We are excited to be showing the Heartland Series movies (only) at the library. Join us for some good old fun and socialize with your neighbors. So invite your friends and head on down to the library for more information. Revisit the past of East Tennessee!

The Heartland Series

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThis article is about the Knoxville, Tennessee television series. For other works with similar names, see Heartland (disambiguation).

The Heartland Series is a series of television programs about the culture of Appalachia, produced by WBIR-TV of Knoxville, Tennessee, over the 25-year period 1984 through 2009. The series has been produced on a limited basis since 2010.

Production history

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The Heartland Series was conceived in 1984 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with a special series celebrating the people and land of the Southern Appalachian Mountains.[1] Actor Bill Landry was hired to host the series. He had previously been a teacher, had written and begun performing a one-man play based on the life of Albert Einstein called "Einstein the Man," and had portrayed a fictional Tennessee River boat captain named "Captain Nat" as part of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) exhibit at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville. Following the fair, he had continued to play the role of Captain Nat on a months-long barge tour of the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Mississippi Rivers that TVA conducted for its 50th anniversary.[1][2][3]

The TV series was initially scheduled to run for just three months.[4] According to Landry, the original concept, formed by WBIR creative services director Steve Dean and station general manager Jim Hart, was "to take a camera and interview the last remnants of the old mountain people and go on location.”[1] Each episode was three minutes and 40 seconds long,[1] designed to air in five-minute time slots during and after daily news broadcasts.

The series continued past the short run that was originally planned. Subject matter included geology, wildlife, native plants, invasive species, and other aspects of the region's natural history, Native American lifeways and archeology, re-enactments and remembrances of historical events ranging from events in the American Revolutionary War to coal mining disasters and the early years of TVA, and feature stories about regional culture.[5] As a result of his work on the series, host Bill Landry told an interviewer that he had learned to “tan hides, make jelly butter, saw logs, eat tree bark, carve soapstone, build a log cabin, cut timber, run a sawmill, make moonshine, shoe a horse, call a hoot owl, rut like a deer and know when the buffalo runs.”[6] Traditional music was a perennial topic, including performances by and interviews with traditional musicians active in East Tennessee,[7][8] demonstrations by craftsmen who make musical instruments,[9] and exploration of musical traditions such as old harp singing[10] and Scottish and Irish influences on the region's music.[11] Two topics that the series generally avoided were politics and controversial religious practices such as snake handling.[12] In addition to the Smokies national park, on-scene production locations in East Tennessee included the Museum of Appalachia, where several episodes were taped, including the titles "1791," "Just Another Day," "The Music Tale," "The Toggins," "Frontier Music, Frontier Foods," and "Gift for Jacob,"[4] Rugby,[13] Roan Mountain State Park,[14] the Savage Gulf State Natural Area in Grundy County,[15] and Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.[16]

Landry's skill as an interviewer has been remarked upon by many observers. His folksy, rambling style made him effective at putting people at ease and drawing out the interesting stories of the people that he encountered in the "hills, hollows, small towns and major cities" of Appalachia.[6][12][17]

In 1998, the series was expanded to include a 30-minute version airing each Saturday at 7:00 p.m., while it continued to run the original five-minute version during the morning news, after 10 News at Noon, and after 10 News Nightbeat.[2]

In total, about 1,900 short episodes and 150 half-hour programs were produced in the show's 25-year history.[6] Bill Landry was host and narrator for the entire series.[18] He also served as co-producer and wrote and directed many episodes.[19] Steve Dean was executive producer for 20 years, and Doug Mills was cameraman for all but one of the episodes.[18][20]

The series has been successful with audiences, sometimes achieving audience ratings of 7.0 or higher.[5] In addition to being broadcast on WBIR, the series appeared on WTVC in Chattanooga during the 1980s and was shown on the Travel Channel (under the title Appalachian Stories) for six years.[1][20]