**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.
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.
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!!
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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...
Hello all!! It's been awhile since I've posted a blog about Hee Haw. A big reason for that is because there hasn't been many clips uploaded on YouTube that have inspired me to post a blog...there's been nothing too obscure that's surfaced until now. Since my last blog post about the program I'm no longer receiving RFD-TV. The economy's caused us to downgrade our cable service and so we had to get rid of some of the packages that have additional costs and RFD-TV was part of a premium channel package. Hopefully, at some point, we'll add on the extra expense but for the time being it's not part of our cable line-up.
Enough about that...the main reason for this blog entry has to do with an episode of Hee Haw from September 1989!! In fact, it's the first episode of the 1989-1990 season. A fan of Barbara Mandrell has it on their YouTube channel and being a fan of the program I decided to share it with you all.
Barbara Mandrell, the Gatlin Brothers, T. Graham Brown, and soap opera star Jim DePaiva are the guests. At the time Jim and cast member Misty Rowe were husband and wife (the 2 married in 1986 and divorced in 1995).
The Kornfield segment isn't the same as it used to be. In times past they'd deliver 3 or 4 one-liner jokes in succession with a banjo playing in the background. On the later episodes they'd insert one single Kornfield joke at various times throughout the episode and it didn't include the banjo music in the background. As you'll see in the opening credits they paired the large cast in the introductions. This had become standard procedure in the mid '80s to shorten (?) the length of the cast member introduction. In this particular episode Roni Stoneman is paired with Gailard Sartain in the intro (instead of being paired off with Gordie Tapp...he's paired off with Lulu Roman). Also, Roy didn't wear the traditional bibs and overalls like some of the other cast members continued to do. He still continued to dress unmistakeably 'country' with the blue jeans, t-shirts, and the fashionable large belt buckle...but the hayseed look had disappeared. In one scene you'll see him in a black suit and a tie.
It's almost like the program was taking baby steps (intentionally or accidentally) into becoming the overhaul that surfaced in January 1992 where the Kornfield was gone and everybody dressed in the modern-country fashions instead of the traditional hillbilly attire. The 1989-1990 and 1990-1991 seasons are the final ones where the cast had the hillbilly look and feel (although you can tell from this episode that the 'feel' was fading but it still had a visual presence).
The audio is good and Gary Beatty (the one time voice of TNN) is doing the cast introductions. The video doesn't include the closing credits, though. There's a Tornado watch alert that appears on the lower left hand side of the screen during the first 24 minutes of the program. The time length of the episode is a little more than 45 minutes. The program ran 1 hour, including commercial breaks. 14-15 minutes of ad time for both local and national products and information sounds about right...so I'm assuming this to be a complete episode.
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.
Yesterday an interesting behind-the-scenes clip about Hee Haw was uploaded onto You Tube. The clip comes from a news program from 1979 and so it's a report conducted when Hee Haw was still in production. There are a few glitches in the video but it doesn't take away from the priceless footage of seeing a typical taping session from the television studio that the show taped their programs in through 1980. You'll notice how small the studio is and you'll also see the show's producer give a brief run down on how the show is put together, in batches, and edited together to comprise 13 episodes. Typically there were 13 episodes put together in the late spring/summer and another 13 in the fall to make up a 26 episode television season.
This station promo below was uploaded in 2010 but I decided to embed it here, too. I may have embedded this back then but it's been nearly 3 years ago! From the sound of the promo it appears that Hee Haw was just starting to air for the first time on that station. The clip is from some point in the early to mid '80s. I assume the station aired the show on a delayed basis considering the official airtime for new episodes was 6pm locally in Nashville, Tennessee each Saturday evening and on this channel it aired at 4:30pm on Saturdays. In my area it most often aired throughout much of the 1980's at 7pm on Saturday and then it moved to the afternoons in the early 1990's.
As RFD-TV continues to air Hee Haw on Sunday night at 8pm (with a repeat airing the following Monday at 10am), the series has progressed into the 1973-1974 season. Sunday night's episode, originally broadcast in early 1974, was the last episode of the 1973-1974 season. It starred Lester Flatt with sporadic appearances by the other guest, Hugh Hefner. In addition to Lester Flatt, the rest of the music was provided by the show's regulars: co-hosts Roy Clark and Buck Owens plus Gunilla Hutton, Buddy Alan, and a song from the Hager twins. Marty Stuart fans should get a kick out of seeing that particular episode because Marty's featured in Lester's band. At that time Marty was 15 years old! These performances of Lester Flatt, for those who want to view it, are on You Tube at the moment. Marty's vocalizations are featured in the "Bluebirds are Singing For Me" and he plays mandolin, as I mentioned, on that performance as well as the earlier performance, "Salty Dog". I've embedded the performance where Marty is heard singing...
Sandwiched between all of this were the sing-a-longs with the cast and the recurring comedy sketches. Archie Campbell, in a few sketches, wore a bunny suit while trading one-liners with Hugh Hefner. There was a storytelling segment with Tennessee Ernie Ford which I assume had been taped well in advance due to the fact that he wasn't mentioned as a guest in the opening. He appeared in this form of sketch in several other episodes, too. Stringbean usually appeared as the headliner of this storyteller sketch, which always began with him announcing that he'd just received a letter from home, but for a series of episodes in late '73 through early '74 Tennessee Ernie Ford headlined this newer segment. The 'letter from home' phrase was only used during the sketches that starred Stringbean. The reason for this is explained in the 1996 book, Life in the Kornfield: My 25 Years at Hee Haw, from Sam Lovullo and Mark Eliot.
In the early '80s Grady Nutt would headline a similar sketch where he'd tell humorous stories with a religious overtone. In each of these various storyteller sketches a small collection of cast-members would be seated down in front...sitting either on crates or on bales of hay while the storyteller was often seated on a larger hay bale, elevated from those who were hearing the story. Whenever Jerry Clower guest starred, his appearances were taped in this fashion, too.
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.
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.
Howdy...fresh off of You Tube comes this nearly 7 minute promo piece for Hee-Haw that aired on an Oklahoma news program. The news story inserts clips lifted from the DVD collection I wrote about in Part 12. You will also see footage taken at the Hee-Haw exhibit which runs through the first half of 2012. Most of the clips shown in the video embed below come from the program's first season but toward the end of the embed they feature clips of later seasons, too. The DVD collection is available for purchase at Country Family Reunion's web-site.
RFD-TV is currently airing the 1972-1973 season. During the last several weeks saw the debut of Gordie Tapp's sketch, The Naggers, which featured an uncredited Roni Stoneman. George Lindsey, Gailard Sartain, and Roni Stoneman began making appearances uncredited during this time period. Of course, the reason I use the phrase "uncredited" is because their names weren't called during the familiar opening sequence (where the announcer runs through the cast-list). The Naggers would ultimately turn out to be a long-running sketch that often appeared twice in an episode (one per half hour) and it was still a part of the show for the rest of Roni Stoneman's involvement with the series (through 1991). The sketch was so popular that Gordie and Roni often appeared in-character as Laverne and Ida Lee Nagger during other comedy sketches. Examples being the Justus O'Peace sketch with Archie Campbell where the Naggers often complained to the Judge about their married life, The Kornfield one-liner segment, and in the early '80s the Hee-Haw Honky Tonk sketch. As the series went on The Naggers acquired a son, Elrod, played by cast member Kenny Price. Also, Ida Lee's mother became a frequent presence. The mother was played by Wendy Suites, a member of the show's back-up group, The Nashville Edition.
I'll be purchasing my copy of the Salute to the Kornfield DVD collection, hopefully around the end of this month. The cost, before taxes, is $79.80. The collection comes with 4 DVD discs plus an additional DVD of behind the scenes/backstage excerpts. This salute will eventually air on RFD-TV in 2012 but on-line shoppers can order the program prior to it's national airing.
In this particular Hee-Haw blog entry I'm focusing on an upcoming salute to the series that'll air in January 2012 on RFD-TV. The special is titled Salute to the Kornfield...at the moment I have no idea the running time of the special. I can't wait to see it...it'll feature recent interviews with a lot of the surviving cast-members of the show and I imagine there will be a lot of remembrances and memorials/tributes given to those who've passed away.
Before anyone can say "Great...but I don't get RFD-TV!!!" the great news is there's going to be a mammoth DVD collection which will feature the program that airs in January 2012 in addition to footage that didn't make it on the air. The DVD collection will cost a person a little more than $80.00 but it'll be well worth it not only for the interviews and memories but for it's historical value in the years to come.
Information about the DVD collection, which contains 5 discs in all, can be found by clicking the RFD-TV link. 4 discs will be housed in a standard DVD case while the 5th disc called Backstage will be housed in a separate case. You'll see the look and design and the price after you click the above link.
The reruns of the show that air on RFD-TV, in a lot of ways, is responsible for this reunion. Word of mouth and social media have created awareness for the reruns and in a lot of cases the program was discovered by younger audiences, too, who weren't even born when Hee-Haw aired it's last episode in 1992.
The program originally aired on CBS-TV for 2 and a half seasons, 1969-1971, and in syndication for 22 more seasons, 1971-1992. When the show ceased production of new episodes in 1992, at the end of it's 24th season, the program returned later that year as Hee-Haw Silver to commemorate it's 25 seasons on the air. That program was a retrospective series airing flashbacks of older episodes which ran through 1993...concluding it's 25 year run.
I find it thrilling that the program still has such a strong fan-base...but it's not surprising. Practically anything associated with Hee-Haw has turned a profit or helped networks increase their ratings. In the '90s The Nashville Network aired reruns of the show for nearly 5 years straight starting in 1993...months after Hee-Haw Silver concluded it's syndicated run.
One example of it's profitability being the series of Time Life DVD collections spread out over a period of several years. Those DVD's, I think, filled the void left when The Nashville Network abruptly stopped airing the reruns and the DVD releases increased the demand for more episodes. I say the DVD successes eventually led to the program's rerun debut on the RFD-TV network in 2008...where it's been airing ever since. The network is currently airing the 1972-1973 season.
Once again...the reunion of Hee-Haw will air in January 2012 and the DVD counterpart is available for pre-order at the web-link I posted up in the third paragraph.
In this on-going series of blogs I've touched upon the fact that 2009 marked the 40th anniversary of Hee-Haw's debut on CBS in 1969. 2011 marks the 40th anniversary of the program's re-launch into syndication. After CBS canceled the series in 1971 it went into first-run syndication later in the year and it remained in first-run syndication for the next 21 years (through May 1992). The follow-up series, Hee-Haw Silver, ran from the fall of 1992 through 1993. If you're familiar with that particular program let me know about it. I'd only heard about it but never saw any of those episodes. I know Roy Clark acted as host and Cathy Baker appeared at the end of each episode to say her signature sign-off line...but I learned of that from reading the Life in the Kornfield book that Sam Lovullo wrote in the mid '90s. I don't think the Hee-Haw Silver series will ever be uploaded onto You Tube or made available on DVD anytime soon...but I'm still interested in seeing the program.
Sunday evening's Hee-Haw episode on RFD-TV featured Connie Smith and Tommy Ambrose as special guests. It was the final episode of the 1971-1972 season (it's first season in syndication). Next Sunday's episode should be episode 1 of the 1972-1973 season or episode 2. I say this because a couple of months ago they aired the first episode of the 1972-1973 season (Ray Stevens and Dizzy Dean were the guests) and so they may skip that and pick up with episode 2. The 1972 season opener, by the way, featured the debuts of cast-members Marianne Gordon, Misty Rowe, Anne Randall, and Gailord Sartain (dressed as a cop). George Lindsey began making infrequent appearances on the program in 1972. He played the Goober character that he'd been playing since 1964 on The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry RFD. Lindsey, however, didn't appear in the opening cast credits of Hee-Haw until several weeks into his run. He'd remain on the series through it's final episode in May 1992 and often appeared at Hee-Haw related functions in the years following it's cancellation. In 1995 he released his life story called Goober in a Nut-Shell and it became a runaway success. Also, it was at this point in time where Lindsey was in the middle of commemorating his 30th anniversary as 'Goober'.
Over the course of the last several weeks during the Hee-Haw reruns on RFD-TV they've been airing commercials that were taped at the recent get-together of the cast. The commercials feature cast-members saying who they are, often standing in front of a replica Hee-Haw prop, and thanking the viewers for watching the reruns.
A few minutes ago I came across a web-site originating from Oklahoma. I discovered that a Hee-Haw exhibit is taking place at the Oklahoma History Center. Those of you are familiar with the area or in the vicinity of Oklahoma City will probably know where the venue is. If not, the information can be found here along with a video clip of Roy Clark, Vince Gill, and Garth Brooks giving their comments on Hee-Haw and it's lasting impact. There's a nice article/write-up about the show and it mentions that although the show's been out of production since 1992 it's continued to find audiences through reruns. It reran on The Nashville Network (TNN) for nearly four years starting in the fall of 1993. Those reruns were a ratings success for the network and it helped promote the stage revival at Opryland Theme Park called Hee-Haw Live which got underway in the summer of 1994.
Upon the conclusion of the closing credits of the television rerun there would typically be a promo for Hee-Haw Live complete with ticket information, address, and phone number. Later, commercials for the future best-selling home video, Hee-Haw Laffs, began airing on TNN. The stage show featured just a small group from the regular cast and a few newcomers performing sketches and routines associated with Hee-Haw. Off the top of my head I think the members of the stage show were Lulu Roman, Grandpa Jones, Gunilla Hutton, George Lindsey, and theme park regular Jason Petty (now known as the definitive Hank Williams, Sr. in various stage productions). It was also around this time, the mid '90s, that the show's producer, Sam Lovullo, released his Life in the Kornfield book. I'll also add that the DVD releases from the middle part of last decade (2004-2006) have also helped introduce the program to multiple generations...especially since a lot of those episodes have turned up on You Tube and other video hosting sites within the last several years. Then a couple of years ago RFD-TV started airing the program...starting with the debut episode in 1969 and moving forward. Last night's episode was from 1972 with Porter and Dolly as special guests.
The Hee-Haw exhibit article states that the exhibit will be on display for exactly a year and so you'll have until sometime in April or May of 2012 to catch the exhibit. I had been watching Hee-Haw clips on You Tube earlier and it inspired me to do a Google news search and that's where I found the story about the Oklahoma City Hee-Haw exhibit. Strangely enough I didn't come across this article in May or June or I would've mentioned it then.
According to the one who uploaded the above video this is from the final episode of Hee-Haw which aired on May 30, 1992. I've never seen a complete episode from the last season but in the above video we see a sketch called the Bus Stop. In the background you can hear the familiar banjo playing away and so I assume this was the urbanized version of the Kornfield. Gary Morris, Sweethearts of the Rodeo, and Hal Ketchum were the guests on what turned out to be the final first-run episode of the series. The series that appeared in the fall of 1992 was the "best-of" series called Hee-Haw Silver, which ran through the summer of 1993. In the above video you'll see Roy Clark, Grandpa Jones, Gordie Tapp, Mike Snider, Gary Morris, and several others trade jokes standing on a city street at a "Bus Stop".
In the video below we see a commercial for the Miracle Nose. It features Gary Morris and the Norris Twins. From 1969 through 1986 the program featured the Hagers, twin brothers who performed a lot during the show's earliest days. The arrival of the Norris Twins in 1992 marked the first time since the Hagers that twins were part of the series.
In the video below you'll see the relatively small cast...Roy Clark was the lone host during the show's final two seasons, 1990-1992. Roy had been joined by a different guest co-host each week between the years of 1986 through the spring of 1990. Prior to the fall of 1986 Buck Owens had co-hosted the show with Roy each week. Roy and Buck were the co-hosts from it's debut in 1969 through the spring of 1986.
The videos were uploaded by a fan of Gary Morris. I have no idea if other video from Hee-Haw's final episode exists but I'd like to see an episode from 1992 in it's entirety. As most people who read this blog are aware of I was never able to see the last season of the series because the local TV stations in my area didn't carry the show anymore. The final episodes that I saw were in 1991.
Trivia: What other television landmark came to a close in May 1992?
Answer: The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.
Yes...that's right! The last Tonight Show that Johnny Carson hosted aired on May 22, 1992...which was on a Friday. 8 days later, on May 30th, Hee-Haw ended production of new episodes after a 24 season run.
