Ray Stevens on Hee Haw: 1987

Hello one and all!! I had something of a surprise recently...I was clicking through the channels, well, actually I was looking on my television's program guide (an on-screen version of a TV schedule) and I was reading the special guests of a 1980's episode of Hee Haw on Circle TV. I turned to the channel and I caught the final minutes of an episode that featured Ray Stevens as a guest co-host!! The episode had aired on Circle TV at 8pm Eastern on Friday night. The problem is, the on-screen program guide, didn't list Ray as a guest for that episode of the show. They actually had an entirely different episode's guest list provided in their episode description. Well, I looked ahead on the schedule and seen that this 8pm episode would re-air at 11pm. I set my DVR and recorded the episode...and watched it at the same time...and enjoyed the entire episode. 

The episode was recorded in the fall 1986 taping sessions but it aired on March 28, 1987 as the final episode of the 1986-1987 season. When Roy Clark began having a different guest co-host each week it presented a major change in the show's long-time traditional opening sing-a-long. Buck Owens had left the show following the 1985-1986 season and so when Hee Haw resumed production in the summer of 1986 the producers began a guest co-host policy. The show would have it's usual opening where the announcer would welcome the viewers to the show, name it's hosts, and then do a run down of the cast members. Afterward, Roy Clark would interact with the guest co-host and that would lead into the guest co-host's first song of the episode. The guest co-host would sing a second song during the second half hour of the show. As I've written before, Ray Stevens appeared a lot of times on the show during this mid to late 1980s time period. He was most often serving as a guest co-host but there are other episodes where he's just a guest. The show's second half of the season always taped in the late summer/early fall...and when Ray taped his appearances in the fall of 1986 he sang a couple of songs from his then current album, Surely You Joust. In the screen cap Ray is singing "Smoky Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat". 

I took a few screen caps of him performing that song...including an image of him twirling his hand around as he sang about fictional wife, Doris, and her inspired tap dance and Lash LaRue impression. Ray's hand was twirling so much during that portion of the song that it looks like a blur in the screen cap. You'll see that blurred hand in the collage I'll be posting at the bottom of the blog entry. In the screen cap off to the right he's at the piano during his second song of the episode. Ray's wardrobe consists of a yellow jacket, blue shirt, red tie, red pants, and yellow shoes. You'll note that he wore red pants and yellow shoes when he dressed up as Humpty Dumpty on his 1987 Crackin' Up album. It indicates that Ray was possibly photographing possible covers for that album around the time of this 1986 taping. Ray appeared in several cornfield segments and midway through the episode along came the Pickin' and Grinnin' segment. This segment, like most of the sketches, had been part of the show since it's June 15, 1969 debut. The guest co-host would trade jokes with Roy Clark...usually comical insults. The segment's title had multiple meanings. First off is the idea of the two hosts picking their music instruments (guitar and banjo) and grinning as they play...the other meaning is a reference at how the two would pick at each other in a grinning, joking manner with one-liners.

As you can see in the photo...Ray is playing a guitar and he's changed his wardrobe to a red shirt and blue jeans. I'm sure it was the producer's idea...I don't know if they would've wanted to see Ray in red pants and yellow shoes and seated there next to Roy Clark. The routine was part of the show from the beginning but at some point in the early '70s the cast-members began to take part in the routine as well. Cast members Irlene Mandrell and Linda Thompson can be seen in the background. I don't like taking screen caps that include a lot of people because you can never zero in one what you're wanting to capture without having others being cut out of the photo or in this case seeing the bottom half of people. I have some other photo's of Ray Stevens and Roy Clark from this episode but this is the only one that I captured featuring a far shot...the other screen caps are close-up. The second song that Ray sings on this episode is "Can He Love You Half as Much as I?" and I posted a screen cap of Ray earlier seated at the piano. In that performance he makes a lot of comical faces. I have seen Ray perform this song on Hee Haw before, as a kid, and so this must be the second time he performed it...but then again he may have performed it on some of the episodes he appeared on during the upcoming 1987-1988 season. The song would go on to appear on a second volume of greatest hits that hit in the latter half of 1987 so it's possible he sang the song on a later episode. Now, having said that, Ray had previously appeared as a guest co-host several weeks earlier, too. He guest co-hosted the March 7, 1987 episode. The footage from that episode also originated in the fall of 1986...so he could have performed "Can He Love You Half as Much as I?" on that episode, too, but then that wouldn't have made any sense to have a performance of the same song on two closely aired episodes. To add to the confusion Ray would appear on the September 26, 1987 episode...but on this appearance he was just a guest instead of a guest co-host. The guest co-host on that episode was none other than Ralph Emery. The footage from that episode originated in the summer of 1987. I'll try and find out on which episodes of Hee Haw Ray sang "Can He Love You Half as Much as I?"...because I know he sang it on more than one episode. 

Meanwhile, the other guests on this episode were Steve Wariner, he sang "Lynda" and "Life's Highway"; Lyle Lovett was another guest and he sang "Cowboy Man" and "Farther Down the Line". Loretta Lynn appeared in the episode and sang "Red, White, and Blue", a song she'd written in the mid '70s for her album, When the Tingle Becomes a Chill. The song, which I'd never heard before, had actually been a Top-20 hit for her in 1976. This episode also featured a segment with The Million Dollar Band (Roy Clark, Chet Atkins, Floyd Cramer, Boots Randolph, Danny Davis, Jethro Burns, Johnny Gimble, and Charlie McCoy). The group performed "Jambalaya". In the collage below I included the screen cap of Ray with the blurry arm during his performance of "Smoky Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat" along with another screen cap of Ray and Roy.