With the passing of Buck Owen (RIP) there has been the obvious mentioning of his show, Hee Haw.
I can't think of any show more opposite of the Stooges, except "Mass for Shut-ins" (Don't laugh, it's for real http://www.sthugo.org/shutins.htm)
Do they still show Hee Haw? Did anyone besides my uncle ever watch it?
James
I suppose Hee-Haw is still being shown in syndication somewhere, probably in the South.
The show wasn't
that bad. I'm not much of a C & W fan, except for some of the real old-timers like Jimmie Rodgers (The Singing Brakeman) and Emmett Miller— still, Buck Owens and Roy Clark were really great musicians, in their field. Chet Atkins was another Country player who was a killer guitarist.
I enjoyed watching the show once in a while when I was a wee sprout, but you'd forget the whole thing five minutes later. "Hee-Haw" was corn
beyond corn, but it had some good moments at times. The show had a vaudevillian quality, in that if you didn't like what was happening, all you had to do was wait 30 seconds, and there'd be another act on.
Buck Owens lived for years in Bakersfield, California. Ever been there? It's smack in the middle of the state's agricultural area: totally flat country (no, not the music), and it's also brutally hot in central California from about April through October. The buildings all look they're made out of cardboard, spit, and string, and the biggest "landmark" in town is the John Deere tractor dealership... I'm amazed that there was a vital music scene going on in Bakersfield for decades, and whether you like C & W or not, there
was.R.I.P., Buck Owens.