Opie Cates

Opie Cates (10 October 1909 – 6 November 1987)[1][2] was an American clarinet player and band leader in the 1930s and 1940s, during the swing era, who became a radio actor.

[7] He served for a time in the 1940s as musical director on radio's Judy Canova Show, where his Arkansas drawl amused audiences when he introduced songs.

He then became the star of his own radio sitcom, The Opie Cates Show, on ABC in 1947–1948,[8][9] where he played a naive rube getting adjusted to big city life.

Cates would begin each show by saying, "The doggonedest thing happened to me th' other day," and proceed to introduce the episode's plot.

[12][13] Cates was also musical director of the NBC radio show Meet Me at Parky's (1945), starring Parkyakarkus,[14] and of Granby's Green Acres, a 1950 CBS radio show with much of the Lum and Abner cast that later inspired the television series Green Acres.