The Monkees TV show first aired on this day, 12th September, 1966 on the NBC television network and lasted for two seasons (58 episodes). The final primetime episode ran on September 9, 1968.

Modeled on The Beatles' theatrical films A Hard Day's Night and Help!, The Monkees featured the antics and music of a fictional pop-rock group. Due to the massive success of the records, and the public's expectations, the four Monkees became a real pop group. The series was sponsored by Kellogg's Cereals and Yardley Cosmetics of London. After leaving NBC, the program would later be rerun on both CBS and ABC on weekend mornings.

The four young men who became The Monkees were British-born David Thomas ("Davy") Jones (vocals/percussion/guitar/{drums-live only}), Hollywood native George Michael ("Micky") Dolenz Jr. (vocals/drums/keyboards/guitar), Texan Robert Michael ("Mike"/"Wool Hat") Nesmith (guitars/vocals), and Peter Halsten ("Peter Tork") Thorkelson (bass/keyboards/banjo/guitar/trombone/vocals), who had lived with his family in both the eastern United States and Canada.





The Maude TV show first aired on this day, 12th September, 1972. The program was a spin-off of All in the Family; like that show, it was a sitcom with topical story lines created by producer Norman Lear.

Maude starred Beatrice Arthur as Maude Findlay, a middle-aged, politically liberal, married woman living in suburban Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York, who embraced the tenets of women's liberation, always voted for Democratic Party candidates, strongly supported legal abortion, and advocated, albeit often clumsily, for civil rights and racial and gender equality.

Labels: All In The Family, Maude, The Monkees, tv shows

Hee Haw was a long-running television variety show hosted by musicians Buck Owens and Roy Clark and featuring country music and humor with rural "Kornfield Kounty" as a backdrop.

The show was equally well-known for its voluptuous, scantily clad women in stereotypical Southern farmer's daughter outfits and its cornpone humor. Hee Haw was a quintessentially American show.







"Where Oh Where Are You Tonight?", a nonsense duet which debuted on the opening show and is perhaps the most enduring image that most viewers have of the program. In early seasons, this was performed by Campbell and Tapp, in the vein of folk songs like "Oh! Susanna" and "Old Dan Tucker." In later seasons, Tapp would sometimes be replaced by that episode's guest singer, or other surprise celebrities. The guest/celebrity would stand with their back to the viewer while Campbell sang the new, humorous verse solo, holding a scythe. At the end of the verse, Campbell would elbow Tapp or the guest (as a comedic visual cue), who would then spin around (Tapp would react as if awoken by the elbow) to join him on the chorus: "Where, oh where, are you tonight?/Why did you leave me here all alone?/I searched the world over, and I thought I'd found true love,/Then you met another, and--pffft! you was gone!" The "pffft" would be done as a spitting "Bronx cheer", and occasionally, they would break up into laughter after the "pffft", unable to finish the song (Who got spat upon during the "pffft" would change each show.) Later, whole groups and even females would be part of the refrain, after Campbell's death in 1987. In some episodes, which had several major guest stars, the routine appeared several times in the show so that each guest would have the chance to be part of this tradition.

Labels: country music, hee haw, tv shows, usa