The Beverly Hillbillies

Of Fallen Kings and Giant Jackrabbits

How some wacky Beverly Hillbillies episodes set all time ratings records, possibly for surprisingly serious reasons

The Beverly Hillbillies, "The Giant Jackrabbit"
OB: January 8, 1964, 9 p.m. EST, CBS
I was born six days after this episode first aired.

The Beverly Hillbillies, "The Girl From Home"
OB: January 15, 1964, 9 p.m. EST, CBS
I was one day old when this episode first aired.

Critic Cleveland Amory reviewed TV shows for TV Guide from 1962 to 1976, everything from The Fugitive to Gilligan's Island (and you can probably guess what he thought of each).

But my favorite review I ever read from him, was a very unlikely review of The Beverly Hillbillies.  Best as I can recall, Amory started off for a couple of paragraphs describing what all was wrong with the show, and it was a laundry list (silly, ridiculous characters, etc. like most of the other TV critics of the time...most critics hated the show), then surprisingly for the next several paragraphs, Amory goes on and on about the one good thing about the show.  He made it clear, it was funny.  It was belly laugh funny, and he  compared it, for instance, to newspaper comic strips back in the day.  Then in the final paragraph, he blasts the producers for making the characters do commercials for the sponsor's products.  (He doesn't mention them by name, but they were Winston Cigarettes and Kellogg's Corn Flakes.)

So, in the span of a single review, we actually see Cleveland Amory start off complaining about the show, growing to like it, then loving the characters to the point that he's suddenly protective of them.  And that, as good as anything else, to me sums up one reason why The Beverly Hillbillies was the biggest runaway TV hit of the early 1960s.  The year I was born, it was the number one show on television, for its second straight season, and its second season on the air, despite most other critics vehemently trying to steer us away.

Sure, all of those complaints were valid.  The characters were all rather cartoonish, not just most of the Clampetts, but even Mr. Drysdale, the gravel-voiced banker played by Raymond Bailey.  The story lines could be silly, the humor often politically incorrect by today's standards (and raising eyebrows even then).  Even CBS chairman and founder William S. Paley hated it, and his network president, Jim Aubrey, may have even put it on the schedule just to spite Paley.  And I could see how, if I founded the "Tiffany"  network and it was known for bringing Edward R. Murrow and Playhouse 90 to America, seeing a bunch of hillbillies running around on that network discussing corn squeezins' and hog jowls, along with critters ending up in the cement pond, could be a bit jarring.

But Amory was right, it was very funny.  The show took a simple idea and ran with it: a bunch of nice but ill-educated hillbillies from the hills around the Arkansas/Tennessee border, strike oil and end up living along the big playground of the 1% that is Beverly Hills.  (I'm a college educated man in a professional career, and the one time I ever actually drove through Beverly Hills, when I was 35, I was just as confused as the Clampetts.)   Funnier still, they always use life back home as their reference point, and apparently thought the whole world lived just like the way they did back home.  For instance, in both of the episodes I watched for this piece, they're under the impression "Beverly Caterers" is the name of a "widder woman" who "fixes vittles" by request, and assume she cooks possum on a regular basis.

And the writers never passed judgment on either the Clampetts or the rich people who interacted with them. (Well, O.K., maybe a little more judgment on the rich, especially when they realized the rubes they were talking to, were worth some $30 million.) What the show lacked in character development and sophistication, it made up for in comic timing and clever wordplay. Consider this exchange from the episode "The Girl From Home," as the Clampetts talk to a Rodeo Drive jeweler:

Granny: Them red diamonds is pretty.
Jeweler: They're rubies.
Granny: Well, ask her if she wants to sell one.
Jeweler: The ruby I'm referring to is not a lady.
Granny: How she got them rings is her business!

Some 50 years later, that exchange still makes me laugh out loud, as I just did when I wrote it down.

If that dialogue makes you think of Gracie Allen, there's a good reason for that.  The show's creator, Paul Henning, actually wrote for The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, and Gracie often delivered memorable lines just like that.  Another Burns and Allen alumnus, Al Simon, was the show's executive producer for years. They even brought over a Burns and Allen regular, Bea Benederet, as Jethro's mother, Pearl (before she left for her own series, Petticoat Junction). Henning and Simon also worked on The Bob Cummings Show, and used one of that show's semi-regulars, Nancy Kulp, in the regular role as  Milburn Drysdale's executive secretary, Jane Hathaway. (Cummings himself would also be a guest star at one point.)

The pedigree for the Clampett clan doesn't suggest an Ozark mountain background at all. Buddy Ebsen, who played Jed Clampett, was a longtime song and dance man, who was supposed to be the Tin Man in "The Wizard of Oz," but was replaced after an allergy to the silver makeup put him in the hospital.  Ebsen's role as Jed Clampett followed his Oscar-nominated part in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."  Before she played Granny Daisy Moses, Irene Ryan was a surprisingly lovely comedienne and singer, who co-hosted a 1930s radio show with her first husband, Tim, and toured with Bob Hope.  Donna Douglas, as Jed's daughter Elly May, had a string of TV guest appearances, including 77 Sunset Strip, Route 66, and two episodes of The Twilight Zone, most notably a rather haunting plot twist in the episode "Eye of the Beholder."  Max Baer Jr., son of a heavyweight boxing champ, had his own string of guest appearances, including Maverick and Sugarfoot, before he played Pearl's son and Jed's nephew, Jethro.

The fact that this was the number one show on television still doesn't fully describe the degree that this was a ratings juggernaut. As of 2009, 13 of the 100 highest-rated TV shows of all time were episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies.  In fact, in that same list (and I doubt this distinction has changed much since then), the highest rated half hour of all time is still an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies.  Actually, so is the second highest rated half hour broadcast of all time, and those happen to be the two I'm writing about.  (That's if you measure by ratings.  If you measure by number of measured households, that highest rated Beverly Hillbillies drops to fourth place, behind a 1987 Cosby Show and two 1972 episodes of All in the Family.)

In fact, if I'm reading the list right, that highest rated Beverly Hillbillies, was, at the time, the highest rated TV show of all time.  Let me say that again.  An otherwise normal episode of The Beverly Hillbillies was the highest rated show of all time at that time.  (That particular record would hold up for only a month, when the Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show would surpass it.)

So what happened in this episode that drew in all of these eyeballs? A wedding?  Did someone have a baby? Did a "will they or won't they" couple suddenly stare at each other and start making out wildly?  Did a character die or say goodbye?  A big guest star?  Did a war end?  Did a villain find out who shot him?  Did a man on the run finally catch a one-armed man?

No, the only thing the January 8, 1964 episode of The Beverly Hillbillies had that the others didn't...was a kangaroo.  That "critter" was the star of that wacky, legendary Warner Brothers cartoon come-to-life that was..."The Giant Jackrabbit."

It begins with Jethro trying to teach perpetually lazy dog Duke, to fetch a stick...in vain.  Jethro even throws it and brings it back on all fours, with his teeth, to demonstrate.

Jethro:  You know something Uncle Jed?  That there is a dumb dog.
Jed: Well, I don't think he's so dumb, Jethro, he just learnt you to fetch sticks for him.

I definitely see Amory's point about old-school comic strips.

Then Granny shows up and bemoans the fact that they can't find food for supper.  Even at this late date, they haven't gotten the hang of having food delivered or shopping in markets, their palettes being accustomed to the wild game of the Ozarks.

Granny: Elly May's done made pets out of everything but my pickled turnips.

Then Jed remembers "some folks that would fetch food right over to us," someone named "Beverly Caterer." The Clampetts think it's right neighborly of her to help out.

What happens next makes this episode a true comedy classic.  The phone call is a hillbilly version of an old Bob Newhart-type comedy routine, where we only hear one end of a phone conversation.  First Jed calls directory assistance ("Oh, Caterers, huh?," stressing the "s' sound, "Sounds like the widder's got some young 'uns to help her.")

Then Jed reaches a young lady he assumes is "Beverly."

Jed: If you ever need some fence-mending or a well dug or anything at all, you just call on Jethro and me and we'll help any way we can.

Then Granny takes the phone and asks "Beverly" "Whatcha got on the back of the stove today?...I'm partial to baked possum, but we'll take jowls, or fatback, or sow belly, any kind of meat, our pleasure is considerable...what's that?  A bunch of nuts?  Well you can send them along, but I'll tell you right now, the critters'll get the bulk of 'em."

"Beverly" then says something that gives the Clampetts the impression she has a nasty temper.  That's when Granny spots one of Elly May's "critters," a chimpanzee dressed in human clothing, eating something he just found in their refrigerator.

Granny:  Come back here you little varmint!  Get your paw-paw pickin' paws off my pickled paw-paws!

Jed (calling "Beverly" back): Jethro's gone out to hunt us some fresh game meat, the monkey's got in the ice box and Granny's right upset.  Now Beverly, could you spare us a jar of pickled paw-paws?  (after she turns nasty and hangs up again)  I'm beginning to wonder if Mr. Caterer passed on natural or not!

Cut to the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills, and the office of its president, Milburn Drysdale.  His secretary, Miss Hathaway, says Mrs. Drysdale is upset because of a kangaroo on the premises, sent to him by a banker stationed in Melbourne, as a joke. Since the Drysdales live next door to the Clampetts, and we see the Drysdale's butler arrive at the crate only to find out the kangaroo has broken out, we know what's likely to happen next.

Sure enough, Granny spots the kangaroo and thinks it's the biggest jackrabbit she's ever seen.  Sure enough, she runs to tell Jed, who then comes out to find it gone and assumes Granny's been in her moonshine again. This repeats itself a few times, each time Granny greeting him with "Why hello Mr. Jackrabbit!"  At one point Jed tells Granny he sees a bunch of them, one's pink, one's purple, one has polka-dots, and one just told him that Granny should go in and lie down.  As she does, Jed gets back on the phone with Beverly Caterers.

Jed: I ain't calling for any vittles, it's just that Granny's laying down with a right smart headache.  I was wondering whether you could fix a poultice?  Tell her to do what?  Well, I don't hardly see how that could help a headache!

Eventually, Mr. Drysdale finds out about the conflicts with Beverly Caterers and calls them to straighten everything out.  So "Beverly," her employer Mr. Tinsman, and a van full of goodies find their way to the Clampett mansion.

Tinsman:  I own Beverly Caterers!
Jed (flabbergasted) The dickens you say!  Can you do that out here?
Tinsman: Mr. Drysdale holds a small mortgage, but as soon as that's paid off, she's all mine!

(Note: as I said earlier, political correctness was NOT one of The Beverly Hillbillies' strengths.)

Meanwhile, Granny (or her stunt double, Jerry Brutsche, a man who also did similar duty for Don Knotts)
actually boxes the kangaroo, then eventually ropes him and brings him to the kitchen. Only when she makes it inside, it's the chimpanzee that's on the other end of the rope.  Naturally, "Beverly" and boss flee the scene, as does the kangaroo, which returns to its crate, with the Drysdales and their butler noticing he's apparently frightened of something.

And that, my friends, is to this day, the highest rated half hour in television history.

The second highest rated was the one that aired the following week, "The Girl From Home," the first Beverly Hillbillies episode to air in my conscious lifetime.

This might be a good place to mention another unique thing about The Beverly Hillbillies:  it made innovative use of story arcs.  Granted it wasn't the first sitcom to tell stories that way (that would likely be I Love Lucy when the gang went to Hollywood) but just about every episode had some kind of direct link to the episode either before and/or after it.  "The Girl From Home" continues one arc ("Beverly Caterers" makes a return) and starts another, featuring a scheming friend from home, Lafe Crick.

Lafe (played by veteran character actor Peter Whitney, often a heavy in B-movies) shows up in his Model A Ford, banging on the Clampetts' front door.  He claims Jethro proposed marriage to his daughter, Essie Belle, writing letters to her back home.  Apparently she'd won a beauty contest and the letter writing started then.  It becomes obvious quickly this is a back door way to siphon off some of the Clampetts' millions. (Suspense was also never this show's strong suit.)  This episode is notable for featuring not one, but two recurrences of Jed's catch phrase about Jethro, "Someday, I'm going to have to have a looooooong talk with that boy!"

When Lafe confronts Jethro, he has trouble remembering anything like a proposal of marriage.  "Give him a chance to think, Lafe, it's not something that comes easy to him," his Uncle Jed implores.  As we find out later in the episode, Lafe thinks "Dear Essie Belle" amounts to love talk, which makes Jethro concerned that "I'm in trouble with a lot of women!  And some men, too!"

Lafe: Why don't you go down to one of those Beverly Hills jewelry stores and buy something nice?
Jethro: O.K., and then I'll get something for Essie Belle, too!

Jethro starts getting used to the idea of marrying Essie Belle, despite Jed's and Granny's misgivings, and despite his own desire to finish sixth grade and become a brain surgeon.

Granny: Are you sure you're ready to give Essie Belle Crick your name?
Jethro: Yeah, if she wants it, but Jethro seems like a right poor name for a girl.

So they load up on the truck and head to the jewelry stores on Rodeo Drive, and the aforementioned scene full of that "lost in translation" dialogue.  The jeweler comes up with a ring in which he says he gave them ten carats. "After the money he spent, he deserves at least a smoked ham!" sniffs Granny.  The jeweler then invites the Clampetts back for more carats.

Jed: You sure are generous with your vegetables!
Jeweler: So are you...because you're about to give me a lot of cabbage!

While the Clampetts are gone, Lafe returns with Essie Belle, who, as we see, has a bit of a weight problem. It seems after the beauty contest, her boyfriend back home, Mel Pratt, fattened her up so she could help him clear his acre of land.  The Clampetts drive up, followed shortly by "Beverly" in her van.  It turns out she and Jethro have been going out every night.

Jethro: Every day, after work, she picks me up, we drive up into the hills and park and watch the sun go down.  And then you know what we do?
Jed: Elly May, go on in the house. (she does) Then what do you do, boy?
Jethro (excitedly): What we do, we climb into the back of the truck and eat all the vittles that's left!

When Jethro meets Essie Belle, he first says "excuse me ma'am," and continues to look for her.  When she introduces herself, Jethro makes a run for it.  Fortunately, Jed eventually gets the truth about Essie Belle's boyfriend back home and some of the things her daddy told her not to say about the Clampetts' wealth, and Lafe's plot unravels.  But since this is the beginning of a story arc, this isn't the last we've heard of Lafe Crick.

These record-setting ratings for such a wacky, slapstick comedy may have their roots in something surprisingly serious.

Of the 13 highly rated Beverly Hillbillies episodes, ten of them came from the weeks and months following the Kennedy assassination.  A number of psychologists and sociologists say it may actually be a reaction to the trauma and the period of mourning, an emotional release, with large numbers of people finding comfort in something simple and familiar.  They often point to a brief television nostalgia boom that popped up shortly after 9/11, for instance.  And that could be part of it, to be honest.  But another part, again, could the use of story arcs, hooking viewers and bringing them back for more laughs next week.  (Edit: Also, right about the time I was born, there was a huge snowstorm that was the worst part of an apparently bitterly cold winter.  It could be something as simple as, more people staying at home, indoors, in front of the set.  But I would think that would've caused a rise in far more shows' ratings than this one.)

But still, let's not forget the show was just plain funny.  During those first three black and white seasons, when the Clampetts tried to figure out the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and vice versa, it was just funny.  When the show reached its color years, the writing became inconsistent, sometimes boring, sometimes retreads of earlier ideas, sometimes even tasteless to the point of offensive, like that poorly handled "women's lib" story arc in the show's final season, 1970-71.  (But that season also gave us a nice, holiday-themed crossover with Green Acres and the already cancelled Petticoat Junction, that's fondly remembered by classic TV fans.)

Whatever it was about those earliest years--the girls at the exclusive girls' school, for instance, suddenly showing up for class dressed like Elly May because they were terrified about possibly missing a new trend; or Jed's mistaken belief "golfs" are "critters" who lay very hard eggs, live in holes in the ground and have to be beaten with specially-made clubs--something about all of that, just spoke to us, collectively, apparently at a time everyone just needed a damn good, hard, dumb, silly, communal, cathartic laugh, like never before.

Availability: Ignore the numerous "public domain" DVD releases.  Paul Henning's estate released "The Beverly Hillbillies: the Ultimate Collection," which takes care of Season 1; The "official" releases cover 2, 3 and the show's first color season, 4, that last one being a Walmart exclusive.

Next time on this channel: Ben Casey Route 66.