The Importance of Being Ernest

Quick, name a famous Ernie. American cricketeer Ernie Bangs? Check. Ernie Douglas, adopted, four-eyed, third sonny boy of absent-minded professor/widower Steven "MacMurray" Douglas? Check. Ernie, the shorter half of the closeted gay Muppet® couple Bert and Ernie? We thought so! Well, way back in the previous millennia, an altogether different Ernie would've topped the list: Television's original country bumpkin, Tennessee “Ernie” Ford. Born, one would assume, somewhere in the hellhole-ish backwoods of Tennessee, Ernie developed his shtick for hillbilly music and cornball comedy as a disc jockey in the Army. The ole' pea picker — as they called him, on account of his annoyingly folksy rejoinder, "Bless your pea-pickin' heart" — Ernie eventually found his way to television 'longside Joker-faced camera hog Lucille Ball. His namesake show would run for five seasons, though if you happened upon a rerun today, you'd be hard pressed to sit through five minutes of the thing. Like most God-fearing phonies of the era, the pencil-moustachieod, novelty-singing Country Music Hall of Famer was no stranger to Kanetucky bourbon, which would eventually, sadly, lead to his demise on this day, October 17, 1991. But up until that day, he and his dutiful, which is to say, willing and swilling, wife Betty would throw weekly whiskey wingdings not seen outside of a Dean Martini™ chug-a-long. Whiskey old-fashioneds, whiskey sours, whiskey Collins, whiskey Manhattans, whiskey and whiskeys. "What'll we serve on the front porch gatherin' tonight, m'dear?" "How 'bout whiskey, Ern?" Neat! Tennessee “Ernie” was preceded in death by his trainwreck of a half-brother, dramatist Tennessee “Williams,” writer of the not-horrible hit song “16 Tons,” along with a number of over-the-top stage plays that haven't aged well. Happy Anni-hearse-ary™ to the man who put the "he" in bloody "Hee Haw®." Tennessee "Ernie" Ford.