Archie Campbell

Archie Campbell (7 November 1914 – 29 August 1987) was an American comedian, writer, and recording artist. He was a regular cast member in Hee Haw.

Early Career
Campbell studied art at Mars Hill College in Mars Hill, North Carolina, after which he began a radio career at WNOX in Knoxville. After a year alongside Roy Acuff on their Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round, he relocated to WDOD in Chattanooga, where he stayed until joining the United States Navy in 1941. At the end of World War II, Campbell returned to WNOX. He left that station for rival WROL where he helped start Knoxville's first country music television show (on WROL-TV), Country Playhouse, that premiered in 1952 and ran until 1958.

At the close of that show, he moved to Nashville to replace Rod Brasfield on the nationally syndicated Prince Albert segment of the Grand Ole Opry. Shortly after, he signed a contract with RCA Victor and one of his early singles, "Trouble in the Amen Corner" reached the 1960 country music Top 25. After an unsuccessful stint with the Starday label, Campbell returned to RCA in 1966 and had three Top 30 singles, "The Men in My Little Girl's Life" (1966), "The Dark End of the Street" (1968), and "Tell It Like It Is" (1968). He was named "Comedian of the Year" in 1969 by the Country Music Association.

Routines
One of Campbell's 'signature' routines was to tell stories in "Spoonerism" form, with the first letters of words in some phrases intentionally switched for comic effect. The best-known of these stories was "RinderCella", his re-telling of the fairy tale "Cinderella". Campbell once told it on an episode of the game show Juvenile Jury. At its conclusion, host Jack Barry said "That's one of the funniest stories Carchie Ampbell tells." All of Campbell's spoonerism routines borrowed heavily from comedy routines performed by Colonel Stoopnagle on the radio show Stoopnagle and Budd in the 1930s. "Colonel Stoopnagle" was the stage name of F. Chase Taylor, 1897–1950.

Campbell also performed a routine with various partners generally known as "That's Bad/That's Good". Campbell would state a troublesome occurrence, and when the partner would sympathize by saying, "Oh that's bad," Campbell would quickly counter, "No, that's good!", and then state a good result from the previous occurrence. When the partner would say, "Oh that's good!", Campbell would immediately counter with "No, that's bad!" and tell the new result, and so on.