Peppiatt and Aylesworth

Aylesworth had done some radio as a teenager and Peppiatt had done some theatre before landing the first-ever comedy series on Canadian television, After Hours on the CBC in 1952.

[3] Aylesworth's 2010 book The Corn Was Green: The Inside Story of Hee Haw published by McFarland & Company told how he and Peppiatt came up with the idea for Hee Haw after seeing "country banter" between Charley Weaver and Jonathan Winters on The Jonathan Winters Show, and seeing that the shows atop the Nielsen ratings included The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., Green Acres and Petticoat Junction, along with Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and the duo conceived immediately of the format of country variety resulting in one of the longest-running series in television history, Hee Haw.

[3] Co-hosted by Roy Clark and Buck Owens, the hour-long program featured regulars Archie Campbell, Grandpa Jones, Minnie Pearl, Junior Samples, Lulu Roman and Canadians Gordie Tapp and Don Harron.

[3][4] Comedian and frequent Peppiatt & Aylesworth collaborator Jack Burns was also a writer and major contributor in the early years of the show.

Ron Simon, curator of television and radio at New York's Paley Center for Media, described their collaboration at Hee Haw as "an interesting hybrid of two of the most popular programs of the '60s, The Beverly Hillbillies and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, and ironically outlasted both of them.

[4] The show featured a sequence of brief sketches of cornball humour, combined with performances by top acts in bluegrass, country and western and gospel music.

[5] Simon noted that Hee Haw featured performances by Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Conway Twitty preserved in their prime".

[1] After they sold Hee Haw to the owners of the Grand Ole Opry for 15 million dollars in the mid-1980s, Peppiatt & Aylesworth worked on various solo projects.

Frank Peppiatt worked on The Barbara Mandrell Show (1980–1982), then went on to produce a series starring Don Adams called Check it Out!

The program, Adrienne Clarkson Presents- A Tribute to Peppiatt & Aylesworth: Canada's First Television Comedy Team aired in October 1996 on the CBC and was rerun several times through 1997.

His book The Corn was Green: The Inside Story of Hee Haw (McFarland & Company) was published in March 2010, three months before his death.

Encyclopedia of Television Series, Pilots and Specials The Corn Was Green: The Inside Story of Hee Haw When Variety Was King: Memoir of a TV Pioneer