Hee-Haw: 1969-1992, Part Five

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The Tonight Show

The Tonight Show has been in the news A LOT lately given all of the controversy surrounding the lackluster ratings of O'Brien's version of the program and the prime-time Jay Leno program. In a move that is unprecedented for the franchise, NBC will have Jay Leno return to hosting duties on The Tonight Show in March of this year as Conan O'Brien departs the network. O'Brien had been the host of the program since June 1, 2009 and when he became the host he followed in the foot-steps of four comedic titans: Jay Leno, Johnny Carson, Jack Paar, and Steve Allen. The benchmark of hosting duties of course will always rest with the late Johnny Carson. He hosted the program for 30 years which means that he was a major comical voice of all the major events in world history for three decades. Although Carson did the show for 30 years others hosted the program before him and of course others hosted the show after him. The successors of Carson are fairly, or unfairly, compared to him even today nearly 18 years after he retired as host.

A run-down, of sorts, of the franchise's hosts...

Steve Allen: September 27, 1954 - January 25, 1957

Ernie Kovacs: October 1, 1956 - January 22, 1957**

Jack Lescoulie: January 28, 1957 - June 21, 1957*

Al Collins: June 24, 1957 - July 26, 1957*

Jack Paar: July 29, 1957 - March 30, 1962

Various hosts: April 2, 1962 - September 28, 1962***

Johnny Carson: October 1, 1962 - May 22, 1992

Jay Leno: May 25, 1992 - May 29, 2009

Conan O'Brien: June 1, 2009 - January 22, 2010

Jay Leno: March 1, 2010 -

As of this writing I have no idea what will air from January 25th through the end of February because O'Brien officially left the network on the twenty-second of January. NBC may repeat episodes of O'Brien's program or air reruns of Leno's older shows until Leno makes his return in March. This makes Leno the first former host to return as the "new" host. I think NBC realizes their mistake of removing Leno from The Tonight Show in the first place.

*- Jack Lescoulie and later, Al Collins, hosted the program when it was a news program called Tonight! America After Dark.

**-Ernie Kovacs hosted the Monday and Tuesday episodes of the program during Steve Allen's final year as host. NBC had wanted Steve to focus more on his Sunday night program opposite Ed Sullivan's CBS program.

***-various celebrities hosted the program after Jack Paar left. Johnny Carson was still under contract with another network and couldn't become the host...and so fill-in hosts presided over the program until October 1, 1962 when Carson took over the show...and remained for 30 years.

Gene Rayburn, later of Match Game fame, was the announcer on Steve Allen's version of the program. Jack Paar used Hugh Downs as an announcer for his version of the program. Ed McMahon was Johnny Carson's announcer for the entire 30 year run. Edd Hall was Jay Leno's announcer from 1992-2004. Hall was replaced by John Melendez for the remainder of Leno's first stint as host. Andy Richter became the announcer for Conan O'Brien's stint as host.