Frank Peppiatt, the Canadian-born producer and co-creator of the long-runnnig comedy-musical television variety series Hee Haw, passed away on Wednesday at Ponte Verda Beach, Florida from bladder cancer at age 85.
The series, (a countrified version of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In) which started on CBS as a summer replacement for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1969, became an unexpected hit.
The show, co-hosted by Buck Owens (who left the series in 1986) and Roy Clark, and which starred, amongst others, Junior Samples, Grandpa Jones, Lulu Roman, Archie Campbell, and Gordie Tapp, was still pulling in good ratings when CBS dropped it, along with the remaining vestiges of its' rural-oriented series in 1971.
Mr Peppiatt, along with fellow Canadian native John Aylesworth and another parter Nick Vanoff decided to place the show in first-run syndication, where it remained until 1992.
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