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

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

This past Saturday, February 23, 2013 marked a little known anniversary in the life of the television series, Hee Haw. It was on a Saturday back on February 23, 1991...22 years ago to the day...that the series aired it's final first-run episode with it's rural decor. This was also, perhaps, the final time a lot of viewers seen the program as affiliate stations had been dropping the show during the previous couple of seasons and would continue to drop the program throughout the season. In a previous blog entry I remarked that I'd read where the show had reached a peak of affiliate stations during the mid 1980's (in the range of 220) but by the early 1990's the number of television stations airing the show had fell to a little more than 170...a drop of at least 50 stations within a 5 to 6 year time frame. A lot of factors played into that...there were more first-run syndicated programming hitting the air than in times past and some local stations were even creating their own programming rather than pay for outside shows to fill the local access time slots. There was a time when syndicated programs were considered inferior because they weren't a product of a network but my how times have changed. Since there have been many examples of successful syndicated programs lasting much longer than network programs there shouldn't be any inferiority directed toward syndicated programs. 

In the meantime, after Hee Haw went out of production in February 1991 it didn't return with new episodes until January 1992 and it was this series of programs that ultimately led to it's cancellation. Technically, the new look had been unveiled in the late fall of 1991 during a press release but the new episodes didn't hit the air for another few months. The 1992 episodes marked the program's 24th season.

The rural look and country fashions, which had been a staple of the show since it's 1969 debut, was gone, and it had been replaced with an urban look and uptown fashions. Also, in 1991, almost all of the cast-members and back-up singers who had been part of the show for more than 10 years, in some cases 20, were let go in favor of newcomers. There were only a handful of longtime cast-members who survived the fall 1991 make-over. The urban version of Hee Haw lasted until May 1992. In the fall Hee Haw Silver debuted, a retrospective series celebrating the program's 25th season. Roy Clark hosted this series and Cathy Baker provided the sign-off remarks. This retrospective was on the air from the fall of 1992 through the fall of 1993. As mentioned in previous blog entries Hee Haw left the syndicated television market in the fall of 1993 and jumped to cable (The Nashville Network) several weeks later for a highly successful three and a half year stay. Reruns of Hee Haw usually aired at 10pm Eastern on Saturday nights following the The Statler Brothers Show. Later in it's run TNN moved the show from 10pm to 7pm Eastern, the show's time slot for decades when syndicated. Repeats of the series left the TNN airwaves in 1997 for a brief run on CMT and then it vanished from cable television not long afterward.

Time Life, the famed mail order company, began releasing DVD's of the program in 2004 to retail outlets after having first sold episodes on DVD via infomercials. The DVD's, typically featuring episodes from the mid '70s, would ultimately go on to collectively sell more than 1,000,000 copies by March 2006. That July, CMT aired the series for the first time in more than 9 years when it aired a weekend marathon of episodes during July 29th through the 30th. The series was handed a TV Land award in April of 2007. It was one of the programs honored during the telecast...sharing the spotlight with Hee Haw that night were tributes to Lucille Ball, Taxi, The Brady Bunch, and the mini-series, Roots. Given the sales successes of the Time Life DVD's and the success of the CMT weekend marathon in 2006...plus the TV Land award in the spring of 2007...it shouldn't have come as no surprise that the program remained just as popular as ever. As I pointed out in earlier blog entries I've written, the only reason that I feel that Hee Haw's "ratings went down" in the early '90s is because the program was losing affiliates...the program was not necessarily losing it's viewers voluntarily (television markets were taking the show away from it's longtime viewers).

If a syndicated program isn't being shown in as many television markets as before it's pretty much common sense that this turn of events will have an impact on the ratings.

The ratings successes on TNN and CMT during the early to late '90s and the sales successes of the Time Life DVD's in the middle part of the 2000's specifically demonstrate that the program had held on to it's fan base and possibly acquired newer fans during it's rerun cycle on TNN and the exposure that the program received in the DVD marketplace. The following year, news surfaced that Hee Haw would become part of the RFD-TV line-up. Reruns of the show hit the airwaves on Sunday night at 8pm Eastern in the fall of 2008, with an encore the following Monday at 10am Eastern, and they have aired in those two time-slots ever since.

RFD-TV debuted in 2000 as a satellite channel. Years later it spread it's availability to cable television and is part of many cable outlets across the country. In my area we finally started receiving RFD-TV on our cable line-up in 2010 during the channel's 10th anniversary...meaning that I had missed the episodes of Hee Haw that were airing during 2008-2009 (episodes originally broadcast on CBS during the summer of 1969, episodes that aired on CBS during the 1969-1970 season when it was added to the schedule as a mid-season replacement series, and finally the episodes that aired during it's one full season on CBS during the 1970-1971 season).

As was the case with TNN, CMT, and the DVD sales for Time Life, the show's become wildly popular all over again on RFD-TV. The channel airs the program in chronological order. Once a season of reruns has aired on the channel it re-airs those reruns to fill the summer gap and in the fall a new season of reruns hits the air. The channel is in it's fifth season of Hee Haw reruns and since it airs the reruns in chronological order they're into season five of the series (1973-1974). In January of 2012 a special program saluting the show aired on RFD-TV. It was titled Salute to the Kornfield. The continued popularity of the show, some 40+ years after it's debut, no doubt helped inspire the salute. Social media also played a part...clips of the show on You Tube have collectively been watched by hundreds of thousands of people. Those clips are no doubt being seen by a majority of people who weren't even born when the show was a weekly television program and some probably have only heard of the show in passing...others remark that the program was watched religiously by their parents, grandparents, or great grandparents.

Never a favorite among so-called 'hip' television critics and those who see themselves as urbane and sophisticated, Hee Haw nevertheless has kept a fiercely loyal fan base and it's continued airing on RFD-TV and it's exposure on You Tube and other social media outlets suggests that there will still be an audience for Hee Haw for generations to come and that's something everyone should be grinning about.

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

Well, good Wednesday afternoon!! I came across an article about Hee-Haw that was published on February 27th this year...it's a lengthy, respectful write-up/article about the show as a whole. The article, as I found out when I read the entire thing, was originally written in early January of 2011, though! It's still a good article. I didn't research my previous Hee-Haw blog entries to see if I'd posted a link to that particular article or not and so I'm going to post the link in this blog entry. The article appears on a site called thislandpress and the article's written by an author named Jeff Martin.

You can read the article here: Why Hee Haw Still Matters.

I hesitate to embed Hee-Haw videos on my blog pages due to the ever-changing availability of them through the course of time. I did a blog entry a couple of years back and embedded quite a few You Tube videos of the show...only to visit the blog several weeks later to find the videos unavailable for play-back. Either the video's uploader had removed them from public display (disabling the embedding feature) or they were taken down by the uploader for whatever reason. When this happens it creates a void for any blog entry that embeds a video clip...once the centerpiece of a blog entry is removed (such as an embedded video) then the blog entry itself makes little sense.

Anyway...that's a big reason why I don't embed too many videos anymore in my blogs. However, I'm going to break my unwritten rule on today's blog entry and embed a video clip from the late '80s era of the show. As many blog readers of mine are aware of, I grew up watching Hee-Haw every Saturday evening in the '80s...and when it was moved to Saturday afternoons, to make way for the Saturday evening additions of a couple of game shows, I'd catch it often. So I was raised on the '80s and early '90s installments of the show. The Cowboy Quartet didn't gain as much commercial popularity as The Hee-Haw Gospel Quartet did but nevertheless The Cowboy Quartet had a recurring segment on the show in the late '80s. I came across a newer video clip of this quartet and the content is below...



As you can see from the video, this is one of the final episodes of the rural format. I have no idea, though, when it was originally aired but I see that Jeff Smith is among the singers. At the start of the clip you'll see the last few seconds of a Gailard Sartain sketch where he played an owner of a flea market ever trying to break into the music business...but the camera would always pull away every time he'd whip out his guitar. Cathy Baker introduces the Quartet. Judging by the appearances of the cast-members (physical appearances, hairstyles) it looks as if this clip comes from the 1989-1990 or 1990-1991 season.

As I commented on in the previous Hee-Haw blog entries I've written, the reruns that TNN and later, CMT, aired of the show were mostly from the '80s and a precious few from the final 1990-1991 rural season. TNN once aired the Alan Jackson episode...at the time it was one of the few latter-day episodes of the series to be re-aired. The reason why I like to spotlight the show's mid '80s and early '90s run as much as possible is because #1 that's the era of the program I grew up seeing every weekend. I'll always have a fondness for those episodes. The second reason I like to spotlight those episodes is because I think, sometimes, those particular episodes get a bad wrap because they don't feature the core line-up as they're referred to by many, many fans of the show. That core line-up that's usually referred to often contained comics/entertainers that were no longer among the living by the late '80s: Archie Campbell, Junior Samples, Jimmy Riddle, and Kenny Price. Stringbean, one of the show's most popular earlier cast-members, was murdered in November 1973. His episodes were still airing each weekend (all of his segments had been taped in the late summer of 1973). On the show, which he'd been on since it's 1969 debut, he appeared in many banjo musical numbers and had a recurring sketch where he'd read a "letter from home". Also, he appeared as the scarecrow in the Kornfield joke segment, offering one-liners about how miserable he was having to listen to all the corny jokes. A black crow puppet was perched over his shoulder. After his murder, the new shows from 1974 onward featured a scarecrow in the Kornfield as a memorial. The black crow puppet continued to appear as before. Those earliest episodes which feature Stringbean currently air on RFD-TV.  

Meanwhile...getting back to the mid '80s...co-host Buck Owens had left the program after the 1985-1986 season wrapped up...on top of that there was what the show's producer, Sam Lovullo, refers to as the great cast shake-up of 1986 which saw the exits of quite a few long-time cast-members.

When the show returned in the fall of 1986 it was considerably different, cast-wise, but there were still a lot of familiar faces as well: Roy Clark, Gordie Tapp, Gunilla Hutton, Grandpa Jones, Lulu Roman, George Lindsey, Gailard Sartain, etc. etc.  Also, the guest co-host position was introduced at the start of the 1986-1987 season. This was a popular addition but it was ultimately phased out by the start of the 1990-1991 season. In it's final season, of rural decor, Roy Clark was the sole host of the program. He was back as the host when the series returned in January 1992 in the urbanized setting under the slightly different name, The Hee-Haw Show. This was the format that aired until May 1992...which ultimately lead to the program going out of production that summer. Hee-Haw Silver premiered in the fall of 1992 and it ran through the spring of 1993. Afterwards reruns of the show began airing on The Nashville Network in the fall of 1993. Reruns continued to air on TNN on a consistent basis through 1996...and occasionally through 1997. They aired on CMT infrequently after that before the series left the airwaves entirely...popping up in a series of DVD's from Time-Life. The program returned to the airwaves, in rerun form, in 2008 on RFD-TV where it's been airing ever since.

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

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.

Hee-Haw: 1969-1992; part four

Howdy ever'body! Welcome to part four in this Hee-Haw blog series. Part Three was published on this blog many months ago...almost a year ago...where I spotlighted a couple of DVD's that Time-Life had released. Several weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my cable provider now carries RFD-TV! This is excellent news because this is the channel that airs Hee-Haw on Sunday nights at 8pm. The show repeats on Monday morning at 10am. I've watched the show at 10am but I don't have that same feeling that I do watching the show in the evening hours...even though the 10am Monday morning airing is a repeat of the 8pm episode the night before. I guess that has to do with all those years watching the show at 7pm back when it was still in production. I do remember catching the show in 1991 during Saturday and, or, Sunday afternoon...so having it air in the daytime isn't unheard of...I just prefer watching it in the evening hours.

The episode that aired tonight, January 31st, featured Loretta Lynn and Bill Anderson as guests. Susan Raye, a regular cast-member and frequent duet partner with Buck Owens, sang a song as did hosts Buck Owens and Roy Clark and twin cast-members Jim and Jon Hager. Loretta sang "Coal Miner's Daughter" and "Secret Love"; Bill Anderson sang "Wild Weekend" and "I Love You, Drops". Susan Raye sang her Top-10 hit, "Willy Jones". The Hagers sang "Looking Out My Backdoor", a Creedence Clearwater Revival hit. The episode originally aired on February 2, 1971.

I have 11 of those Time-Life DVD's of Hee-Haw. I'm holding up 10 of them. An 11th wasn't able to be in the shot...as you can see I had a difficult enough time trying to keep them from falling from the stack...so I took the 11th DVD from the stack and snapped a picture real quick. Some of those DVD's have two episodes on them and several have just one episode. There is a 5-disc set called A Salute to Hee-Haw that is rather pricey. It's running time is 480 minutes altogether. I was never able to purchase it. It features 4 DVD's with 2 episodes per disc which adds up to 8 episodes and then a 5th disc which features interviews with some of the surviving cast members of the show.

Although I wish I had the 5-DVD release, I'm happy with the DVD's that I have so I'm not complaining...and the fact that I now get RFD-TV where I can see the show each Sunday evening is also a plus!! If I had my way, though, the show would air every weeknight at 7pm and I'd mix the episodes around. One evening have a show from 1970 and the next night have a show from 1984 and then the next night have something from 1972 and then an episode from 1989, etc etc. The 5-DVD collection is sold-out at Amazon and at Wal*Mart's web-site store...and I did a search at Time-Life's web-site and couldn't find any reference to Hee-Haw on their site. I did a product search and it came up empty so they must have stopped offering these DVD's. The 5-DVD set was released in 2006...much of the DVD's were released in 2004, 2005, and 2006...it certainly doesn't seem like it's been 4 years ago...in some cases 6!!

This is the DVD release of the only episode of Hee-Haw that George Strait appeared on. The episode originally aired on November 12, 1983 and at the time Strait was an emerging superstar...having been on the national scene a little over 2 years. In that short span of time he had racked up several consecutive Top-5 hits on his way to a hugely successful career...with over 50 #1 country hits and election into the Country Music Hall of Fame 23 years later in 2006. The Statler Brothers are the other guests on this episode and there have been some consumers upset over what they consider over-kill by the Statler Brothers. Some of the commentary I came across regarding this DVD included anger over how many sketches were centered around the group. I never saw anything wrong with the episode myself. The show's producer, Sam Lovullo, always wanted guests who loved to do the comedy sketches. Some artists shied away from doing too much comedy and they only shown up to sing. So, to my way of thinking, since the Statler Brothers are hilarious and have a comedic side to them, having them appear in the comedy sketches on the show seemed natural so you'll get no complaints from me.

Hee-Haw: 1969-1992.