Hee Haw is an American television variety show featuring country music and humor with the fictional rural "Kornfield Kounty" as the backdrop. It aired from 1969 to 1993. Reruns of the series were broadcast on TNN from 1996 to 1997, on RFD-TV from September 2008 to April 2020, and aired on Circle. The Hee Haw reruns resumed in May 2024 on the RFD-TV / RuralTV network.
The show was inspired by Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, but centered on country music, rural rather than pop culture–inspired humor, and with far less topical material. Hosted by country music artists Buck Owens and Roy Clark for most of its run, the show was equally well known for its cornpone humor as for its voluptuous, scantily clad women (the "Hee Haw Honeys") in stereotypical farmer's daughter outfits.
Hee Haws appeal, however, was not limited to a rural audience. It was successful in all of the major markets, including network-based Los Angeles and New York City, as well as Boston and Chicago. Other niche programs such as The Lawrence Welk Show and Soul Train, which targeted older and black audiences, respectively, also rose to prominence in syndication during the era. Like Laugh-In, the show minimized production costs by taping all of the recurring sketches for a season in batches, setting up the cornfield set one day, the joke fence on another, etc. At its peak, a season's worth of shows were recorded over the course of two separate, week-long shoots, and then assembled in the editing suite. Only musical performances were taped with a live audience, while a laugh track was added to all other segments.
The series was taped for the CBS Television Network at its station affiliate WLAC-TV (now WTVF) in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, and later at Opryland USA in the city's Donelson area. 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, derived from a common English onomatopoeia used to describe a donkey's braying, was coined by show-business talent manager and producer Bernie Brillstein.
The series initially ended its run in June 1993, after 25 seasons. It was soon picked up by TNN for reruns.
Synopsis Hee Haw is set in Kornfield Kounty, a rural farming community in an unspecified state in the Southern United States. The show's sketches mostly center around visits to local businesses in the county and the offbeat characters who live and work there.
Recurring sketches and segments Some of the most popular sketches and segments on Hee Haw included: "PFFT! You Was Gone!" – A comedic duet featured on the premiere episode. In the first few seasons, the song was performed by Archie Campbell, with Gordie Tapp joining on the chorus. In later seasons, a guest star would join Campbell on the chorus, and the guest star's name would often be mentioned somewhere in the song's verse prior to the chorus. On episodes that featured more than one guest star, the sketch was repeated so that all the guest stars had an opportunity to participate. Rarely, a surprise guest star would appear who was not otherwise featured in the episode. The guest star often stood with his back to the camera while holding a pitchfork, while Campbell sang the verse while holding a scythe. At the end of the verse, Campbell would nudge the guest star with his elbow and the guest star would spin around to the camera to join on the chorus:
The "PFFT" would be done as "blowing a raspberry"; the one who got spat upon during the "PFFT" changed for each show. Following Campbell's death, whole groups and even women would be part of the chorus, with George Lindsey often singing the verse. Occasionally, Roni Stoneman (in her role of Ida Lee Nagger) would sometimes sing the verse. The song was written by Lee Roberts and recorded in 1952 by country singer Bob Newman.
KORN News – Don Harron as KORN radio announcer Charlie Farquharson would spoof the delivery of local news. In later seasons, KORN became KORV. Harron had been performing the character since 1952 on Canadian television, and continued playing Farquharson in many other media venues before, during, and after Hee Haw. The Moonshiners – Two of the male cast members, playing lethargic hillbillies, lazily told a joke while dozing on the floor near a bunch of moonshine jugs and Beauregard the Wonder Dog, with three or four of the Hee Haw Honeys reclining in the background. Pickin' and Grinnin – Musical interludes with Owens (on guitar) and Clark (on banjo) and the entire cast (Owens: "Well, I'm a-pickin'!"; Clark: "And IIIII'm a-grinnin'!"), with the duo (and sometimes a major guest star—such as Johnny Cash—sitting between Owens and Clark) "dueling" by playing guitar and banjo the instrumental to "Cripple Creek", telling jokes and reciting one-liners. The sketch always ended with Clark's banjo solo, each time ending a different comical way. For the first two the sketch featured only Clark and Owens, and in later seasons the entire cast participated. When the entire cast began participating, the sketch was introduced by the show's emcee Cathy Baker. This sketch at first would always open the second half of the show before alternating with the "Hee Haw Honky Tonk" sketch in the later seasons. Samples Used Car Sales – Junior Samples, as a used car salesman, would try to palm off a major "clunker" in a parody TV commercial, ending each sketch reminding viewers of the phone number- BR-549. "Gloom, Despair, and Agony On Me" – Another popular sketch, it was usually performed by four male cast members (originally—and usually—Roy Clark; Gordie Tapp; Grandpa Jones and Archie Campbell) sitting around in hillbilly garb surrounded by moonshine jugs and looking overtly miserable. The 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:
The quartet began by singing the chorus together, followed by each quartet member reciting some humorous reason for his misery in spoken form, then (in the first several seasons) the quartet reprised the chorus and end with all four sobbing in typical overstated manner.
The Gossip Girls – This sketch is the female counterpart to "Gloom, Despair...", which featured four female cast members surrounding a washtub and clothes wringer singing the chorus:
Two of the four girls then sang the verse. Misty Rowe, a long-time member of the "Gossip Girls", enhanced the comedy of the sketch by singing her part of the verse out of tune (as a young child would do). In later years, male cast members, in drag, sometimes replaced the girls in the sketch, in retaliation for the girls singing "Gloom, Despair..." Sometimes, in later seasons, the four female cast members sang the song on the cornfield set, with a male guest star standing in the center, between the four girls.
"Hee Haw Salutes ..." – Two or three times in each episode, Hee Haw saluted 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" in the cornfield set, shouting "SAA-LUTE!!" Initially ending with laughter, this was changed by the mid-1970s to applause as a nod toward legitimately saluting small-town America. Also in the early 1980s, John Henry Faulk saluted a figure in American history, which received the same appropriate nodding applause. In the later seasons, the cast said "Salute" on the Pickin' and Grinnin' set.
Cast Rural-style comedians Gordie Tapp and Don Harron gained their first major U.S. exposure on Hee Haw.
Other cast members over the years included: Roy Acuff, Cathy Baker, Willie Ackerman, Billy Jim Baker, Barbi Benton, Kelly Billingsley, Vicki Bird, Jennifer Bishop, Archie Campbell, Phil Campbell, Harry Cole (Weeping Willie), Mackenzie Colt, John Henry Faulk, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Diana Goodman, Marianne Gordon (Rogers), Jim and Jon Hager, Victoria Hallman, Little Jimmy Henley, Gunilla Hutton, Linda Johnson, Grandpa Jones, Zella Lehr (the "unicycle girl"), George Lindsey (reprising his "Goober" character from The Andy Griffith Show), Little Jimmy Dickens, Irlene Mandrell, Charlie McCoy, Dawn McKinley, Patricia McKinnon, Sherry Miles, Rev. Grady Nutt, Minnie Pearl, Claude "Jackie" Phelps, Slim Pickens, Kenny Price, Anne Randall, Chase Randolph, Susan Raye, Jimmie Riddle, Jeannine Riley, Alice Ripley, Lulu Roman, Misty Rowe, Junior Samples, Ray Sanders, Terry Sanders, Gailard Sartain, Diana Scott, Shotgun Red, Gerald Smith (the "Georgia Quacker"), Jeff Smith, Mike Snider, Donna Stokes, Dennis Stone, Roni Stoneman, Mary Taylor, Nancy Taylor, Linda Thompson, Lisa Todd, Pedro Tomas, Nancy Traylor, Buck Trent, Jackie Waddell, Pat Woodell, and Jonathan Winters, among many others.
The Buckaroos (Buck Owens' band) initially served as the house band on the show and consisted of members Don Rich, Jim Shaw, Jerry Brightman, Jerry Wiggins, Rick Taylor, Doyle Singer (Doyle Curtsinger), Don Lee, Ronnie Jackson, Terry Christoffersen, Doyle Holly, Jana Jae, and Victoria Hallman, who replaced Don Rich on harmony vocals. In later seasons, the show hired Nashville musicians to serve as the show's house band. George Richey was the first music director. When he left to marry Tammy Wynette, harmonica player Charlie McCoy, already a member of the band when he was not playing on recording sessions, became the show's music director, forming the Hee Haw Band, which became the house band for the remainder of the series' run. The Nashville Edition, a singing quartet consisting of two males and two females, served as the background singers for most of the musical performances, along with performing songs on their own.
Guest stars Hee Haw featured at least two, and sometimes three or four, guest celebrities each week. While most of the guest stars were country music artists, a wide range of other famous luminaries were featured from actors and actresses to sports stars to politicians.
Sheb Wooley, one of the original cast members, wrote the show's theme song. After filming the initial 13 episodes, other professional demands caused him to leave the show, but he returned from time to time as a guest star.
Loretta Lynn was the first guest star of Hee Haw and made more guest appearances (24) than any other artist. She also co-hosted the show more than any other guest co-host and therefore appears on more of the DVD releases for retail sale than any other guest star. Tammy Wynette was second with 21 guest appearances, and Wynette married George Richey (the musical director for Hee Haw from 1970 to 1977) in 1978.
From 1990 to 1992, country megastar Garth Brooks appeared on the show four times. In 1992, producer Sam Lovullo tried unsuccessfully to contact Brooks because he wanted him for the final show. Brooks then surprised Lovullo by showing up at the last minute, ready to don his overalls and perform for the final episode.
Elvis connection