OK, baby boomers, dinner and a show on me if you can tell me where this joke came from:
“Why, Sheriff Fate Thomas, what in the heck are you doin’ in Kornfield Kounty?”
“Oh, I’m on a trip around the world, Buck.”
“You’re on a trip around the world! Well, tell me. Is France as educated as I hear tell?”
“Are you kiddin’? Why, France is so educated, the children even speak French!”
Talk about witty banter. That’s funnier than anything you’ll find in “Private Lives.” And if you guessed it’s from “Hee Haw,” we’ve got a date!
I happen to be the world’s biggest “Hee Haw” fan. It was on Sunday nights at 7 where I grew up, and I never missed an episode. So it gives me great pleasure to announce that “Hee Haw: the Musical” is on its way to Broadway.
And before you say, “Oh, God, Broadway is really scraping the bottom of the moonshine barrel,” let me add that a bunch of heavy-hitting producers who saw a reading of it last month say they had the time of their lives.
“I haven’t laughed so hard since I saw ‘Book of Mormon,’ ” one of them told me.
“It was kick-ass,” said another. “Everybody left on a high, it was so much fun.”
Among the heavy-hitters spotted at the reading were Bob Boyett (“Spamalot”), Jill Furman (“In the Heights”) and execs from the Shuberts, the Nederlanders and Jujamcyn Theaters. They all left with hay straws in their mouths.
The show is being put together by Steve Buchanan, head of Opry Entertainment Group, which owns Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. He’s assembled a first-rate team: The script is by Robert Horn, who wrote the underrated “13” musical with Jason Robert Brown. And music and lyrics are by Shane McAnally and Brandy Clark.
To be honest, country- western music isn’t my forte, though I do like Gene Autry. But I was on “Imus in the Morning” the other day when Clark performed some sensational songs from her new album, “12 Stories.” She gave me a copy, and it hasn’t left my CD player since. She told me that “a lady producer who seemed important” came up to her after the reading and said she had a blast. She couldn’t remember the woman’s name, but I suspect it was Fran “Green Jeans” Weissler.
My spies at the “Hee Haw” workshop loved Clark and McAnally’s score. There are several “tear-your-heart-out country ballads,” one source says, “as well as some hilarious songs in the style of those wonderful and terrible ‘Hee Haw’ jokes in the cornfield.” (See above.)
Unlike the old TV show, this isn’t a revue with songs and sketches, but an honest-to-goodness story about a wily sexpot from Kornfield Kounty and her boyfriend. They’re destined to be married, but she decides she wants to see the world first. Several of the characters made famous from the TV show appear in the musical, including Grandpa Jones, Misty Rowe, Lulu Roman (love her!) and Junior Samples. There’s no Barbi Benton as yet, but here’s hoping!
From what I’m told, Buchanan should have no trouble raising money. There were three readings, and several producers and theater owners attended more than one. That rustle you’re hearing is the sound of checkbooks being opened.
Look for “Hee Haw: The Musical” to open on Broadway next spring.
In the meantime, here’s another one from Kornfield Kounty:
“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,
“You met another, and PFFT! You was gone!”
Don’t, under any circumstances, miss Marilyn Maye at the Metropolitan Room, where her last performance is Sunday. At 85, she’s never been better. Last Sunday, the place was packed with her fans, including Frank Langella, Debra Monk and Susan Stroman.
Maye wore a baby-blue Bob Mackie pantsuit. Langella, who’s starring in “King Lear” at BAM, liked it so much he said: “I’m wearing that when I make my entrance!”