The Beverly Hillbillies is an American comedic television series that ran from 1962 to 1971 on CBS. Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. starred as the Clampetts, an impoverished backwoods family from the Ozarks who relocate to wealthy Beverly Hills, California, after discovering oil on their property. The show was conceived by writer Paul Henning and produced by Filmways. On CBS, it was followed by two more Henning-inspired "country cousin" series: Petticoat Junction and its spin-off Green Acres, which inverted The Beverly Hillbillies' rags-to-riches, country-to-city format.
For eight of its nine seasons, The Beverly Hillbillies was among the top 20 most-watched programs on television, twice rating as the number one series of the year, with a handful of episodes that are still among the most-watched television episodes of all time. During its run, it received seven Emmy nominations. The show is still on the air in syndicated repeats, and it was adapted into a film by 20th Century Fox in 1993.
The series
begins with Jed Clampett, a destitute and widowed mountaineer, living
with his daughter and mother-in-law near an oil-rich swamp. The size of
the oil field is discovered by an OK Oil Firm surveyor, and the company
gives him a fortune for the privilege to drill on his land. After
learning that his little farm could yield $25 million, Patriarch Jed's
cousin Pearl Bodine encourages him to migrate to California with her son
Jethro. The family relocates to a house in Beverly Hills, California,
next door to Milburn Drysdale, Jed's banker. The Clampetts convey to the
posh, often self-obsessed, and superficial community a moral, simple,
and minimalistic way of life. The sitcom's humor is based on
double-entendres and cultural misunderstandings. Plots frequently
revolve around Drysdale's extraordinary efforts to retain the Clampetts'
money in his bank. Granny's perception of a slight from one of the
"city dwellers" typically prompts the family's periodic attempts to
return to the mountains.
No comments:
Post a Comment