Ain't That a Knee-Slapper: Rural Comedy in the Twentieth Century

Chapter Nine: They’re in a Heap o’ Trouble

- 230 They 're in a Heap o' Trouble I n the early 1970s, the hills were not alive with the sound of music. In fact, with every trace of a rural situation comedy consigned to the junkyard, them thar hills were as quiet as a cemetery. The performers who had been enjoying steady work found that their talents provoked nowhere near the same demand as they had during the preceding ten years. However, a few remnants still hung around like autumn leaves in November. Except for the “Martins and the Coys” segment in Make Mine Music, the Walt Disney studio had evidenced very little interest in rural humor during the years when Walt was still alive. After his death in December 1966, some observers doubted whether the company could continue turning out successful animated feature films, so The Aristocats (1970), the first Disney animated feature to be produced totally without Walt’s input, aroused quite a bit of interest. The movie started a trend of using rural comedians for several of its voices, a practice that would persist for the rest of the decade. The main plot of The Aristocats need not concern us here, except to say that it involves a family of pampered felines in Paris who become the target of a dastardly kidnapping—er, make that cat-napping —scheme. (The mother cat, Duchess, was played by Eva Gabor, and a horse was voiced by Nancy Kulp, both of whom knew more than a little about working with rural comics.) Partway through the Chapter N ine - 231 story , the audience is introduced to two farm hounds, Napoleon and Lafayette, who speak in the immediately familiar voices of Pat Buttram and George Lindsey. If anyone stopped to wonder what two dogs with Alabama accents were doing in the French countryside, they would have been even more surprised to find where these voices turned up next. In 1973, Disney released Robin Hood, a retelling of the famous English legend with an all-animal cast. Along with a smattering of British voices were a crowd of others that made Sherwood Forest sound more like the Okefenokee Swamp. The evil Sheriff of Nottingham (a wolf) was played by Pat Buttram in his best Mr. Haney tradition, gleefully extracting every bit of tax money possible from the poverty-stricken villagers (“Th’ family that stays together PAYS together!”). His two bumbling deputies (vultures) were voiced by George Lindsey and Ken Curtis, who was then appearing as Matt Dillon’s hillbilly deputy Festus on CBS’s Gunsmoke. Portly Friar Tuck (a badger) was Lum and Abner alumnus Andy Devine. And, as if all of these hick voices were not enough, the film was narrated by Nashville music star Roger Miller as the troubadour of the Merrie Men, Allan-a-Dale (a rooster). People were getting used to hearing the same voices turn up over and over again, so when The Rescuers (1977) came along, it seemed natural that a good portion of the film was set in the Louisiana bayou country, where those familiar voices would at least sound at home. A posse of critters known as the Swamp Volunteers played a crucial part in the finale, with Pat Buttram returning, this time as lazy, shiftless Luke the muskrat. George Lindsey was also Pat Buttram found a whole new career by providing voices in four animated Disney feature films released between 1970 and 1981, The Aristocats, Robin Hood, The Rescuers, and The Fox and the Hound. They’re in a Heap o’ Trouble - 232 back , although as Deadeye the Rabbit he was little more than background noise. The same could be said for Dub Taylor’s dubbing the voice of Digger the Mole. The major character of Orville the Albatross was brought to life by the voice of Jim “Fibber McGee” Jordan, who, as we know, started out as Luke Gray, the Smackout storekeeper, so many decades earlier. (Former Hooterville resident Eva Gabor returned as Miss Bianca the mouse, one of the rescuers of the title.) Even the talented artists and staff responsible for making the Disney features felt that they were getting into something of a rut, so the next film, The Fox and the Hound (1981), was going to bear a new scent by being a much more serious and emotional story. Unable to completely let go of the past, however, studio officials again brought in Pat Buttram, returning him to...