Hee Haw

This show lasted nearly a quarter century, but even that hardly seems enough. I'm not that big a fan of the stuff that currently passes for country music, but I love the older stuff. Many of country music's biggest legends guest starred on this show, and several others were regulars at one point or another. This was the last of the successful variety shows on tv and by far the most successful country music show on television. It's doubtful that we'll ever see anything like it again. It's a shame that this show is currently off the air- I don't think you can even catch reruns nowadays. Hopefully, Hee Haw (or at least the early seasons) will eventually become available on DVD. I certainly hope so.

First, I haven't seen any Hee Haw in years but I remember watching it every Saturday morning whether in color or black and white as a child in New Jersey. Not exactly, Hee Haw country is it. Well, I liked the show and watched it whenever it was on. Of course, the writing wasn't great but I loved watching Minnie Pearl and gained my first taste of country music. This was all before modern country music which sounds more like pop music of the 1980s. Anyway, Hee Haw appeared to have a family type show where the jokes were silly and stupid but there was always room for one more. The cast was always large and I even miss their stupid humor to this day. I remember Lulu and some of the stupid skits that even SNL would toss out. In real life, the cast and crew were like family and the show was like a reunion for all of them. Sadly, the show's cancellation was an end of an era in television history.

I NEVER liked country music.

But I COULDN'T miss this show.

Laugh-in was the 60's hippie version and Sha Na Na was the 50's greaser version. Now we have you goober/redneck version of sketch comedy. And they looked like the were having a blast.

Lots of music of course and stereotypes everywhere. But you could always see the wink at the fans.

Buck Owens (RIP) and Roy Clark were great hosts. Roy was not only a great "picker" but a swell guy as well. You had to like him.

Every country-boy scenario got a run through the joke factory. Laughs a plenty.

APPEARING as a guest on the TONIGHT SHOW about 30 or so years ago was then Critic of TV GUIDE, the late Cleveland Emory. Sitting in as substitute was guest host and former (and original) Emcee, Steve Allen. Other than the expected business of asking the very outspoken Mr. Amory about his likes and dislikes of the current video medium offerings, the discussion turned toward creativity. Without hesitation, Cleveland Amory named his three top creative men in television; one being the multi-faceted talent of Steve, with the second being Dave Garroway. The trio was rounded out by the fast living, cigar chomping former Disc Jockey and manic comedy producer, Mr. Ernie Kovacs.

ASSEMBLING one's honor roll consisting of these three should come as no surprise; as they surely rose above the crowd in those early TV days, having few near competitors to enumerate. (Although, excuse me, 'Cleve'; but I would add Soupy Sales to the roster. Honest, Schultz!) All had some peculiarity of their own; placing their own inimitable brands on the volumes of works left behind. Each has also left his own indelible print on their own genres and hence has been inspiration and true role models to those who followed.

MR. GARROWAY brought sincerity and a natural, one to one conversational style to his Emcee & Starring positions on GARROWAY AT LARGE as well as his long run as the first host of NBC's TODAY SHOW. Steve Allen's energy and off-the-wall, usually non-sequitor comic style has been an obvious inspiration to many an upstart funny man; with David Letterman's great following and longevity coming immediately to mind.

THE third member of this artistic triumvirate, Ernie Kovacs, with the shortest life of all and the often most outlandish and truly "deep", meaningful routines, perhaps had the most long-lasting affect on posterity.

SIMPLY stated as the reason we go through this rather intricate opening simply because of Mr. Ernie Kovacs. He was the first one to make use of video tape (circa 1958) in much the same way that Mack Sennett, Hal Roach and other silent film producers used film. Any examination of Kovacs' the sketches in his specials or the 'clues' in his Comedy-Game Show, TAKE A GOOD LOOK, will render this point very obvious.

LONG about 1968, following closely on the success of THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR (CBS), NBC brought us ROWAN & MARTIN'S LAUGH-IN; which combined a lot of contemporary music, quick one liners, non-sequitor sketches with the OP-Art/Pop-Art sets, Carnaby Street Fashion and full-blooded, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass-type music.

EARLY on, both Dan Rowan & (the lovely) Dick Martin admitted their debt to Ernie and even reprised the famous sight-gag sketch that combines the girl taking the bubble bath with the old multitude of Circus Clown emerging from the little car gag.

IMITATION being the sincerest form of flattery, an old adage which holds up even more so in Hollywood and in Show Business generally, the idea came along to writer Frank Peppiatt to do a sort of LAUGH-IN knock off; albeit one with a decidedly rural, Southern, "Good-Old-Boy " setting, Veteran performers from the Country & Western Circuits would be culled and pressed into service to amuse and entertain a TV audience composed of many a new found fan; to whom the "Hillbilly Music" and Kountry Korn humor was new.

USING the name recognition and talents of the great C & W Singer, Buck Owens as Master of Ceremonies, HEE HAW stocked its Orchestra with local, "home grown" veteran Nashville Musicians from Grand Ole Opry service. Added to this we had generous servings of Country Humor; as provided by many a master Country stage comedian.

HEE-HAW's role of honor read like a Who's Who of Nashville, and all long before we heard of any CMA (That's Country Music Association and its CMA Awards. Got it, Schultz?) Either as regular cast members or as guest Stars, the Show boasted of names like: Emcee Buck Owens, Junior Samples, Minnie Pearl, Loretta Lynn, Roy Clark, David 'Stringbean'Akeman, Jeannie C. Riley, Tammy Wynette, Grandpa Jones, Dennis Weaver, Roy Acuff, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Larry Gatlin, Barbara Mandrell, Reba McIntire, George Jones, Charley Pride, George "Goober" Lindsey, Waylon Jennings, Roy Rogers & Dale Evans, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Merle Haggard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sheb Wooley, Dolly Parton, Patti Page, the Sons of the Pioneers, the Oak Ridge Boys, etc., etc. Well, you get the picture.

FREE WHEELING fun was the order of the day for a typical HEE HAW. There was great music served up by the Original Artists. Always there was a plentiful supply of quick, rapid fire, one liners. And, although there was a lot of innuendo and sexual titillation involved with a lot of well endowed ladies decked out in wardrobe like Lil Abner's girlfriend, Daisy May, they always managed to balance things out in the end.

YOU see, they would always have a Gospel Song or an American Standard Spiritual included; being presented in a most serious and solemn a moment, a real departure from the rest of the proceedings. This was their way of providing content containing the "Sociably redeeming content".

WELL, overalls, hay bales, corn fields and barnyards not withstanding; they sure must have been doing something right! After all, this weekly dose of hour-long Kountry Korn far out-lasted most any and all series on TV; being on the tube, network and in syndication, from 1969-93! POODLE SCHNITZ!!

This was the most corniest of all the variety shows of its day and it still holds that title. First off,the series premiered on CBS-TV in the fall of 1969,became the onslaught of the network's all out crusade of eliminating its rural programming in 1971(and this show caught the full frontal blow of cancellation),and then all of a sudden the show was saved from certain ruins,and found a new home---in syndication where it remained for an astounding 22 years before called it quits for good in the spring of 1993. The reruns of this series was showed recently on the TNN(The Nashville Network)before the logo changed two years after it was cancelled.

But was makes "Hee Haw" a classic in the history of television? Well,first off, I remember this show being on every Saturday night at 7:00 since during that time you had a choice between either this show or a combination of other shows in that same time slot back in the day; 1.) You had Lawrence Welk for the older crowd and those folks who were on Geritol; 2.) Dionne Warwick or Marilyn McCoo for Solid Gold; 3.)Charles Nelson Reilly or Danny Terrio for Dance Fever; 4.)Ed McMahon on Star Search.

Secondly,this show had some country humor,and I do mean country humor that was so corny you can tell that is was just that--straight up the chaser hillbilly dialogue of Southern culture. Also,it's cast was corny too including hosts Buck Owens and Roy Clark and regulars Archie Campbell,George Lindsey(could you believe the producers cast him as Goober here),Minnie Pearl,Grandpa Jones,and that dingy blonde girl who comes up at the end of the segments(She reminds of Chrissy Snow on the farm)and not to mention the Hee Haw Honeys(which was a spin off of this series which sucked badly after 7 episodes in which one of the stars was a unknown Kathie Lee Gifford?). Third,some of it was funny,and some of it was horribly awful,and you can tell that whoever wrote the scripts were straight up hillbillies who had no clue to what a variety show goes through.

The music I say was very good and it set the standard to what country music supposed to be including some that made regular appearances on the show including Conway Twitty,George Jones,Waylon Jennings,Merle Haggard,Dolly Parton,Eddie Rabbitt,Tanya Tucker,Loretta Lynn,and so much more. It was also not only to include country artists,buy also the first country series to featured acts done by other minorities like The Pointer Sisters,and sometimes others like Charlie Pride,and Neal McCoy(the first Native American to perform on the show),not to mention musical works by Buck Owens and the Buckaroos,Roy Clark,and Grandpa Jones. You have some very well known guest stars that appear on the show as well including one Christmas episode where Gunsmoke's Amanda Blake lends her voice to some Christmas tunes as well as Beverly Hillbillies' own Donna Douglas and Gomer Pyle's Jim Nabors. In all a great variety series that had country music at its very best.