The Jimmy Dean Show: Episode 316

Rowlf is introduced, quill in hand, writing a book - The History of Country Music. He begins to read some of it to Jimmy Dean, starting with chapter one - "Who First Played Country Music?" He recounts the infamous event in 1736 when George Washington chopped down his father's cherry tree, where George declared, "I cannot tell a lie - I chopped down that cherry tree. I need the wood to make a guitar." Rowlf adds that said moment is why Washington is considered "the father of our country...music." Rowlf continues to 1737, when Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment led to the invention of the first electric guitar.

Rowlf moves onto the second chapter, entitled "Three Sure-Fire Ways to Make a Country Song a Hit." He reads, "One - bring the song to Buck Owens. Two - bring it to Eddie Arnold. Three - bring it to Sofia Loren," the latter he claims won't make the song a hit, but ensues a wild recording session. Jimmy takes the opportunity to crack a joke of his own, claiming that country music has its origins in operas such as Carmen - "She'll be Carmen round the mountain..."

Rowlf claims to have done extensive reacher for the book and spent an entire day in the back room of Ernest Tubb's record shop, where he discovered Ernest three of his Texas Troubadours in a bubble bath together ("You've never heard of 'Rub-a-Dub-Dub, three men and a Tubb?"). He shows Jimmy some of the rare records he found at the shop, but tosses all of Dean's records onto the floor. He then dusts off the rarest find of all - a song Grandpa Jones sang to Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra. As the band begins a classical vamp, Rowlf and Jimmy launch into a performance of "Good Old Mountain Dew."