that, as mentioned, this is the season in which he became the sole host of the program.



As you can see from the photo this is one of the episodes that aired on CMT in the mid 1990s. They aired reruns of most of the later episodes. TNN, prior to that, had aired a lot of the 1970s and early 1980s episodes. RFD has aired Hee Haw ever since 2008 in chronological order from Season One onward and they're currently up to the year, 1980. The series aired new episodes every year from 1969 until 1992. In this 1990 episode I was delighted to see some sketches that I hadn't seen in years...particularly Kornfield Kops featuring Gordie Tapp and Phil Campbell (screen cap below). Also a highlight is Gailard Sartain's oily lawyer character appearing in a sketch called Biggs, Shy, and Stir.

I had forgotten about the cold opening of the series in this era of it's history. The show opens with a brief exchange by Gordie Tapp and Roni Stoneman as Laverne and Ida Lee and after the comic zinger the opening of the show begins.

To save on air-time, perhaps, the cast was introduced in pairs of two instead of one after the other. By this time Mike Snider had become cast in most roles that would have gone to the late Junior Samples while Dub Taylor had taken over the Judge character previously played by Archie Campbell (whose son, Phil, had become a cast-member by this time). The gospel quartet segment is seen midway through the episode rather than at the end. A sketch I'd forgotten about is The Unlikely Brothers, a spoof of The Odd Couple. The sketch features Jeff Smith (the neat one) and Phil Campbell (the messy one)...the difference being these two are portraying siblings while Felix and Oscar of The Odd Couple were mismatched room-mates. There are a couple of other later episodes of Hee Haw on YouTube that I hadn't been able to see yet but rest assured I'll watch them once I publish this blog entry!!

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gordie Tapp: 1922-2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gordie Tapp, Junior Samples, Grandpa Jones, Lulu Roman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gordie Tapp: 1922-2016

Uphill All The Way...

The premise of this comedy-western centers around 2 bumbling good ol' boys (Roy Clark as Ben and Mel Tillis as Booger) who, at the start of the film, are tossed off a train after failing to show their tickets. They wander inside a saloon and attempt to cheat their way into a fortune at the card table. Frank Gorshin appears as the drunkest of the crowd (his character is named, Pike). To pull off their scheme Booger has a hat, hidden inside is a mirror, and he nonchalantly walks around the room letting Ben see the other player's hands. One thing leads to another and Booger drops the hat and cracks the mirror. At first the saloon women think Booger's using the hat to look up women's dresses...but eventually a seasoned card player realizes something's fishy and the other players suggest to start a new game since the previous one had been interrupted. Burt Reynolds has an uncredited cameo appearance in this saloon scene as the seasoned card player. He shows off his card tricks, at first, and then wastes little time at stripping an overly zealous but uneducated Ben of his winnings. Ben didn't realize the hand he held (the one he bet all his chips on) turned out to be a losing hand in that particular card game.

After a night of escapist romance with a couple of saloon women (Miss Jessie and Lucinda) they confessed, the following morning, that they didn't have any additional money to pay for the long night's activity. This caused the pair to get tossed out of the saloon/brothel, literally, by the bouncer (Leon). He pushed them down a flight of stairs.

Broke and wandering around they end up becoming fugitives after they innocently visit a bank to ask for a loan. Feeling that a shotgun should be excellent collateral the duo casually enter the bank and stroll up to the window with their shotgun.

A teller (Richard Paul), seeing their shotgun and mistaking their vague, nervous ramblings as some sort of veiled threat, flips the security alarm. After Ben yells that he's never been inside any bank before and is wondering about the reason for the loud noise Booger realizes that the alarm sound is for the police to hear and that they're being mistaken as bank robbers. From there they take off, hopping aboard a car in which the driver, obviously, mistakes the pair as car thieves. The driver asks for his luggage and nervously tells Ben and Booger they can keep the car and he makes a hasty exit. Ben asks Booger if he has any idea of how to drive "this fancy contraption" and of course his answer is "no!".

Meanwhile, the alarm is still blasting back at the bank and the local sheriff (Burl Ives) makes his entrance into the story and it takes a lot of explanation on the teller's part that the alarm wasn't just a test and that there was actually an attempted robbery. The sheriff's annoyance is made loud and clear due to being called to the bank on false alarms many times before.

Soon, though, a posse is formed after the driver of the car Ben and Booger "stole" arrives in town demanding that the 2 crooks face justice. Pike, the town's drunkest drunk, is recruited by the sheriff to join the posse.

By this time Ben and Booger are well on their way at evading a string of law enforcers all over the west due to a series of misunderstandings, confusions, and genuine criminal intent. One of those in the posse is a hysterical military Captain (Glen Campbell).

Burton Gilliam (Corporal) and Gailard Sartain (Private) appear on horseback during a scene involving Ben and Booger attempting to fix a flat tire on their "contraption". The shady servicemen fix the flat but insist on being paid for the labor. Ben says they're broke...this causes the Corporal to pull out a switchblade knife and he proceeds to let the air out of the tire. Fearing the worst and perhaps not looking forward to pumping air back into the tire, yet again, Ben pulls out his shotgun and the 2 macho servicemen do an about face and are now trembling with fear.

Ben and Booger steal the Corporal and the Private's clothes and their horses. The sheriff and his posse meet up ith the vandalized military officers and he insists they join in and track the 2 con-artists/bank robbers/murderers.

Ben and Booger eventually come to a stream...but it's filled up with soapy water. This leads the pair to a couple of alien's doing their laundry. Confusion abounds and the foreign aliens mistake Ben and Booger's demeanor as threatening and they pull out oars...startling the horses. The chaos causes the horses to trample all over the 2 alien's laundry rack...knocking it off into the nearby pond. This incident, as a result, creates more members of an ever growing posse. 45 minutes into the film Glen Campbell's character enters the story. At first he and his underlings are trying to get their vehicle back onto the road. He spots Ben and Booger in their stolen military clothes and on horses and demands that they come down and help get the truck on the road. "You 2...on the horses!!! Get down here on the double!!!". The Captain doesn't have much tolerance and is prone to barking snappy orders. On the count of 4 Ben and Booger take off on the horses as the General and the other officers attempt to keep the truck from sliding further off the hill. The Captain promises a court martial for those 2 once he arrives at the base. The posse meet up with the alien laundry men...and in a running joke they recognize Miss Jessie (Elaine Joyce) as did the Corporal and the Private earlier in the film.

Ben and Booger find themselves in a shoot out after they come across what appears to be an abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere. During the shootout a man emerges from the shack and shoots at all of the bandits as Ben and Booger race inside the shack. The stranger introduces himself as Anson Sudro (Sheb Wooley) and introduces his family.

The posse meet up with the Captain and the wrecked vehicle. The sheriff informs the Captain that the 2 people on horseback are impostors and don't belong to the military at all. Back at the shack Ben, Booger, and Anson continue to have a shoot out. They begin shooting at another shack in which holds dynamite...hoping the gunfire will ignite the dynamite in some way. The shot up shack explodes and the 2 flee Anson's residence and top a hill and see Mexico just across a river. They return to Anson's shack and help fight off the bandits. Eventually the posse come upon the shoot out and they, unknowingly, drive into it. The military vehicle had since been salvaged and it enters the chaotic surroundings. The Captain and the rest of the officers start firing at the bandits, too.

After things settle and the shooting stops the Widow Quinn (Trish Van Devere) makes a big showing of thanking "those 2 brave soldiers" (Booger and Ben) who had by that time vanished to the river to escape into Mexico. The Sheriff prevents the Captain and several others in the posse from revealing the true nature of Ben and Booger's 'fame' and he more or less bribes the posse to keep their mouths shut due to Ben and Booger unknowingly helping the daughter of a local politician.

Ben and Booger end up back on a train and they read a paper about the battle and fallout that took place in Sudro Springs and that the 2 mysterious saviors (Ben and Booger) vanished into thin air. They learn that the the Widow Quinn happened to be a daughter of a Senator and a reward's been offered. Ben suggests they return to collect their reward. Just then they're asked to turn in their tickets...to which Booger can't find them...and they're promptly tossed off the train once again just like at the start of the film. They bicker over their goals and whether or not to return to collect their money but in the end the 2 head off down the railroad presumably to their next get-rich-quick adventure.

This film hit theaters in 1986. Roy Clark, at the time, had been co-host of the syndicated television series Hee Haw dating back to 1969. Mel Tillis was certainly no slouch, either...for he not only is a great singer-songwriter but he displays good comedic skills in practically every project he's appeared in. Glen Campbell is also a legendary entertainer...at the time of this film's release he had been riding a crest of popularity that dated back to the 1960s. One of Roy's fellow cast-members from Hee Haw, Gailard Sartain, is another one of those performers loaded with talent. Frank Gorshin, the legendary impressionist and The Riddler from the Batman television series, had a memorable role as town drunk, Pike, but he didn't necessarily have too many lines. Gorshin's physical performance made the character memorable. Elaine Joyce had become so famous as a character actress and as a panelist on game shows, by 1986, and she eventually hosted a version of The Dating Game later on that year.

This movie can be purchased on DVD and it can be viewed, as of this writing, in it's entirety on YouTube. Search the video hosting site for the film.

Hee Haw: 1969-1992, Part 21...

Hello all...here's a complete episode of Hee Haw from May 7, 1988!! The guest co-host is Barbara Mandrell and along for the fun are The Gatlin Brothers, T. Graham Brown, and soap opera actor James DePaiva.

A lot of the established cast-members that survived the shake-up of 1986 generally appear in sketches together while the younger members of the program are paired off in similar fashion. In spite of the pairings of cast-members along similar age brackets the cast sing-a-longs are still intact.



Charlie McCoy and company deliver a rousing harmonica performance. There's the obscure sketch called "Pa's Roadside Stand". In this sketch, as Roy Clark plays straight man, Grandpa gets a chance to do his rhyming routine...which dated back to his famous "What's for Supper?" sketch that, for whatever reason, stopped appearing as frequently in this era but he's wearing the apron that displays the catchphrase.

The Supper sketch had appeared in nearly every episode from the early '70s until the mid '80s. In this 1988 sketch the rhymes are deliberately tongue twisting. 

Gordie Tapp and Roni Stoneman portray the forever nagging couple, The Naggers.

Gordie (as Laverne) and Roni (as Ida Lee) began appearing as this combative couple in the early 1970s and it remained a part of the series until 1991. Ida Lee's "mother", seen in this 1988 episode, appeared on a recurring basis. The mother is actually one of the members of The Nashville Edition, Wendy Suits. Longtime fans of the program should already know that The Nashville Edition appeared on every episode from 1969 until 1991 as the resident back-up group for the guest stars and the hosts.

Music contents: Roy Clark performs "Who's Sorry Now?"; Barbara Mandrell sings a bluesy and physically alluring "Just To Satisfy You" from her Sure Feels Good album (released in August of 1987) and she closes the program singing a medley of gospel songs; T. Graham Brown sings "R.F.D. 30529" and "The Last Resort" from his 1987 album, Brilliant Conversationalist; Charlie McCoy and others perform a rousing harmonica number; The Gatlin Brothers perform the gospel-tinged ballad "God Knows It Would Be You" and later they return and perform the uptempo "The One That Got Away"; The Gatlin Brothers, at the time of this fall 1987 taping, were performing songs from a future album release called Alive and Well: Livin' in the Land of Dreams. That album became available in December 1987.

Given that the air-date is May 7, 1988 the material that appeared on that installment originated during the fall 1987 taping sessions. Keep in mind that the cast and crew of the program reported to the studio for only 2 separate production periods each year.

In the summer the cast and guest stars taped material for 13 episodes (the editing staff and the producer compiled 13 individual episodes from the summer footage) and then in the fall of the same year the cast returned, in addition to other guest stars, to tape material for 13 more episodes (and once more the editing staff and the production staff assembled individual episodes from the fall footage).

The summer footage kicked off each season...in other words the first 13 episodes in each season originated from the summer taping sessions (usually in May or June). The remaining 13 first-run episodes originated from the fall taping sessions (usually late September-early October). The 26 episodes then reran during the spring and summer months. 

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

Don Harron: 1924-2015

Canadian born actor, writer, emcee, humorist, comedian Don Harron has passed away at the age of 90. His death happened yesterday January 17, 2015. Born in September 1924, Harron became popular in the early 1950s in his native country as Charlie Farquharson, a rustic philosopher-type prone to malaprops, one that had an opinion on anything. After the news broke of his death there have been hundreds of memorial pages that have popped up on-line...most of them originating in Canada...and some of the sites use the same biography but this is typical and nothing to complain about. After someone in the celebrity world passes away, an official memorial press release is issued and then bloggers, reporters, and media sites pick up on the press release and share it on their sites with their audiences. After more than a decade and a half as a Canadian celebrity on radio and television, Don became one of the original members of the television program, Hee Haw, when it debuted on CBS in the summer of 1969. After it's summer run, it returned as a mid-season replacement late in 1969 and it continued production of new episodes through early 1971. It was canceled by CBS in 1971 during the Rural Purge (the nickname given to the network's decision to drop any television programs that had massive appeal with rural America and, or, older audiences).

During the program's hiatus Don continued his association with the show because decisions had been made that the program would remain in production for the syndicated market and so by the fall of 1971 Hee Haw returned as a syndicated program. The irony is the local affiliates across the country, mostly affiliates of CBS, decided to continue airing the program in it's usual time-slot (Saturday evenings at 6pm Central, 7pm Eastern) as if it never had been canceled. If you check out some of my Hee Haw blogs you'll learn about the program's life span and it's production methods. Don wrote his own dialogue for the K-O-R-N segments.

For me, Don will always be Charlie Farquharson (last name pronounced, simply, as 'Fark-uh-son'). Before I decided to lower the price of my monthly cable bill, I used to get RFD-TV as part of one of the channel packages. I hadn't seen Hee Haw for nearly half a year and so I miss seeing the program and awaiting Charlie's newscasts. In the picture off to the right, in character as Charlie, Don makes one of his familiar funny facial expressions after reading a rather bizarre story...made more bizarre by the malaprops used in the story's description. The secret to Charlie's hold on a television viewer, in my opinion, was all in the comic timing. His delivery of the latest shenanigans taking place in Kornfield Kounty, that's the fictional place Hee Haw was set in, for example, or, his delivery of the latest divorce, marriage, or death happening in an assortment of fictional small towns...that delivery was breezy, up-tempo, and peppered with just enough innuendo to cause one to say to themselves "did he really say that??". The K-O-R-N routine was always funny and it's at it's hysterical best when Charlie hastily segues from one story to the other to the other, filling each of them with some sort of malapropism. One of my favorite one-liners from one of his 'broadcasts' is the time he reported on a cheapskate at a local bar. A waitress carrying a tray of glasses walked by and she tripped on something. Charlie looks at the camera and says of the cheapskate: "that's the first time the drinks were on him! Hyuck, hyuck, hyuck!!". That last part is my attempt at spelling out Charlie's big laugh.

The collage below is clickable.

As mentioned, Don Harron continued his appearances on Hee Haw throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s. He left the series at the end of the 1985-1986 television season as part of a sweeping overhaul of the cast. One of the program's co-hosts, Buck Owens, also left the series in early 1986.

I have taken some looks at several reports that originated in Canada and on one site there's video footage of Don in his early years.  You can also search YouTube and other video hosting sites to see footage of Don Harron.

Here are 2 sites that offer reports on Don Harron's death. You'll find out that there happened to be much more to Don Harron's career than his portrayal of Charlie.

Bellingham Herald

Broadway World

Here is a memorial story that appeared on-line several hours ago. You will see Don in his regular clothes, as himself, and of course you'll see him as Charlie...

Don Harron: 1924-2015