Press and Sun-Bulletin from Binghamton, New York • 174

Geo. Lindsey can't shed Goober Hee Haw still a barn- burner after? years mm appears in a Disney movie. Lindsey, 48, lives in the Tarzana section of Los Angeles with his wife and two children. His rambling house is on the top of a hill and overlooks a meadow where he is building a haybarn and horse stalls. He talked in a room that seems a reflection of his corned ic personality.

Although not a hunter, he has stuffed animals on the walls. On closer examination, it's clear the eyes are crossed and that the javelina has a rubber chicken hanging from its mouth. The room had been a garage, but he had it built to look like a mountain cabin. He said, "There's a lot of stuff in here that doesn't mean anything to anybody but me. This is my room." He devotes part of his time to the Special Olympics in Alabama, where he recently helped raise $35,000 by sponsoring a celebrity golf tournament.

Lindsey said he is disappointed that he can't work regularly in Hollywood. "But I'm not singing the blues," he said. "I'm booked solid through October. That's the power of television. It took me a long time to get people at 'Hee Haw' to stop calling me Goober.

I got paranoid about it. "I grew a moustache and one day in an airport a little girl pointed at me and said, 'Mama, there goes Goober with a Then I grew a beard." He finally shaved the beard and came to terms with it, although fans continue to associate him with the role. A few weeks ago in Nashville to tape segments for "Hee Haw," he said a man nearly ran him off the freeway. He said. "He jumped out of his car and came running at me with a piece of paper, hollering, 'Goober! Goober! You gotta sign Lindsey said he still has hopes of finding a TV role here.

He said he is tired of traveling, tired of motel rooms and tired of being away from his family. Standing on his front porch he thought about it and added, "But I can still go to the store. And I don't owe a soul a dime." By JERRY BUCK LOS ANGELES (AP) "Hee Haw" is: 1. Corny. 2.

The biggest hit in TV syndication. 3. A barnyard collection of ancient jokes. 4. A serious examination of the mores of modern society.

Well, three out of four ain't bad. "Hee Haw" is the summer show CBS hurriedly rushed to the air after the Smothers Brothers were fired a few years back. To the network's embarrassment it became a smash hit. CBS was trying to shed its rural image for more sophisticated comedy, but found it couldn't kill the "Hee Haw" mule with a stick. Finally, it simply kicked it overboard.

The show's producers hocked everything they owned to put the snow into syndication. It's now seen by more than 30 million people every weekend on 227 stations. "I don't see any end to it," said George Lindsey, who joined the show seven years ago as i writer and one of its 35 regular performers. Lindsey, too, was a victim of CBS' turn toward sophistication. He had been Goober for 7 years, first on "The Andy Griffith Show" and then on "Mayberry RFD," which cot 'jnued many of the characters.

"Yon can turn on 'Hee Haw' and it's got something for everybody. It's got singing, jokes and girls. It's like vegetable soup you're bound to find something in it you like." "Hee Haw" has been called a barnyard "Laugh-In," which the Nashville-made show is in a way. But the show has long since come into its own, plowing its own way, so to speak. Like "Laugh-In," it has a machinegun pace.

And like "Laugh-In," most of its humor seems cribbed from Joe Miller's Joke Book. It is a totally unpretentious show. And, if you don't watch yourself, sophisticate or not, it's as catching as eating peanuts. Lindsey believes the show, especially in the beginning, has had a lot of closet viewers who watched it but wouldn't admit it. "It's strong in New York.

It's strong in all the cities. It's not a hillbilly show. It is a rural show, but funny is George Lindsey as Goober with a friend. because of the popularity of the show and the fact that with the reruns it's never been off the air." It is somewhat ironic that he has been typecast as the simple-minded filling station mechanic. The Alabama-born Lindsey is a college graduate, former high school teacher and football coach, graduate of the American Theater Wing in New York, former Broadway actor and once a character actor in scores of movies and TV shows.

He still does voices for Disney animated cartoons, most recently "The Rescuers," and occasionally funny. In my nightclub act I do some old jokes, but it's how you tell them," be said. He said the show has been marvelous for his career. "I came right off 'Mayberry' and went into 'Hee Haw," he said. "I think I created a monster with Goober.

I haven't been able to work in since then. "I was on the Griffith show for 4 years and on 'Mayberry' for three years. Loved every minute of it. We were the No. 1 show in the '60s.

But I got typecast as Goober. I guess it was aims at youths Conrad Bain has a twin who is very 'straight1 Specials to co-produce this first of eight Special Treats to be shown this season. Olin's plot sprang from the thought that children watching TV have become fascinated by investigative reporters, Watergate and like, but figure it's "just a piece of cake." Anybody can do it. But, as little Star soon learns, it's not that easy. "I've always felt that dramas like this reach out to children better than any 'educational' show does because that kind of program suggests it is a followup to school and that mama and daddy think it's good for you," comments Lee Polk, who is also president of the New York TV Academy.

By PA 11, HENNINGER HOLLYWOOD NBCs Special Treat series aimed at young audiences in afternoons returns Tuesday with "A Piece of Cake," the story about a student reporter whose inaccurate statements cause a student body strike. Star Shimah, the teen-ager who was a sidekick to Muggsy, the hero of the old NBC Saturday morning series, plays the reporter. Ossie Davis and Al Freeman Jr. are prominent actors in supporting roles. The idea for the drama Came from Marilyn Olin who, with Lee Polk, came over from ABC's Afternoon ir FINEST yrmam ST Take Out ibXtlfkfi Dining TRAVEL IN 724-2513 cookiimo JJ 722,9824 v- ALSO AMERICAN MENU COMFORT! A Steaks Chens Seafoods Salads Jh LI IV LI I ILfc VtlNILtZ Pocfnnrnnt Inr Harmon has ah identical twin brother.

So I called Bonar and asked him bow he'd like to really be me or least play my twin brother on TV. He liked the idea fine, and he came out here. But it happened to be one of those times when we didn't get our script until the last moment. I took one look at tt and I knew we were in trouble. The scriptwriters had my brother as a sex maniac." A sex maniac! His brother must have been thrilled at his introduction to show business, we said.

Did he actually play the part? Bain smiled again. "No," he said, "I played both parts he only came in for two lines at the end when he gets caught." Bain paused. "But everybody thought it was him toe whole time. When I went down to Palm Springs to play "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers' with Janice Lynde, we went to the Racquet Club and I heard some stuffy old fellow in there talking about the show. 'Bain's the fellow said, 'but I'll tell you something his brother is a better actor than be "I haven't told my brother that," Bain said, "and, frankly, I don't think I will." By CLEVELAND AMORY BEVERLY HILLS Conrad Bain, who has been a fixture on the "Maude" series (he has played Dr.

Arthur Harmon since it started) is a Canadian. And one who has; we learned over lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Lounge, an identical twin brother, Bonar, who is a businessman who travels widely in Cana-da. Was his brother, we asked, widely kidded? "Not so much kidded, but it does bother him," Bain said with a smile "He gets asked for autographs, and then he goes into these long-winded explanations about how he's not me. Of course people don't believe him, so then be does silly things like showing them his driver's license. When he first told me about it, I told him, 'Go ahead and give them the autograph just sign my But he's so square and such a Rotarian that he won't.

He just says, 'Ob, I could never sign anyone else's So I say, 'Okay, then "Now," Bain continued, "things are very different between Bonar and me." How? we wanted to know. he said, "the scriptwriters came up with an episode in which Dr. Kv JlXJIv iKXijWfl J' Chenango Binghamton "Home Is Our Only Competitor" "YOU CAN PAY tmi CUT YGSJ CAI.T BUY CZTTC3" MINI jY7! MOTOR A HOME By the Week or Weekend 22 -26' Models Available Your 1-Stop R.V. Center for Sale Service Rentals PUBLIC SERVICE RV CENTER CUSTOM DRAPERIES cuihorj 723-8297 99 CLINTON ST. Jfjit Sf TB ST WTH-T7.

I if SPECIALISTS Ton 30 YDS. U-TV-BiifhamtM, N.Y. SUNDAY, Oct 1, 1977.