I'm a big fan of the stage musical of Al Capp's Li'l Abner and of the movie that was made of the stage musical. The film was released on December 11, 1959 and a month later — on January 12, 1960 — three of its stars and Mr. Capp appeared on CBS on The Red Skelton Show for an episode called "Clem Goes to Dogpatch." That's "Clem" as in "Clem Kaddidlehopper," one of Skelton's recurring characters.
The three stars were Peter Palmer (Li'l Abner), Leslie Parrish (Daisy Mae) and Stubby Kaye (Marryin' Sam). There were two songs from the show and movie: Palmer sang "If I Had My Druthers" and Kaye did a nice rendition of "Jubilation T. Cornpone" with Skelton's dancers who played the population of Dogpatch. Ms. Parrish didn't sing, perhaps because her singing voice was dubbed for the movie and the show didn't want to go to the trouble of arranging for that assist. No Stupefyin' Jones or Mammy Yokum or anyone else.
The whole thing looked kinda cheap but it's nice to see more of those actors in those roles. Peter Palmer really was so perfectly cast. And you get to see Al Capp playing the role of a decent human being, which for him was kind of a stretch…
