10 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ – Wide Open Country – Weirdness Wednesdays January 12, 2022

Here’s a nice post for this week’s Weirdness Wednesday post; saw it recently on 10 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’: https://www.wideopencountry.com/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-beverly-hillbillies/. Slightly longer article, but I included the topics below. This started after someone asked me where the Beverly Hillbillies were from. He thought Arkansas. I didn’t know, but

BY COURTNEY FOX

The Beverly Hillbillies is one of the most beloved TV shows in American history. The CBS sitcom told the story of The Clampett family and their hilariously fast ascension from abject rural poverty to incredible wealth in Los Angeles, California thanks to the discovery of oil on their land. After Christmas came early for the Clampetts, Elly May, Granny (played by Irene Ryan), Jethro Bodine (not to be confused with Jethrine) and family patriarch Jed Clampett up and moved to Beverly Hills. From there, they encountered all sorts of craziness involving swimming pools (or cement ponds) and Oldsmobiles that looked like they barely worked.

From The Beverly Hillbillies to Green Acres and Petticoat Junction, Hollywood loved making shows about rural folks in the 1960s. It was made even more comical watching the fictional family’s neighbor and banker Milburn Drysdale (played by Raymond Bailey) and his loyal secretary Jane Hathaway (played by Nancy Kulp) assisting them with their massive fortune.

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1. ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ rose to number one in the ratings faster than any show ever

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2. John Wayne had a cameo in an episode and was paid with a fifth of bourbon

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3. The show’s theme song, ‘The Ballad of Jed Clampett,’ was a huge hit on the Billboard Charts

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4. Jed Clampett was almost someone else on and off-screen

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5. Donna Douglas is a blue jeans icon

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6. The Beverly Hillbillies came from Missouri

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7. The Clampetts were rich, but not billionaires

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8. The show was almost set in New York, not Los Angeles

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9. The series was ultimately canceled in something referred to as ‘The Rural Purge’

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10. Granny’s real name was Daisy Moses

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Other Weirdness Wednesdays posts: https://upsdownsfamilyhistory.wordpress.com/tag/Weirdness-Wednesdays/