`HEE HAW' SHUCKING THE OLD CORN

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 7, 1993                   TAG: 9304070360
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
`HEE HAW' SHUCKING THE OLD CORN
GOOFY it was from the get-go, and it wasn't one of your great entertainments. But it was an American institution. Whatever you think of cornball humor, it shouldn't go unnoticed that "Hee Haw" is being shucked.
The 60-minute program - good ol' boys' answer to "Laugh In," "Saturday Night Live" and other more sophisticated comedy-plus-music shows - is going out of production after 25 years.
It became over the years a butt as well as a producer of jokes, especially among those predisposed to scorn matters country-bumpkinish and Southern. ("President Carter is unavailable for comment right now - Hee Haw's on." What a knee-slapper!)
For those who appreciate country music - or any good music - the show's sounds were often superb. Its hayseed (some thought sexist) humor was certainly not to everybody's taste. But there was a kind of gentleness to it:
Guest stars popping up in cornfields to swap one-liners with host Roy Clark and other overalled regulars. Fetching farm-fed maidens in scanty crimolined skirts - delivering jokes with a Tennessee twang. And, of course, the show's symbol - the animated cartoon donkey.
Fans will miss this fare coming at 'em fresh and sassy each week. Rest assured, though: "Hee Haw" probably will live on in reruns until the cows come home.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB