Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters

• 1980-1982
• 2 seasons
• NBC
• Music

Country music superstar Barbara Mandrell hosted this Sid and Marty Krofft-produced music-variety TV series with her younger sisters, Louise and Irlene. Also helping out was Truck Shackley and the Texas Critters, a group of Krofft puppets that included five country musicians and a talking hound dog. While most of the TV series' material centered on comedy sketches (including a recurring sketch that depicted the sisters' childhood days), the meat of it remained rooted in country music. Each week, both a well-established country singer or group (e.g., Dolly Parton, Larry Gatlin, Charley Pride, the Statler Brothers and Marty Robbins) and an up-and-coming country singer or group of the era (including later superstar acts Alabama, Ricky Skaggs and Steve Wariner) made appearances, playing both their biggest and their current hits. The TV series played off the success of Barbara's fast-exploding country music career at the time, which included sold-out concerts and a string of No. 1 hits (most notably "Sleeping Single in a Double Bed" and "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool"); in fact, the Country Music Association named her Entertainer of the Year twice in both 1980 and 1981 (this was the first time that this ever happened). Louise also had some top 10 country hits of her own in the early and mid-1980s.