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Hee Haw
1969 · TV series · 60 min episodes · 23 seasons
Created by Frank Peppiatt, John Aylesworth
Hee Haw was an American variety show featuring a mixture of country music and comedy skits. Co-hosted by Buck Owens and Roy Clark for most of the series, the show also guested well-established country music stars including Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton. Originally airing on CBS from 1969 to 1971, the show ran for over 20 years in syndication until 1993.
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3 comments on Hacker News
I remember those, and the 'Rural Revolution' that preceded it. Lots of shows in the 1960s like The Real McCoys, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, Andy Griffith, Gomer Pyle, Lassie, and Hee Haw, until the 'Rural Purge' of the early 1970s.
Then in the mid-late 1970s came those shows and movies you mention, less comedy and more drama, more a sort of glorified frontier days theme. I think some of that might've come out of the 1960s hippie/naturalist trend, although it's a bit different.
I watched them all in the 80s, in syndication on the local channels, and my parents' VHS tapes had a lot (all recorded from TV). But in retrospect there were at least two related but different trends there.
They were idealized versions of Americana...
Idealized by city folk, maybe. As one who grew up in a rural area, when I watched the shows it was more "let's make fun of the simple country folk and their strange ways". There was no idealization, most of it were television shows that looked to be written by city people that have never been past their city's beltway, who imagine what country life might be like. Poster children include Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies.
I do miss Hee Haw, though. R. I. P., Messrs. Owen and Clark.
I think it's an illusion. If you look at culture today, there are a bunch of influences from the 80s. (For example, Taylor Swift's latest album is titled '1989' and has an 80s-influenced feel to many of the songs.) In the 80s, there was a bunch of 50s influence. Billy Joel had released "Uptown Girl" and the rest of an album of almost doo-wop pop hits. Grease was a hit movie in 1978, just a few years earlier. You could still catch shows like Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and Hee-Haw on TV. So I think it's just a matter of what you remember. I watched and listened to all that stuff and the 50s still seemed like ancient history to me. (My parents were barely teenagers in the 50s!)