Kimee made a great topic about current shows
Talking in a kahOOting room and thought to post this
1st show I will talk about is Hee Haw
Hee Haw was a television variety show, initially co-hosted by musicians Buck Owens and Roy Clark and featuring country music and humor with fictional, rural "Kornfield Kounty" as a backdrop. It was taped at WLAC-TV (now WTVF) and Opryland USA in Nashville . The show was produced by Yongestreet Productions through the mid-1980s; it was later produced by Gaylord Entertainment, which distributed the show in syndication. The show's name was derived from the sound a mule makes when it brays.
The show was inspired by Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, the major difference being that Hee Haw was far less topical, and was centered around country music. The show was equally well-known for its voluptuous, scantily-clad women in stereotypical farmer's daughter outfits, male stars Jim and Jon Hager and its cornpone humor. Hee Haw was a quintessentially American show; and its appeal was not limited to a rural audience. Indeed, it was widely watched in all large markets, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Other niche programs such as The Lawrence Welk Show (which targeted older audiences) and Soul Train (a black-oriented program) also rose to prominence in syndication during this era.
Like Laugh-In, the show minimized production costs by taping all of the recurring sketches for a season in batches - setting up for the Cornfield one day, the Joke Fence another, etc. At the height of its popularity, an entire year's worth of shows would be taped in two separate weeklong sessions.
Hee Haw started on CBS as a summer 1969 replacement for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Though the show had respectable ratings, it was dropped in July, 1971 by CBS as part of the so-called Rural Purge in 1971, along with fellow country shows The Beverly Hillbillies, Mayberry R.F.D. and Green Acres, owing to network executives' feeling that its viewers reflected the "wrong" demographics (e.g. rural, somewhat older, and less affluent). Undaunted, the producers put together a syndication deal for the show, which continued in roughly the same format for 20 more years (though Owens departed in 1986). In many markets, it competed in syndication (usually on early Saturday evenings) against The Lawrence Welk Show, which, for some of the same reasons, was also cancelled and resurrected in syndication in 1971. (In a few areas, Hee Haw and Welk were shown back-to-back.)
By 1991, a continued decline in its audience led to a dramatic change with more pop-oriented country music, in an ill-fated attempt to gain younger viewers. The new format (titled The Hee Haw Show, which had taken the cornfield out, and replaced it with a city street and a shopping mall) lasted a single season, during which the show alienated many of its longtime viewers. After its final 1992 season, the series went into its repeat cycle. A decision was then made to end production on the series in the summer of 1992 and then a decision was made to bring the show back in syndication in the fall of 1993 and it would be renamed Hee Haw Silver which featured Clark hosting a mixture of classic clips and new footage, which ran during the 1993-1994 season to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Hee-Haw's debut in 1969. These episodes spotlighted a lot of the classic moments from the performers who had since died, including Stringbean, Archie Campbell, Junior Samples, and Kenny Price.
After the show's syndication run ended, reruns aired on The Nashville Network from 1994 until 1997. Its 21 years in TV syndication was the record for a U.S. program, until Soul Train surpassed it in 1993. Subsequently, Entertainment Tonight surpassed it in 2003 and Wheel of Fortune surpassed it in 2005. In 2006, Jeopardy! surpassed it also, making Hee Haw currently the fifth-longest-running off-network American TV program.
On July 17, 2006, CMT announced that it would begin rerunning the series starting July 29, and reruns began in late September. The channel hosted a marathon of episodes on January 1, 2007 but the show has only aired sporadically since, with only three episodes airing from that time (March 13, July 7 and July 8) to the present. The show is no longer broadcast by CMT.
In April 2007, the "TV Land" network recognized the long-running series with an award presented by k.d. lang. In attendance were Roy Clark, Gunilla Hutton, Barbi Benton, the Hager twins, Linda Thompson, Misty Rowe and others.
On August 12, 2008, RFD-TV announced that "Hee Haw" would return to a regular weekly TV slot premiering on RFD-TV Sept. 7, 2008. "Hee Haw" episodes anchor RFD-TV's Sunday night lineup, at 8PM Eastern; episodes repeat Monday at 10AM Eastern. RFD-TV airs "Hee Haw" episodes in the same order they were originally televised.
Some highlight minutes:
"Where, oh where, are you tonight?
Why did you leave me here all alone?
I searched the world over, and I thought I'd found true love,
Then you met another, and PFFT! You was gone!"
KORN news A newsbreak-esque skit in which Charlie Fahrquarson (Don Harron) would deliver the somewhat local news in his own inimitable way. He called Oprah Winfrey "Opry Windbag." Harron would later resurrect the character on The Red Green Show.
Lulu's Truck Stop Lulu Roman owned this greasy spoon, where the food was usually pretty bad; Gailard Sartain was also in this skit as the chef.
Hee Haw Players Cast members take on some of the Shakespeare classics, with some unexpected twists.
Hee Haw Amateur Minute A showcase of some of the worst talent of all. A cast member would play some yokel who would have some kind of bad talent, which would almost always end up with the audience booing it; throwing vegetables and the hook operator yanking said act forcibly off the stage. After the skit, five animated cartoon animals (a duck, a sheep, a pig, a chicken and a goat) would appear onscreen booing, as well.
Mr. Sternwheeler Gordie Tapp in a spoof of author Mark Twain giving off some homilies which undoubtedly made little or no sense whatsoever. After these recitations, he would most often be hit over the head with a rubber chicken, or in later years be given a bomb or something that would eventually explode.
The Haystack A man (usually Buck Owens or one of the Hager Twins) and a woman (usually one of the Hee Haw Honeys ) talk about love issues while sitting at the haystack (the skits began with the top of the haystack which lowered down to reveal the couple).
Colonel Daddy's daughter Marianne Gordon was the pampered southern belle daughter of her Colonel Daddy (Gordie Tapp). She would sit on the swing at her plantation home, and would speak about the generosity of her Daddy. In later installments Tapp's character wouldn't be seen hardly at all but was always referenced to by his spoiled daughter.
The Moonshiners Shown most frequently, were one or two of the male cast (playing a couple of lethargic hillbillies) who would lazily tell a joke while dozing on the floor near a bunch of moonshine jugs (with some of the girls in the background).
School Scenes There were always school scenes during the show's run. At first, it was with Jennifer Bishop and Lulu Roman as the put-upon teachers, with most notably, Junior Samples and Roy Clark as the students. When Minnie Pearl joined the cast, they had a larger classroom scene with, at first, real children as the students, but would later return to the cast members playing children, with Minnie still as the teacher.
The Culhanes The adventures of the Culhane family, depicted as all they did was sit on a old-fashioned sofa in the parlor, which focused on Cousin Clem Culhane (Gordie Tapp); Cousin Junior Culhane (Junior Samples); Cousin Grandpa Culhane (Grandpa Jones); and Cousin Lulu Culhane (Lulu Roman) who would sit in deadpan character and comment, à la soap opera. After the death of Junior, his role was filled by cast-member Mike Snider in the role of Cousin Mike, of course.
Pickin' and Grinnin' with Owens (on guitar) and Clark (on banjo) and the entire cast. (Owens: "I'm a-Pickin!" Clark: "And I'm a-Grinnin'!"), with the duo (and sometimes a guest star sitting between Buck and Roy) 'dueling' by playing guitar and banjo, telling jokes and reciting one-liners. The sketch always ended with Roy's banjo solo, each time ending a different comical way. At first it was just Roy and Buck, and later on the entire cast joined in.
Samples Sales, in which used car salesman Junior Samples, with Misty Rowe as his later assistant, in his guise as a magician called Junior the Great, would try to palm off a major 'clunker' and then hold up a sign to remind viewers that his phone number was "BR-549". It was changed to "BR-1Z1Z", in the show's later seasons. (At that time, local phone calls in virtually all of the US required dialing seven-digit numbers.) (Hee Haw tapes were later sold using the "800" number 1-800-BR54949; also, the country music group BR5-49 adopted the number as the name of their band.)
"Gloom, Despair and Agony On Me", Another beloved sketch usually performed by four male cast members sitting around in hillbilly garb surrounded by moonshine jugs and looking overtly miserable. They song began with the chorus, which all of them sang with each one alternating (in lip-synch) a mournful howl after each of the first three lines. The chorus went:
"Gloom, despair and agony on me-e!
Deep dark depression, excessive misery-y!
If it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all!
Gloom, despair and agony on me-e-e!"
Each of the quartet would sing one line of the verse- a different one for each performance. (In later seasons the female cast got their own version of the song, first just lip-synching the male vocals, but later getting their own feminized version complete with female howls of mourning.)
The Gossip Girls, featuring various female members of the cast surrounding a washtub and clothes wringer singing:
"Now, we're not ones to go 'round spreadin' rumors,
Why, really we're just not the gossipy kind,
No, you'll never hear one of us repeating gossip,
So you'd better be sure and listen close the first time!"
The song featured a new verse every episode. In later years, the guys, in drag, would sometimes replace the girls in the skit, in return for the girls singing "Gloom, Despair..."
(In earlier seasons, the "Gossip Girls" and "Gloom, Despair.." sketches would both end with a repeat of the song's chorus, but in later years that practice was eliminated.)
"Hee Haw Salutes...". Two or three times in each episode, Hee Haw would salute a selected town (or a guest star's hometown) and announce its population, which was sometimes altered for levity, at which point the entire cast would then 'pop up' from the cornfield, shouting "SAA-LUTE!!" (sometimes after the salute, Archie Campbell would pronounce the saluted town spelled backwards. Example: "Remember, 'Franklin' spelled backwards is 'Nil-knarf'.")
The Fence, Two or three times during each show a cast member, standing in front of a high wooden fence, would tell a one liner joke. (Example: "I crossed an elephant with a gopher." Everybody in unison: "What'ja get?" "Some awfully big holes in the backyard.") Regardless of whether the joke teller was female or male, a portion of the fence would swing up and hit them on the rear end after the punch line was delivered.
Archie's Barber Shop, with Archie Campbell, regular customer Roy Clark, and two or three other regulars sitting in the "waiting chairs" (on lesser occasions Junior Samples would be the one going into the barber's chair). Campbell would share comic dialog with Clark (Campbell's legendary "That's Good, That's Bad" routine immediately comes to mind) or tell one of his "backwards fairy tales" such as "Rindercella".
Doc Campbell, This long-running skit featured Archie Campbell playing the part of a doctor who often gave out terrible advice and bizarre medical "facts". Patients would often be one of the show's cast-members. The skit is also remembered for cast-member Gunilla Hutton's role as the doctor's assistant, Nurse Good-Body. Sometimes the skits would feature only the doctor and his nurse...with Archie hollering "Nurse Goodbody! Nurse Goodbody! Get in HERE!" to which she'd come into the scene looking nervous.
Justice O'Peace. This recurring skit featured Archie Campbell as a judge who wore what looked to be a bowler hat, a red undershirt, and suspenders sentencing people to long jail time for some of the most silly misdemeanor "crimes". Years later Archie's son, Phil Campbell, as well as Gordie Tapp appeared in a recurring skit about two police officers..the skit's name escapes me at the moment.
Professor Campbell. This recurring segment featured Archie Campbell dressed in a graduate's gown telling viewers the meaning of words, with a comic twist...sometimes wads of paper would fly into the scene as a way of punishing the bad joke that was told.
Gordie's General Store. Gordie operating a general merchandise store. It was also a place where one of the cast would tell a comedic story. In later years the focus shifted from Kornfield Kounty residents stopping by to the comedic banter of Gordie and Gailord Sartain, who played the role of the incompetent Maynard, who often would send Gordie into fits of anger or agony by the skit's end.
Misty's Bedtime Stories. This skit featured bedtime stories delivered by Misty Rowe, one of the more popular cast-members. Grandpa Jones would be heard off-camera whispering "And now it's time for Misty's bedtime stories". A lighted candle would be sitting on the night stand beside her bed and after she was through delivering one of her bizarre stories, sometimes a re-written nursery rhyme, she'd giggle and blow out the candle...end of skit.
Empty Arms Hotel Roy Clark as the head desk clerk of one of the only accommodations in all of Kornfield Kounty, who would pop up from behind the front desk after the bell was rung.
Goober's Garage. George Lindsay was the star of this regular skit where he'd play his Andy Griffith role, often talking about cars and jalopies with whichever cast member that appeared in the skit that week. Sometimes non cast-member Jack Burns would appear in the skit as the city slicker/con-artist type trying to pull a fast one with Goober emerging more intelligent. For a period of time in the early 1980s cast-member Chase Randolph was in the skit and played a mechanic often being flirted with by a gang of women. The joke is that Chase was more interested in fixing up cars while Goober often offered to go out with the girl's instead...only for the women to ignore his requests and look disgusted.
"Hee-Haw's All-Jug Band" A musical segment, featuring most of the female cast members, singing a comical song, in which the punch line differed each week. Regular Lulu Roman "played" moonshine jugs (by which, she would blow air over the spout, creating a "humming sound"), which partially explains the segment's title (as well as the fact that "jugs" is a dysphemism for breasts). Minnie Pearl introduced the segment each week, loudly announcing, "We're gonna play now!"; at the end of the song, she would similarly conclude "We're through playin' now!"
"Hey Grandpa! What's for supper?" Grandpa Jones is cleaning a window pane (with no glass in it) and recites a dinner menu in poetic verse. Often, he would describe a delicious, country-style meal (e.g., chicken and biscuits smothered in rich gravy, and collard greens), and the audience would reply approvingly, "yum-m yum-m!"; although sometimes he would serve a less than spectacular meal (thawed out TV dinners), to which the cast would reply, "yuck!" One notable run-through of the routine had Grandpa saying "Ah ain't got nuthin!", which would be the only time he ever got booed during this routine.
JerryRalphRVBobBeavis. This is a skit that appeared mostly in the 1980s and it featured Gailord Sartain as the owner of a small store/flea market attempting to sell junk. The skit would start with a hand-held camera zooming up to the front door and the door being flung open to reveal the fast-talking salesman standing behind the counter surrounded by the junk he was trying to sell. The character was a clown...with red cheeks and wild clown hair...and the running joke was his attempts of becoming a big singing star and in every skit just as he was preparing to pull out a guitar and start to sing, the camera would zoom out and the door swing shut.
The Cornfield, patterned after Laugh-In's "Joke Wall," with cast members and guest stars 'popping up' to tell jokes and one-liners. Until his death, "Stringbean" played the field's 'scarecrow,' delivering one-liners before being shouted down by the 'crow' on his shoulder; after his 1973 murder, he was not replaced, and the 'scarecrow' simply was seen in the field as a memorial. On occasion, personalities from TV stations that carried Hee Haw would appear in this segment with Owens or Clark.
The Naggers, with Gordie Tapp and Roni Stoneman as LaVern and Ida Lee, a backwoods bickering couple, inspired in part by the radio comedy The Bickersons. Kenny Price made occasional appearances (starting in 1974) as their son Elrod; and Wendy Stults of the show's background singing group, The Nashville Edition, would sometimes play Ida Lee's equally nagging mother.
Kornfield Kounty Operator Service Irlene Mandrell as Kornfield Kounty's telephone operator (similar to Lily Tomlin's more famous character, Ernestine Tomlin) would answer phone calls from various Kornfield Kounty residents, who would eventually hang up in various degrees of frustration, causing the Operator to often say, innocently, "And they wonder why we telephone operators turn gray!"
Grinder's Switch Gazzette This skit featured Minnie Pearl as a newspaper worker who often insisted that her mute secretary, Miss Honeydew, take down an "important" news item which was always nonsense.
Hee Haw Honky Tonk When the Urban Cowboy craze was in full swing, Hee Haw had its honky tonk, where all the cast would throw out their one liners. The Honky Tonk was replete with its mechanical bull; and often showed Ida Lee Nagger (Roni Stoneman) chasing men with a net. This was patterned after the Party on Laugh-In.
Kurl Up and Dye This is a skit from its later years which featured several of the cast-members in a beauty parlor where they'd gossip..from time to time Gailord Sartain would appear in drag as one of the fussy women.
Slim Picken's Bar-B-Q Slim would have his friends over at a barbecue at his home, where a musical guest would perform. The segment would always open up spoofing Burma-Shave road signs as some of the Hee-Haw cast were seen piled on a truck driving down the road to Slim's Bar-B-Q whose guests often complained about the food to which Slim would counter with something like "i may not have prime meat at this picnic but I do have prime entertainment..." and then he'd bring out the entertainment.
The Little Yellow Chicken: A little yellow chicken who would always mistake anything and everything for an egg. The chicken would sit on items, such as a ringside bell; a man's bald head; a billiard ball; a football; a golf ball, and even a bomb, with various disastrous results. The little chicken was produced by Format Films.
Animated Critters: Interspersed within the show, besides the above mentioned chicken, were various applauding or laughing farm animals; a kickline composed of pigs; a pack of dogs that would chase an extremely bad joke teller; three sultry pigs that twirled their necklaces; a square dancing female pig and a male donkey; a pair of chickens dancing, with one of them falling on its face; the ubiquitous Hee Haw Donkey, who would say "Wouldn't that dunk your hat in the creek?" among other quips; and a pig (from the kickline) that would sneak up on a musical guest (or a cast member, mostly Roy Clark) and kiss him on the cheek among others. Sometimes, certain animals would carry appropriate signs with some kind of quip (ie: Hee Haw Donkey holding a sign that would say, "I'm looking for a "She-Haw!" or in later years, "Let us Bray!"; a pig from the kickline holding a sign which would say, "oink!" or "Please DON'T Bring Home the Bacon!"; or a cow coming into the scene and opening a sign that would say something like "Stop Beefing!" or "I married a Bum Steer"). The animation was produced by Format Films.
While the meat of the segments were comedy-based, there were several serious, music-based segments, including:
The Million Dollar Band: This was a jam-session segment, airing from 1980 through 1988, composed of the following all-star musicians: Chet Atkins, Boots Randolph, Roy Clark, Floyd Cramer, Charlie McCoy, Danny Davis, Jethro Burns, and Johnny Gimble.
A singer-songwriter segment, where one of the guest performers for the week would sing one of his popular hits. Then, he would introduce a song he/she wrote and was made popular by another artist.
The Hee Haw Gospel Quartet: Always featured near the show's end. Clark, Owens, Grandpa Jones and Kenny Price would sing a gospel hymn. Several of their performances were released as recordings.
At the end of the show hosts Clark and Owens, backed by the entire cast, sang the song:
"We loved the time we spent with you,
To share a song and a laugh or two,
May your pleasures be many, your troubles be few...
And ending with Owens and Clark saying "So long everybody! We'll see you next week on...HEE-HAW!!!" (The closing song would be replaced in the early 1980s)
The closing song was changed to this:
"So long we sure had a good time! So long, gee, the company was fine! Singin' and a dancin', Laughin' and a prancin', Adios, farewell, goodbye, good luck, so long...HEE HAW!!"
And after the closing credits, cast member Cathy Baker would say, "THAT'S all!
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