John Aylesworth
Encyclopedia
John Bansley Aylesworth was a Canadian television writer, producer and actor, best known as co-creator of the American country music television variety show Hee Haw
, which appeared on network television for two years and then ran for decades in first-run syndication.
, Ontario
, Canada
, and performed on radio as a child. He left high school before graduating and went into the advertising business as a writer, working together with Frank Peppiatt. His wife recalled that they "were total cutups at the agency" and were approached by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
based on their reputation to write sketches for the late night variety program After Hours
. They also wrote and performed on the CBC programs The Big Revue
and On Stage and Aylesworth created Front Page Challenge
, a current events and history game show that ran on CBC Television
from 1957 to 1995.
.
They had worked together on The Jimmy Dean Show
and wondered why a show hosted by a Country music star didn't feature the Country music more prominently. Aylesworth's 2010 book The Corn Was Green: The Inside Story of Hee Haw published by McFarland & Company
told how he and Peppiatt came up with the idea for Hee Haw after seeing "country banter" between Charley Weaver and Jonathan Winters
on The Jonathan Winters Show, and seeing that the shows atop the Nielson ratings included The Andy Griffith Show
, The Beverly Hillbillies
, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
, Green Acres
and Petticoat Junction
, along with Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
and the duo conceived immediately of the format of Country variety. Originally a summer replacement for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
, Hee Haw was an immediate ratings winner throughout that first summer and was permanently added to the CBS schedule in December 1969. Co-hosted by Roy Clark
and Buck Owens
, the hour-long program featured regulars Archie Campbell
, Grandpa Jones
, Minnie Pearl
, Junior Samples
, Lulu Roman
and Gordie Tapp
.
Ron Simon curator of television and radio at New York's Paley Center for Media described their collaboration at Hee Haw as "an interesting hybrid of two of the most popular programs of the '60s, The Beverly Hillbillies and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, and ironically outlasted both of them. The show featured a sequence of brief sketches of cornball humor, combined with performances by top acts in bluegrass
, country and western
and gospel music
. The show lasted for two seasons, starting in 1969 on CBS in prime time and lasted on network television until 1971 when CBS axed all of its country-oriented programming. The show then ran in syndication for another 22 years, making it one of the longest-running programs in television history with 585 episodes. Simon noted that Hee Haw featured performances by "Merle Haggard
, Johnny Cash
and Conway Twitty
preserved in their prime".
, The Judy Garland Show
, Kraft Music Hall
and Your Hit Parade
, receiving Emmy Award
nominations for The Julie Andrews Hour
in 1973 and in 1976 for The Sonny and Cher Show.
They sold the show in 1982 for $15 million. Aylesworth worked on a stage musical based on the life of Jimmy Durante
. He repeatedly tried to find work as a television writer, but couldn't find any work. He gave up looking in the 1980s and filed a class action lawsuit against agents and the television studios claiming age discrimination.
in Rancho Mirage, California
, due to complications of pneumonia
as a complication of pulmonary fibrosis
. He was survived by his fourth wife, Anita Rufus, as well as by a daughter Linda and son Robert from his first marriage and a daughter Cynthia and two sons John and Bill Aylesworth from his second wife, along with one grandson. Another son Thomas died in 2003.
Hee Haw
Hee Haw is an American television variety show featuring country music and humor with fictional rural Kornfield Kounty as a backdrop. It aired on CBS-TV from 1969–1971 before a 20-year run in local syndication. The show was inspired by Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, the major difference being...
, which appeared on network television for two years and then ran for decades in first-run syndication.
Early career at CBC
Aylesworth was born on August 18, 1928, in TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and performed on radio as a child. He left high school before graduating and went into the advertising business as a writer, working together with Frank Peppiatt. His wife recalled that they "were total cutups at the agency" and were approached by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
based on their reputation to write sketches for the late night variety program After Hours
After Hours (Canadian TV series)
After Hours was a Canadian variety television series which aired on CBC Television in 1953.The series was an early career effort by John Aylesworth and Frank Peppiatt who later produced Hee Haw.-Premise:...
. They also wrote and performed on the CBC programs The Big Revue
The Big Revue
The Big Revue was a Canadian variety television show. It was the first ever production of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's television network when both debuted in 1952. The show was directed by Norman Jewison and written by John Aylesworth and Frank Peppiatt...
and On Stage and Aylesworth created Front Page Challenge
Front Page Challenge
Front Page Challenge was a long-running Canadian panel game about current events and history. Created by comedy writer/performer John Aylesworth and produced and aired by CBC Television, the series ran from 1957 to 1995.-Synopsis:The series featured notable journalists attempting to guess the...
, a current events and history game show that ran on CBC Television
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
from 1957 to 1995.
Hee Haw
Aylesworth and Peppiatt relocated to the United States in 1958 and got work writing for The Andy Williams ShowThe Andy Williams Show
The Andy Williams Show is a television variety show which ran from 1959 to 1971 , and a short-lived run in syndication, beginning in the fall of 1976...
.
They had worked together on The Jimmy Dean Show
The Jimmy Dean Show
The Jimmy Dean Show is the name of several similar music and variety series on American local and network television between 1957–75. Each starred country music singer Jimmy Dean as host.-Daytime:...
and wondered why a show hosted by a Country music star didn't feature the Country music more prominently. Aylesworth's 2010 book The Corn Was Green: The Inside Story of Hee Haw published by McFarland & Company
McFarland & Company
McFarland & Company, Inc. is a book publisher of primarily academic and adult nonfiction based in Jefferson, North Carolina. Its president and editor-in-chief is Robert Franklin, who began the enterprise in 1979...
told how he and Peppiatt came up with the idea for Hee Haw after seeing "country banter" between Charley Weaver and Jonathan Winters
Jonathan Winters
-Early life:Winters was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, the son of Alice Kilgore , a radio personality, and Jonathan Harshman Winters II, an investment broker. He is a descendant of Valentine Winters, founder of the Winters National Bank in Dayton, Ohio...
on The Jonathan Winters Show, and seeing that the shows atop the Nielson ratings included The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...
, The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for nine seasons on CBS from 1962 to 1971, starring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer, Jr....
, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.The show renders the title as Gomer Pyle - USMC. is an American situation comedy that originally aired on CBS from September 25, 1964, to May 2, 1969. The series was a spinoff of The Andy Griffith Show, and the pilot was aired as the finale of the fourth season of The Andy...
, Green Acres
Green Acres
Green Acres is an American television series starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a country farm...
and Petticoat Junction
Petticoat Junction
Petticoat Junction is an American situation comedy produced by Filmways which originally aired on CBS from 1963 to 1970. The series is one of three interrelated shows about rural characters created by Paul Henning; the others are The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres.The setting for the series...
, along with Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In is an American sketch comedy television program which ran for 140 episodes from January 22, 1968, to May 14, 1973. It was hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin and was broadcast over NBC...
and the duo conceived immediately of the format of Country variety. Originally a summer replacement for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour is an American comedy and variety show hosted by the Smothers Brothers and initially airing on CBS from 1967 to 1969.-History:...
, Hee Haw was an immediate ratings winner throughout that first summer and was permanently added to the CBS schedule in December 1969. Co-hosted by Roy Clark
Roy Clark
Roy Linwood Clark is an American country music musician and performer. He is best known for hosting Hee Haw, a nationally televised country variety show, from 1969–1992. Clark has been an important and influential figure in country music, both as a performer and helping to popularize the genre...
and Buck Owens
Buck Owens
Alvis Edgar Owens, Jr. , better known as Buck Owens, was an American singer and guitarist who had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music charts with his band, the Buckaroos...
, the hour-long program featured regulars Archie Campbell
Archie Campbell
Archie Campbell was an American writer and star of Hee Haw, a popular long-running country-flavored network television variety show...
, Grandpa Jones
Grandpa Jones
Louis Marshall Jones , known professionally as Grandpa Jones, was an American banjo player and "old time" country and gospel music singer...
, Minnie Pearl
Minnie Pearl
Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon , known professionally as Minnie Pearl, was an American country comedienne who appeared at the Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years and on the television show Hee Haw from 1969 to 1991.-Early life:Sarah Colley was born in Centerville, in Hickman County, Tennessee,...
, Junior Samples
Junior Samples
Junior Samples, born Alvin Samples Jr. in Cumming, Georgia was an American comedian best known for his 14-year run as a cast member of the TV show Hee Haw.-Early Years:...
, Lulu Roman
Lulu Roman
Lulu Roman is a former telephone operator and go-go dancer turned comedian and singer. She is probably best known as a regular on the comedy-music television series Hee Haw....
and Gordie Tapp
Gordie Tapp
Gordon Robert "Gordie" Tapp, CM, O.Ont is a Canadian entertainer.Tapp studied at the Lorne Greene Academy of Radio Arts. He was the host for Main Street Jamboree, a radio program broadcast from Hamilton during the 1950s. Tapp later hosted the CBC television show Country Hoedown...
.
Ron Simon curator of television and radio at New York's Paley Center for Media described their collaboration at Hee Haw as "an interesting hybrid of two of the most popular programs of the '60s, The Beverly Hillbillies and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, and ironically outlasted both of them. The show featured a sequence of brief sketches of cornball humor, combined with performances by top acts in bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
, country and western
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
and gospel music
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
. The show lasted for two seasons, starting in 1969 on CBS in prime time and lasted on network television until 1971 when CBS axed all of its country-oriented programming. The show then ran in syndication for another 22 years, making it one of the longest-running programs in television history with 585 episodes. Simon noted that Hee Haw featured performances by "Merle Haggard
Merle Haggard
Merle Ronald Haggard is an American country music singer, guitarist, fiddler, instrumentalist, and songwriter. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster guitars, vocal harmonies,...
, Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
and Conway Twitty
Conway Twitty
Conway Twitty , born Harold Lloyd Jenkins, was an American country music artist. He also had success in early rock and roll, R&B, and pop music. He held the record for the most number one singles of any act with 55 No. 1 Billboard country hits until George Strait broke the record in 2006...
preserved in their prime".
Later career
Aylesworth also wrote for other television programs, including The Jonathan Winters ShowThe Jonathan Winters Show (1956 TV series)
The Jonathan Winters Show is the first of two American television network Variety show television programs to be hosted by comedian Jonathan Winters...
, The Judy Garland Show
The Judy Garland Show
The Judy Garland Show is an American musical variety television series that aired on CBS on Sunday nights during the 1963-1964 television season. Despite a sometimes stormy relationship with Judy Garland, CBS had found success with several television specials featuring the star...
, Kraft Music Hall
Kraft Music Hall (TV series)
Kraft Music Hall is an umbrella title for several television series aired by NBC in the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s in the musical variety genre, sponsored by Kraft Foods, the producers of a well-known line of cheeses and related dairy products...
and Your Hit Parade
Your Hit Parade
Your Hit Parade, is an American radio and television music program that was broadcast from 1935 to 1955 on radio, and seen from 1950 to 1959 on television. It was sponsored by American Tobacco's Lucky Strike cigarettes. During this 24-year run, the show had 19 orchestra leaders and 52 singers or...
, receiving Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
nominations for The Julie Andrews Hour
The Julie Andrews Hour
The Julie Andrews Hour is a television variety series starring Julie Andrews that was produced by ATV and distributed by ITC Entertainment. It aired on the ABC network in the United States....
in 1973 and in 1976 for The Sonny and Cher Show.
They sold the show in 1982 for $15 million. Aylesworth worked on a stage musical based on the life of Jimmy Durante
Jimmy Durante
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
. He repeatedly tried to find work as a television writer, but couldn't find any work. He gave up looking in the 1980s and filed a class action lawsuit against agents and the television studios claiming age discrimination.
Later life
Aylesworth was a resident of Palm Desert, California. He died at age 81 on July 28, 2010, at Eisenhower Medical CenterEisenhower Medical Center
The Eisenhower Medical Center is a not-for-profit hospital located in Rancho Mirage, California. It was named one of the top one hundred hospitals in the United States in 2005 and is adjacent to the world-famous Betty Ford Center....
in Rancho Mirage, California
Rancho Mirage, California
Rancho Mirage is a resort city in Riverside County, California, United States. The population was 17,218 at the 2010 census, up from 13,249 at the 2000 census, but the seasonal population can exceed 20,000. In between Cathedral City and Palm Desert, it is one of the eight cities of the Coachella...
, due to complications of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
as a complication of pulmonary fibrosis
Pulmonary fibrosis
Pulmonary fibrosis is the formation or development of excess fibrous connective tissue in the lungs. It is also described as "scarring of the lung".-Symptoms:Symptoms of pulmonary fibrosis are mainly:...
. He was survived by his fourth wife, Anita Rufus, as well as by a daughter Linda and son Robert from his first marriage and a daughter Cynthia and two sons John and Bill Aylesworth from his second wife, along with one grandson. Another son Thomas died in 2003.