Maurice Hines Sr., 88, a drummer who toured for a decade in the nightclub act Hines, Hines and Dad that helped propel his tap-dancing sons to fame, died last Tuesday in Las Vegas.

His sons, Maurice and Gregory, had performed professionally as the Hines Kids since the 1950s, tap-dancing onstage at the Apollo Theater in Harlem and touring.

By 1963, his sons decided to emphasize singing in addition to dancing and asked their father to join the group.

Father and sons toured until 1973, performing in nightclubs in New York, Las Vegas and Europe. They also appeared on TV variety and talk shows.

John Aylesworth, 81, a TV writer and producer who was co-creator of the long-running country variety show "Hee Haw," died Wednesday at a hospital in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Aylesworth and his writing partner and fellow Canadian, Frank Peppiatt, had never visited the rural South or Midwest before developing "Hee Haw," a fast-paced hour of cornball jokes and music, in 1969. The program, with country singers Buck Owens and Roy Clark as hosts and a stable of other comedians and musicians, aired on CBS for two years.

Despite high ratings, "Hee Haw" was canceled during a purge of CBS's rural-oriented shows in 1971. Aylesworth, Peppiatt and a business partner syndicated the program on their own -- an unheard-of practice in TV at the time. "Hee Haw" remained in production until 1992 and, with 585 episodes, was one of the longest-running shows in TV history.

Morrie Yohai was present at the creation of the Cheez Doodle. In a 2005 interview, Yohai, former owner of a snack food firm, said the cheese-powder-covered baked corn puff was developed at the Old London Melba toast factory in the Bronx, which also made popcorn and other snacks. "We were looking for another snack item," he said. "We were fooling around and found out that there was a machine that extruded cornmeal, and it almost popped like popcorn."

Yohai and his partners thought of chopping up the cornmeal product, coating it with cheese and baking it. Yohai, of Kings Point, N.Y., died last Tuesday. He was 90.

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In 1949, Yohai took over his father's snack-food factory in what would become the beginning of a long career in the food industry. Yohai eventually sold the company to Borden Inc., where he became group vice president in charge of snacks.