The Beverly Hillbillies is funny as shit.

But I am high and day-drinking.

Jethro got arrested for prostitution? I have never seen this.

Written mostly by Paul Henning, who, with Stanley Shapiro, wrote Bedtime Story, which was re-made as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. He also wrote for Burns and Allen.

A simple 1/2 hour show, lots of fun fluff. Great music, if you like bluegrass. Irene Ryan, who played Granny, ended her career on Broadway in Pippin.

You can watch TBH free on PlutoTV.

Especially the early B&W ones, OP. I agree.

The early episodes are hilarious.

Irony, sarcasm, attitude has ruined a lot of today's comic acting.

The actors on The Beverly Hillbillies acted as if they believed 100% in everything they were saying and doing.

And that's why it's so fucking funny.

I loved when the doorbell chimed they realized to go to the front door to greet those who they thought were summoned to come by the sound of the doorbell.

You need to eat some vittles, and pull down your caftan and stop stroking to Jethro.

A fine program. Yet, I always preferred Green Acres.

I don't think Green Acres aged as well as the b&w Hillbillies.

I won a trivia game by answering correctly to a BJ question. No one else knew it.

That should be BH not BJ.

It's hilarious and stands the test of time!

The black-and-white episodes are hands down THE BEST sit-com of the ‘60s decade.

Dave Draper was the hottest guest star. Granny thought he was "ill" because his muscles were so big!

I shot my first load in life thinking of Jethro by the cement pond.

The BW episodes were funny, but the colour eps were very meta and great at parodying the modern 60s.

Now I'm gonna smoke some crawdads, but first I need a little pot.

Dave Draper still looks purty good!

The writing was skillfully done, especially when the Clampitts would have a conversation with city folk and the Clampitts would think they were talking about one thing and the city folk would mean something else. To keep it going for a full conversation, using words and terms that could be misinterpreted, was really good. My favorite episode is A Plot for Granny, in which Jed thinks he is buying a plot of farmland, he was actually buying a cemetery plot for Granny. To keep the misunderstanding between Jed and the cemetery salesmen going the whole episode took skill.

The best line Granny ever uttered on that show was

BURN RUBBER!!!!!!

Jethro, in his tight jeans and always present basket, gave me naughty feelings back during it's initial run. That was one fine looking hunk of man.

This is a good interview Gilbert Gottfried did with Max Baer Jr. in 2015.

One of my favorite episodes was when this "nice man" - a cabbie - picked up Granny shopping in town (we were asked to suspend disbelief, I guess) & brought her home. When he pressed her on the fare, Granny thought he was now asking her to join him at the fair.

^ The cabbie is played by the great Mel Blanc. The voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig,

Blanc was a regular on the Jack Benny Show and I noticed one of Benny's jokes in the clip at R29. Perhaps there was a connection between the two shows?

^ I noticed one of Benny's jokes in the clip at [R20].

That was interesting, R23 (once you get past the first 10 minutes of Gottfried's constant laughing). Baer even names the 4 biggest cocks in Hollywood" Milton Berle, Forrest Tucker, Victor Mature and I can't remember the 4th guy.

Draper was okay, but Dash Riprock (Larry Pennell) did it for me.

Anyone notice how Mr. Drysdale started off fairly normal, then became money-obsessed as the seasons went on?

Sharon Tate appears under a black wig in several episode as a secretary.

My favorite guys were the Cat Burglar (John Ashley) and Sheldon Epps (Alan Reed Jr.). Epps was the son of the rasslin’ promoter (Fred Flintstone).

Baer once said in an interview that during the show he and Irene Ryan spent a good bit of their off time together getting liquored up in various bars.

Irene Ryan's acting in that show is just incredible.

The episode in which Granny boxes the giant jackrabbit, which was really a kangaroo, is still hilarious.

I also love Miss Jane.

Harriet MacGibbon as Margaret Drysdale was PERFECT casting. I always liked the episodes when she appeared. Hilarious?

Agree, R35. I liked her, too.

And her creepy "child" Sonny, with bags under his eyes. And her father, Farquahar, the gambling addict who courted Granny (after her money, of course).

In some ways, socially speaking, the program was DECADES ahead of its time.

Sonny was hilarious, R37.

In an episode about Jed making an oil deal with an Arab, Granny called him...”camel riding sand crawling groomer.” LMAO

Smoking crawdads -- "hard to light and they draw funny."

It was pretty clear everyone involved was having a great time and that translates onto the screen.

Irene Ryan *made* this show. Everyone else is funny but she takes it to a higher level. I can’t imagine anyone else in the role.

The Clampetts Meet Mrs Drysdale:

You got to watch the very end of R45's clip; Jed and Granny do a Winston commercial (Granny sticks the cigarette in her corn pipe!)

[quote]Irene Ryan *made* this show. Everyone else is funny but she takes it to a higher level. I can’t imagine anyone else in the role.

Bea Benaderet, who later played Cousin Pearl, was originally supposed to play Granny, r44. After viewing Irene Ryan's screentest, Bea herself said "There's your Granny".

Mrs. Drysdale embodied all the worst qualities of your typical gay man: materialistic, snobby, elitist, neurotic, hypochondriacal.

[quote]Bea Benaderet, who later played Cousin Pearl, was originally supposed to play Granny

She was also supposed to play Ethel Mertz, but fate stepped in and made the right choice.

Some of us preferred "The Bel-Airabs."

It would have been more realistic for dyky Miss Hathaway to have a crush on Ellie Mae rather than on Jethro.

Bea Benaderet was wonderful but watch the difference in acting styles between her and Buddy Ebsen in the clip at R47.

Ebsen just IS Jed Clampett. Like a time traveller from the 1860s.

Bea Benaderet on the other hand needs to push it. She's playing "at" a character. Buddy Ebsen just is the character.

^In a weird way, Granny Clampett was as real to me as either of my grandmothers, and probably equally influential.

^There is also the strange fact that Anna Moses Robertson, "Grandma Moses, the artist, was at the peak of her fame in the early 60's. Granny Clampett, "Daisy Moses" was actually named for the real 'Grandma Moses', so there was even more ambiguity about the "reality" of the tv character.

Pearl was much more sophisticated than Jed.

[quote]Pearl was much more sophisticated than Jed.

"See voo play!", r57!

[quote]Granny Clampett, "Daisy Moses" was actually named for the real 'Grandma Moses', so there was even more ambiguity about the "reality" of the tv character.

I never heard that before, r56. At one point, Jane learns that Granny isn't a Clampett, but a Moses, and makes a joke. Granny doesn't get it.

What I wouldn't have done to have seen Irene Ryan in Pippin. She died shortly after leaving that show. From vaudeville to tv to Broadway. Audio only:

Granny C sort of resembled "Grandma Moses" physically, and in terms of her clothes, Anna M. Robertson. There are no interviews with Irene Ryan on youtube and I have not seen one in the past 10 years or so. I remember clearly one night when she was a guest on the Sid Caesar Show; I think it came on on Thursday nights. She was interviewed briefly, way less than 10 minutes, and all I remember is that she was smoking, because she put out a cig and the interviewer, Sid, gallantly lit up a second one she already had ready. I know it was an unfiltered one because I remember her removing a little bit of tobacco from it off of the tip of her tongue after she started smoking it. It's funny, what sticks in your memory. I wonder why no one has put that film on youtube? I guess LOTS of tv videotape just got lost, thrown away, or otherwise destroyed. She was a fascinating person, elegantly humble, for someone who had become as famous as she had. She left most or all of her considerable estate to the drama department of Penn State, I think, or one of the Pennsylvania universities.

[quote]She was a fascinating person, elegantly humble, for someone who had become as famous as she had. She left most or all of her considerable estate to the drama department of Penn State, I think, or one of the Pennsylvania universities.

Great memory, r59. Kennedy Center still has an Irene Ryan scholarship.

Here's an old thread about her, begun by a troll, but has some wheat amongst the chaff.

My memory's a bit faint - but I believe the actress who played Miss Jane ran for some kind of political office (she was a liberal), and Buddy Ebsen hated that (or her) so much that he did advertisements against her.

It was always weird and not as good as you would expect when BH, GA and PJ guest starred in different shows. I adore Green Acres too: especially the Arnold Ziffel episodes. When Oliver is referred to as a “pig laywer” is especially hysterical. As a little kid, I admired Jethro because he could drive.

You’re correct, R61. I remember the incident, too.

Country mouse meets city slickers. Old as the caves.

From Nancy Kulp’s Wikipedia page:

Personal life

Kulp married Charles Malcolm Dacus on April 1, 1951, in Dade County, Florida; they divorced in 1961.[27] After her retirement from acting and teaching, she moved first to a farm in Connecticut and later to Palm Springs, California, where she became involved in several charity organizations, including the Humane Society of the Desert, the Desert Theatre League, and United Cerebral Palsy.[5] In 1989, Kulp gave an interview to author and LGBT activist Boze Hadleigh in which she said,

“As long as you reproduce my reply word for word, and the question, you may use it ... I'd appreciate it if you'd let me phrase the question. There is more than one way. Here's how I would ask it: "Do you think that opposites attract?" My own reply would be that I'm the other sort — I find that birds of a feather flock together. That answers your question.”[28]

Hadleigh asserts that Kulp was indicating that she was a lesbian.

Appalachians don't find it funny.

Not trying to kick a dead horse, but re the connection between Granny Clampett and the artist Grandma Moses: the artist Norman Rockwell somehow became acquainted with Anna Moses Robertson before she died (at 103 years old), and included her in his painting "Christmas Homecoming", image linked below. You can see that Grandma Moses was a dead ringer for Daisy Moses. It was a peculiar "in joke" that Granny C. was modeled on a real artist.

[quote]Appalachians don't find it funny.

Yeah, you couldn't do something like the Beverly Hillbillies today, but the hapless rube was a classic in comedy for decades.

The Beverly Hillbillies really just picked up on the Ma & Pa Kettle film series. They were wildly popular.

^The weird thing about all those related shows (Bev., Grn Acres, Petticoat Junction), is that they all relied on an acceptance that somehow vaudeville was a norm of American entertainment at the time they were being broadcast. And it simply wasn't true any more (if it ever WAS true, which I tend to doubt). I think it was 'jaded urban sophisticates' in Hollywood second-guessing their mid-American audience. It was pretty surreal, all around.

Its ratings in the early seasons were phenomenal. According to wiki, it has 16 episodes among the top-rated 100 episodes of any series.

Who was the tv exec that came in and cancelled all the “country” shows?

[quote]The weird thing about all those related shows (Bev., Grn Acres, Petticoat Junction), is that they all relied on an acceptance that somehow vaudeville was a norm of American entertainment at the time they were being broadcast.

I don't see where any of the shows you mention ever gave the impression that Vaudeville still existed.

Vaudeville was a norm of American entertainment but it pretty much ended by the early 1930s.

Many TV viewers in the 1960s could remember Vaudeville and a number of stars that had their start in Vaudeville were still working in the 1960s.

Are hillbillies cut or uncut today?

Were there no Black hillbillies? What about the Eastern Cherokee?

Needed more diversity.

The bulge tho. Max Baer Jr made me gay when I watched this as a child. So, there's that.

Widow Fenwick and her 30 year old daughter, Cynthia - meeting Elly Mae at a snobby girls school was just hilarious.

Max said in an interview that Irene Ryan “smoked like a chimney “

I remember Phil Donahue did a show about the casting couch. Some actress wannabe said that amaz Baer rapped her.

I worked with a WONDERFUL hillbilly of color. She was great. She always joked about it.

Moved back when she had a kid.

^Apparently, an early-70s rapper.

Fifty five episodes are in public domain because Orion Films forgot to renew their ownership after buying out Filmways.

"This has been a Filmways presentation, Dahling!!"

I like that the Cee-mint Pond had its very own musical theme, played whenever the pool was on camera.

Does anybody else get a certain vibe from Miss Jane? I'm hesitant to use that word here on DL, but I think they used to euphemistically refer to people like her as a "spinster".

My gawd, R87, you are way too cautious for DL. Miss Hathaway was clearly someone who was never going o get a man. Nancy Culp was a lesbian and spent her career playing variations of the same character.

Loved the episode where the historian came to interview the Clampetts for some reason and Mrs. Drysdale was annoyed thae *she* wasn't being considered since *her* family arrived on the Mayflower. Turned out the Clampetts had arrived much earlier and the historian tell Mrs. Drysdale (paraphrased), "While your family was sailing into what would become America, the Clampetts were on the shores waving you welcome".

[quote]Appalachians don't find it funny.

The Clampetts were from the Ozarks, not Appalachia.

It's sad that some episodes couldn't be made now, like when the injuns were on the warpath in Beverly Hills. That episode was hilarious and really showcased Ryan's comedic acting skills.

R78 That episode and "The Clampett Look" are two of my favorites. "Your Grace."

Could anyone envision what a "woke" BH would be like these days?

Miss Jane and Granny Walton were on an episode today.

hmmm?

You have to wonder.

I didn't know Ellen Corby was a sister, r94. Great actress. I remember her as Lurch's mother in The Addams Family.

I loved the story about Buddy Ebsen needing a few Gin and Tonics to get into character

[quote] Could anyone envision what a "woke" BH would be like these days?

The Clampetts would be Trumpers.

More about Irene Ryan, including her screen test 60 years ago.

It’s amazing that Ryan was only 60 years old when the show started, and Ebsen was only 54. They both looked ready for the boneyard.

Interesting that the writers of this song questioned Jed’s manliness by having Granny sing, “I can make a man out of Jed.”

My all time favorite comedy series. As a kid, I thought it was hysterical. As an adult, it's still hysterical but on a different level.

So smartly written. The way they could get an entire episode out of a simple misunderstanding was brilliant.

One episode, Sonny Drysdale brings Elly May home from a date. He casually says he'll give her a ring tomorrow as he drives away. Granny hears this and assumes he's giving her an engagement ring. Granny gets all excited and starts prepping for a wedding.

[quote] He casually says he'll give her a ring tomorrow as he drives away. Granny hears this and assumes he's giving her an engagement ring. Granny gets all excited and starts prepping for a wedding.

LOL

Who do we want for Possum Queen? Granny! Granny!

I have always taken Granny's advice to Elly May to eschew eau de cologne in favor of vanilla extract.

I too still love this show and watch it often. I also think Max Baer was a pretty underrated actor. He's always so consistently funny.

Did Jed ever mention Elly May's mother during the course of the series?

Elly May's mother was Rose Ellen Clampett. Rose Ellen was Granny's daughter. She was mentioned a few times, but not often.

I think that because Elly May’s mother abandoned the family to take up with Opie’s mother it was too sensitive a topic for early ‘60s television.

[quote] I think that because Elly May’s mother abandoned the family to take up with Opie’s mother

No wonder Aunt Bee was always so pissed off. She had plans with Miss Hathaway. When they fly out to Hollywood for “Sheriff Without A Gun” she was going to escape with Jane.

"Fish out of water" shows like these usually exhaust their story lines pretty quickly. Even as a kid, the story lines got tiresome and predictable in short order.

I fucking love Mrs. Drysdale. She is everything! Harriet MacGibbon who played her stole every scene she was in. She was hysterical.

Those dreadful hillbillies!

defining every boomer and generation thereafter in one short clip

Wasn’t Jethro’s dad married to Jean Harlow?

Or was he just banging Jean?

Any photos of Jethro lolling around the cee-ment pond in his speedo?

You can catch them smirking after some of the "final" scene jokes.

Not to the SNL level though.

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