DVD Review: The Hee Haw Collection

By Melissa Bratcher

It would be all too easy to be cynical about Hee Haw, if you were that sort of person. Corny jokes, country music, Buck Owens wearing his overalls backward (he said it was in silent protest of the cheesiness of the show, but he cashed the checks just the same), all the animated dancing pigs (so many animated dancing pigs, kicking in a chorus line through musical performances, sometimes wearing bikinis. The mind simply reels). But to be cynical about Hee Haw would cause you, the viewer, to miss out on a great TV show, indeed a capsule of a moment in time (or several moments, because Hee Haw aired for 21 years).

I’m not cynical about Hee Haw. It’s well documented at Popshifter that I deeply love Hee Haw. It’s transporting and nostalgic for me. As a child, I thought that Grandpa Jones was my real grandpa and that I was probably related to Junior Samples. If you’ve seen some of my relatives, it’s an understandable mistake.

Time Life has released a three-disc collection of five rarely seen episodes of Hee Haw, culled from the 1970s, save for episode 13, from 1969. These are golden days of Hee Haw, with some excellent musical performances from Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, Tammy Wynette, Donna Fargo, and Merle Haggard.

The surprising thing is how surreal the humor was sometimes, especially in the quick cuts of early episodes. The mod graphics in the opening credits are a clue—Hee Haw was created as a folksy answer to the popularity of Laugh In. The hosts wear suits like Rowan and Martin, though Buck Owens and Roy Clark accessorize with guitar and banjo. Roy Clark is hilarious, a natural born comedian with crackerjack timing. His barbershop scenes with Archie Campbell are often hilarious and feel improvised.

There are features that went the distance in Hee Haw. Archie Campbell and Gordie Tapp’s “Pfft You Were Gone” was a perpetual favorite, as was the cornucopia of sometimes dreadful jokes in the Cornfield (where cast members would pop up, two by two, tell a joke, and disappear back into the corn). Early on, the deadpan soap opera The Culhanes was a feature, with Grandpa Jones, Gordie Tapp, Junior Samples, and Lulu Roman sitting on a sofa, speaking lines in the most stone-faced manner they could, winding up in a ridiculous punchline.

They’re bizarre sketches, but perhaps not as bizarre as The Hee Haw Players, in which Junior Samples would be featured doing a Shakespearean soliloquy, often joined by Lulu Roman. The third disc of The Hee Haw Collection gathers half an hour of these comedy sketches together into a surprisingly hilarious show. Highlights include Archie Campbell’s rendition of the classic fairy tale “Rindercella,” Junior Samples being unable to say the word “trigonometry” and causing Roy Clark to be helpless with laughter, and a clever and odd meeting of Archie Campbell’s barber and Gordie Tapp’s insurance agent in the barbershop.

But the music is the point of Hee Haw. The guests included on The Hee Haw Collection are impressive: Loretta Lynn sings “I Wanna Be Free” with enormous charm and ease and then teams up with Conway Twitty for the flat-out wonderful “Pickin’ Wild Mountain Berries,” in which Twitty just lets it rip vocally. Donna Fargo is a treat, turning in “Funny Face” and “Superman,” where she sings to a sofa-lounging Stringbean Akeman and Junior Samples, holding down a chair. Merle Haggard (sporting some amazing hair) sings “Okie From Muskogee” whilst sitting at a piano, and stone-cold silver fox Charlie Rich sings a paean to faithfulness, “I Take It On Home.”

If the guest stars weren’t enough, the cast itself was full of incredible musicians. Grandpa Jones accompanies himself (and some dancing pigs) on banjo on a rousing “Make Me A Pallet,” but the finest, most charming moment is when he is joined by wife Ramona for “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean” played on cowbells, two of which are strapped to Grandpa’s boots. The result is a high-energy jig that is enormously fun. Roy Clark is a stellar musician, showing off his lightning-fast guitar playing on “Overdue Blues.” Clark slips in the a couple of ballads over the collection, including “Come Live With Me” (where he sports enormous sideburns) and the goofily staged “Yesterday When I Was Young,” which begins with a spoken word intro, though Clark’s lips don’t move as he moodily rests on his guitar. The song, though, is lovely.

Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, for this reviewer, steal the show. On the episode from 1969, Buck appears sans Buckaroos (save for musical partner, the amazing Don Rich) and instead is joined by back up dancers: Lulu Roman in an enormous foofy dress and the Hagers (the clean-cut hippie twin brothers who were a fixture on Hee Haw). It’s silly, but at least those kinks were hammered out early and the Buckaroos became a fixture. Rich’s glorious fiddle playing is a focus on “Uncle Pen” and a ripping version of “Rocky Top.” Their version of “Charlie Brown” is delightful fun. Don Rich’s vocals are louder than Buck’s on the track and that is perfectly fine.

The early episodes drag a bit in the back half, unfortunately slowed by Grandpa Jones’s storytelling. He’s a charmer, but the rambling stories stop the momentum of the show. Those segments are gone by the early 1970s, and Hee Haw is more streamlined (and a few minutes shorter). Bonus features include interviews with Lulu Roman, the Hagers, Roni Stoneman, music director Charlie McCoy and producer George Yanok.

The Hee Haw Collection will be released by Time Life on September 8.