Jed Rescues Pearl
The Beverly Hillbillies - Season 1, Episode 15 (1963) - Jed Rescues Pearl - Paul Henning
The Beverly Hillbillies is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor, backwoods family from the hills of Tennessee, who move to posh Beverly Hills, California, after striking oil on their land. The show was produced by Filmways and was created by Paul Henning. It was followed by two other Henning-inspired "country cousin" series on CBS: Petticoat Junction and its spin-off Green Acres, which reversed the rags-to-riches, country-to-city model of The Beverly Hillbillies.
The Beverly Hillbillies ranked among the top 20 most-watched programs on television for eight of its nine seasons, ranking as the No. 1 series of the year during its first two seasons, with 16 episodes that still remain among the 100 most-watched television episodes in American history.[1] It accumulated seven Emmy nominations during its run. It remains in syndicated reruns, and its ongoing popularity spawned a 1993 film adaptation by 20th Century Fox.[2]
Premise[edit]
The series starts with Jed Clampett, an impoverished and widowed hillbilly living alongside an oil-rich swamp with his daughter and mother-in-law. The start of each episode shows Jed discovering oil while shooting at a rabbit. However, in the first episode the oil is discovered by a surveyor for the OK Oil Company who realizes the size of the oil field, and the company pays him a fortune for the right to drill on his land. Patriarch Jed's cousin Pearl Bodine prods him to move to California after being told his modest property could yield millions of dollars, and pressures him into taking her son Jethro along. The family moves into a mansion in wealthy Beverly Hills, California, next door to Jed's banker, Milburn Drysdale, and his wife, Margaret, who has zero tolerance for hillbillies.
The Clampetts bring a moral, unsophisticated, and minimalistic lifestyle to the swanky, sometimes self-obsessed and superficial community. Double entendres and cultural misconceptions are the core of the sitcom's humor. Plots often involve Drysdale's outlandish efforts to keep the Clampetts' money in his bank, and his wife's efforts to rid the neighborhood of "those hillbillies". The family's periodic attempts to return to the mountains are often prompted by Granny's perceiving a slight from one of the "city folk".
Characters[edit]
Three of the main characters – Jed, Granny and Elly May – appear in all 274 episodes. Jethro (272 episodes) is not in the last two episodes of the series, having gone into hiding to avoid an anticipated marriage proposal.
Jed Clampett[edit]
Jed Clampett (portrayed by Buddy Ebsen), has little formal education and is completely naïve about the world outside the area where he lives, but has a great deal of wisdom and common sense. His forebears are revealed in series 1 episode 25 to have come to America before the Mayflower arrived. However he later denies this to keep Mrs. Drysdale happy. He is the widower of Granny's daughter, Rose Ellen (though Buddy Ebsen was only 5 years Irene Ryan's junior). He is the son of Luke Clampett and his wife, and has a sister called Myrtle. In episode 13 it is revealed that his grandfather was 98 when he married his grandmother who was 18. Jed is a good-natured man and the head of the family. In a very early episode Jed tells Elly May that she is the spitting image of her mother. The huge oil pool in the swamp he owned was the beginning of his rags-to-riches journey to Beverly Hills. He is usually the straight man to Granny and Jethro's antics. His catchphrase is, "Welllllll, doggies!"[3]
Granny[edit]
Daisy May Moses (portrayed by Irene Ryan in all 274 episodes), called "Granny" by all, is Jed's mother-in-law, so is often called "Granny Clampett" in spite of her last name, and despite the fact that in the pilot episode Milburn Drysdale refers to her as Jed's mother. She is a descendant of the Moses clan who taught her feuding when the Moses drove the Bodkins out of Napoleon, Tennessee. She has an abrasive personality and is quick to anger, but is often overruled by Jed. She is a devout Confederate and fancies herself a Baptist Christian ("dunked, not sprinkled") with forgiveness in her heart. A self-styled "M.D." ("mountain doctor"), Granny uses her "white lightning" brew as a form of anesthesia when commencing painful treatments such as leech bleeding and using pliers for teeth-pulling. Like the other Clampetts, she is known to take things literally, having thought Mrs. Drysdale had turned herself into a bird using black magic (astrology) and mistook an escaped kangaroo for a giant jackrabbit (but failed to convince anyone of its existence).
Paul Henning discarded the idea of making Granny Jed's mother, which would have changed the show's dynamics, making Granny the matriarch and Jed her subordinate.
Elly May Clampett[edit]
Elly May (portrayed by Donna Douglas in all 274 episodes), the only child of Jed and Rose Ellen Clampett, is a mountain beauty with the body of a pin-up girl and the soul of a tomboy. In a very early episode Jed tells Elly May that she is the spitting image of her mother. She can throw a fastball and "wrassle" most men to a fall, and she can be as tender with her friends, animals, and family as she is tough with anyone she wrassles. She says once that animals can be better companions than people, but as she grows older, she allows that, "fellas kin be more fun than critters." In addition to the family dog, Duke (an old Bloodhound), a number of pets live on the Clampett estate thanks to animal-lover Elly. In the 1981 TV movie, Elly May is the head of a zoo.
Elly is a terrible cook. Family members cringe whenever, for plot reasons, Elly takes over the kitchen.
Jethro Bodine[edit]
Jethro (portrayed by Max Baer Jr. in 272 episodes) is the dim-witted son of Jed's cousin, Pearl Bodine (in a customary generational practice, he addresses Jed – his once removed elder cousin – as "Uncle Jed", just as his second cousin, Elly May, addresses Pearl as "Aunt Pearl"). Pearl's mother and Jed's father were siblings.[4] He drives the Clampett family to their new home in California and stays on with them to further his education. In the first series he is in the fifth grade, having spent three years in the fourth grade and two years in the first grade. He went to Oxford school and this is confused with Oxford University. The others boast of Jethro's education, in later series it is referred to as his "sixth-grade education"; Jethro himself often speaks enthusiastically of his abilities in "cipherin'" (1 and 1 is 2, 2 and 2 is 4), and "gazintas" (4 gazinta 8 2 times, 3 gazinta 12 4 times). However, he is ignorant about nearly every aspect of modern California life. In one episode, he decides to go to college. He enrolls late in the semester at a local secretarial school and "earns" his diploma by the end of the day because he is so disruptive. This was an ironic in-joke – in real life, Max Baer Jr. has a bachelor's degree in business administration, minoring in philosophy, from Santa Clara University.[5][6]
Many story lines involve Jethro's endless career search. He once deliberated over becoming a brain surgeon or a fry cook. His other ambitions included being a millwright, street car conductor, "double-naught" spy, telephone lineman, soda jerk, chauffeur, USAF general, sculptor, restaurant owner (with Granny's cooking), psychiatrist, and once as a bookkeeper for Milburn Drysdale's bank; an agent for "cousin" Bessie and "Cousin Roy" (see below); Hollywood producer (a studio flunky remarks Jethro has the "right qualifications" for being a producer: a sixth-grade education and an uncle who owns the studio; this in-joke gag as a movie producer was replayed in the 1981 movie). More often than not, his overall goal in these endeavors is to meet pretty girls. He only manages to gain (but is oblivious to) the affections of the plain Miss Jane Hathaway. Of all the Clampett clan, he is the most eager to embrace city life. A running gag is that Jethro is known as the "six-foot stomach" for his huge appetite; in one episode, he eats a jetliner's entire supply of steaks, and in another, Jethro tries to set himself up as a Hollywood agent for cousin "Bessie" the chimpanzee – with a fee of 10,000 bananas for Bessie and 1,000 for him. Another time when "Cousin Roy" (guest star Roy Clark) came from "the hills" to Beverly Hills so as to become a County Music star, Jethro refused to be his agent when Roy became a success. The only time Jethro actually succeded in anything is when a group of teenage Girl Scouts visiting the Clampetts’ mansion had to jump into the cement pond when they were attacked by ants; Jethro got a "Livesaving badge" for rescuing one of the female scouts. Jethro does not appear in the third- or second-to-last episodes, but Baer remains billed in the title credits.
With the January 2015 death of Donna Douglas, Baer is the only surviving main cast member.[7]
Milburn Drysdale[edit]
Mr. Drysdale (portrayed by Raymond Bailey in 247 episodes) is the Clampetts' banker, confidant, and next-door neighbor. He is obsessed with money, and to keep the Clampetts' $96,000,000 (in 1969; equivalent to $709,372,051 in 2021) in his Commerce Bank, Mr. Drysdale will do everything he can to cater to their every wish. He often forces others, especially his long-suffering secretary, to help fulfill their outlandish requests. He is a descendant of the Bodkins family from Tennessee. It is revealed in the first season that Granny's clan, the Moses family, feuded with the Bodkinses and drove them from Napoleon, Tennessee.
Jane Hathaway[edit]
Jane Hathaway (portrayed by Nancy Kulp in 246 episodes), whom the Clampetts address as "Miss Jane", is Drysdale's loyal, highly educated, and efficient secretary. Though she reluctantly carries out his wishes, she is genuinely fond of the family and tries to shield them from her boss's greed. Miss Hathaway frequently has to "rescue" Drysdale from his schemes, receiving little or no thanks for her efforts. The Clampetts consider her family; even Granny, the one most dead-set against living in California, likes her very much. Jane harbors something of a crush on Jethro for most of the series' run. In 1999, TV Guide ranked Jane Hathaway number 38 on its list titled "50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time".[8]
Episodes[edit]
| Season | Episodes | Originally aired | Rank | Rating | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First aired | Last aired | |||||
| 1 | 36 | September 26, 1962 | May 29, 1963 | 1 | 36.0 | |
| 2 | 36 | September 25, 1963 | June 10, 1964 | 1 | 39.1 | |
| 3 | 34 | September 23, 1964 | June 9, 1965 | 12 | 25.6 | |
| 4 | 32 | September 15, 1965 | May 18, 1966 | 7 | 25.9[9] | |
| 5 | 30 | September 14, 1966 | April 19, 1967 | 7 | 23.4[10] | |
| 6 | 30 | September 6, 1967 | April 3, 1968 | 12 | 23.3 | |
| 7 | 26 | September 25, 1968 | March 26, 1969 | 10 | 23.5 | |
| 8 | 26 | September 24, 1969 | March 18, 1970 | 18 | 21.7 | |
| 9 | 24 | September 15, 1970 | March 23, 1971 | — | — | |
Theme music[edit]
The show's theme song, "The Ballad of Jed Clampett", was written by producer and writer Paul Henning[11] and originally performed by bluegrass artists Foggy Mountain Boys, led by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. The song is sung by Jerry Scoggins (backed by Flatt and Scruggs) over the opening and end credits of each episode. Flatt and Scruggs subsequently cut their own version of the theme (with Flatt singing) for Columbia Records; released as a single, it reached number 44 on Billboard Hot 100 pop music chart and number one on the Billboard Hot Country chart (the lone country chart-topper for the duo).
Perry Botkin composed many songs for The Beverly Hillbillies. Botkin's upbeat tune from Murder by Contract, played during scenes of sunny LA, signaled scenes at the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills.
The six main cast members participated on a 1963 Columbia soundtrack album, which featured original song numbers in character. Additionally, Ebsen, Ryan, and Douglas each made a few solo recordings following the show's success, including Ryan's 1966 novelty single, "Granny's Miniskirt".
The series generally features no country music beyond the bluegrass banjo theme song, although country star Roy Clark and the team of Flatt and Scruggs occasionally play on the program. Pop singer Pat Boone appears in one episode as himself, under the premise that he hails from the same area of the country as the Clampetts, although Boone is a native of Jacksonville, Florida.
The 1989 film UHF featured a "Weird Al" Yankovic parody music video, "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*", combining "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" and English rock band Dire Straits' 1985 hit song "Money for Nothing".
Reception[edit]
The Beverly Hillbillies received generally poor reviews from contemporary critics. The New York Times called the show "strained and unfunny"; Variety called it "painful to sit through".[12] Film professor Janet Staiger writes that "the problem for these reviewers was that the show confronted the cultural elite's notions of quality entertainment."[12] The show did receive a somewhat favorable review from noted critic Gilbert Seldes in the December 15, 1962 TV Guide: "The whole notion on which The Beverly Hillbillies is founded is an encouragement to ignorance... But it is funny. What can I do?"[13][14]
Regardless of the poor reviews, the show shot to the top of the Nielsen ratings shortly after its premiere and stayed there for several seasons. During its first two seasons, it was the number-one program in the U.S; during its second season, it earned some of the highest ratings ever recorded for a half-hour sitcom. The season-two episode "The Giant Jackrabbit" also became the most-watched telecast up to the time of its airing, and remains the most-watched half-hour episode of a sitcom, as well. The series enjoyed excellent ratings throughout its run, although it had fallen out of the top 20 most-watched shows during its final season.
In 1997, the season-three episode "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood" was ranked number 62 on "TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time".[15]
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