Flashback Friday A Day Early

On this day way back in the year of 1969, one of my all-time favorite TV shows made its debut – Hee Haw. It started on this day long, long ago in the year 1969 on CBS as a replacement for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour”. It was among the top twenty show for the next two years, but in the summer of 1971 it was dropped, as were two other of my all-time favorite shows, “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “Green Acres.” Apparently, the networks didn’t want the rural shows anymore and wanted shows that were more citified. Whatever. The producers knew that they had something special in “Hee Haw” so they pitched the show to other markets and it was picked up for syndication, and remained on the air for over twenty more years until it finally ended it’s very impressive run in 1993. Take that, CBS.



"Hee Haw” was a standard here at The Compound on Saturday nights. We’d first watch “The Lawrence Welk Show” and then switch the channels to our beloved “Hee Haw”. My favorite parts of the show were always the “Pickin’ and Grinnin” segment and the guest stars. The First Lady of Country Music, Miss Tammy Wynette made quite a few appearances on “Hee Haw”, as did another favorite of mine, Barbara Mandrell.  As for the regulars on the show, Grandpa Jones and Minnie Pearl were my favorites.  I loved it when Grandpa and his wife Ramona would play a song.  Ramona would play the guitar or autoharp while Grandpa would either play the banjo or play the bells; the bells were a special treat, because he would have a bell on each foot that he would shake.

If you’re lucky enough to get the RFD channel on your cable or satellite dish, you can watch reruns of “Hee Haw” every Sunday night.