The Porter Wagoner Show #284 featuring special guest Webb Pierce.
Promo for The Porter Wagoner Show #284 featuring special guest Webb Pierce. Spot opens with Dolly Parton playing guitar and singing "Just The Way I Am," then camera pulls out to reveal black Nudie suit-wearing Porter, who names guests and regulars and invites us to tune in. Fade out over art card with colorful illustration of Porter.
Opening of Porter Wagoner show #284. Standard pre-recorded opening begins with CU of Porter s shiny red boots walking down hallway, which cuts to rear view of Wagoner s garish green Nudie suit festooned with rhinestone wagon wheels and cacti. Montage of smiling Porter happily walking through WSM-TV studio as stage hands and technicians prep show. Don Howser s voice over reads: "Direct from Nashville Tennessee, here s The Porter Wagoner Show!" Quick shots of regulars as Howser announces them: "Starring Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton, Speck Rhodes, Don Howser, The Wagonmasters, and today s special guest star." Momentary pause in VO (presumably left for Howser to read the guest star s name on air), then prerecorded segment ends with Howser s "...and now, here s Porter." Cut to live portion as Porter, wearing dazzling, rhinestone-studded black Nudie suit, plays guitar and sings "You Can't Make A Heel Toe The Mark" accompanied by Wagonmasters Buck Trent, Don Warden, Mack Magaha, George McCormick, Jack Little and Speck Rhodes, all but Speck in matching red Nudie suits. Colorful shots of audience applauding. Medium shots Mack's fiddling and Buck's sweet banjo solo.
Porter welcomes country great Webb Pierce, who plays guitar and sings the sadly flaccid "Merry-Go-Round World" backed by The Wagonmasters. Not the wonderin' boy's most shining moment. Porter compliments Pierce, who makes a point of saying that Porter's is the #1 syndicated show in the world. Porter's eyes go wide and he says "Thank you pardner, I was hoping you'd say that!"
Opening with a tight CU of Jack Little's tom-tom drumming, the camera pulls out to reveal Mack Magaha sawing on the great, all too brief "Kaw-Liga"-esque instrumental fiddle number "Cheyenne."
Now it's time to meet the beautiful little lady Dolly Parton, who plays guitar and sings "Mine," backed by The Wagonmasters. Dolly messes up the line "With the same smile and the same eyes that shine," and cracks up about it.
Porter calls on The Wagonmasters to accompany him on what he jokingly refers to as "one of the old 78s," a truncated version of his 1962 hit "Misery Loves Company."
Doing a hilarious impression of Speck Rhodes' spastic little fingers-slapping-together gesture, Porter introduces gap-toothed hayseed comedian Speck Rhodes, who gleefully saunters in wearing his trademark checkered suit and bowler hat and indeed, doing the very same gesture Porter predicted. Porter makes a comment about Speck's tan, and Speck makes his corny old joke about bikinis: "Those two piece bikinis are terrible, they ought to be just one piece... but which piece, the top or the bottom?" Shot of man in audience laughing uproariously and applauding. Then backed by The Wagonmasters, Speck sings the novelty song "Don't Never Take No For An Answer."
Porter thanks everyone for writing in, then introduces the week's sacred number. Accompanied by The Wagonmasters, Porter plays guitar and sings one of the most beautiful songs ever, "Rank Strangers."
Porter reintroduces Webb Pierce, who plays guitar and sings "The Man You Want Me To Be," backed by The Wagonmasters. Shot of Speck in audience applauding between two very nonplussed-looking older women.
Backed by The Wagonmasters, Porter and Dolly sing a duet on "Run That By Me One More Time." Their play feudin', fussin', and fightin' just gets to feeling more natural all the time. Hmmm...
Porter gets the "stretch it out" signal from the stage manager, which we know as Porter jokes about it on camera. Porter calls Speck in to help him say so long before he wraps up the show, waving goodbye as The Wagonmasters play the instrumental show outro, Don Howser signs off, and credits roll as Mack dances and fiddles us off the air.