Beverly Hillbillies

[onlyme]

I have been downloading the episodes from VEOH.  I gotta tell ya, those first season episodes are the funniest comedy shows ever written.  They are fricking hilarious.  I have about 10 episodes downloaded so far.  I watch them late at night.  Some of the lines are gut busting.

[Montague]

I was always a Barney Miller fan. I was able to record a bunch of episodes when Comcast played them On Demand.

What did you think of the B.H. remake with Jim Varney?

I think the writing for a lot of those older shows was brilliant.
They don’t write like that anymore.

Lately, they haven’t been writing anything.
 

[sync pulse]

I have been downloading the episodes from VEOH.  I gotta tell ya, those first season episodes are the funniest comedy shows ever written.  They are fricking hilarious.  I have about 10 episodes downloaded so far.  I watch them late at night.  Some of the lines are gut busting.

There is the unwritten rule of television series, "the first two seasons are the best,"

and really, for the most part, it is true.  Almost any series you can think of it applies.
Of course, someone will cite the "Simpson's", its the exceptions that throw the rest into sharp relief.

[sync pulse]

Interestingly, Paul Henning, the producer did not allow ANY latitude for improvisation.  Every scene had to conform to dialog as written.  I have forgotten who the dialect coach was, but he was brilliant.  He appeared once on the Carson show and went through all his dialects, amazing.

[sync pulse]

If you like clever dialog, get "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum".
The dialog was written by the same guy who wrote much of the dialog for the series "MASH."

It also makes me wish that Zero Mostel had been able to make more movies.

[Decker]

I have been downloading the episodes from VEOH.  I gotta tell ya, those first season episodes are the funniest comedy shows ever written.  They are fricking hilarious.  I have about 10 episodes downloaded so far.  I watch them late at night.  Some of the lines are gut busting.

You're not kidding.  I grew up on that show.  Jethro is gold.  He wanted to be an international spy so the asswipe taped a transistor radio to the bottom of his shoe.  I guess when the show ran originally, it was the no. 1 show in the country.

[Doug_Steele]

I have only liked the one with Dave Draper in it.

[Flex 215]

You're not kidding.  I grew up on that show.  Jethro is gold.  He wanted to be an international spy so the asswipe taped a transistor radio to the bottom of his shoe.  I guess when the show ran originally, it was the no. 1 show in the country.

          Even when it was cancelled, it was still in the top 10 or 12 of all shows. I think it was CBS in 1970, that cancelled all it's " soft shows."  The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Petticoat junction were all still top 25 shows and very popular. But CBS wanted to put on more hard-edged programing to fit the new decade.

         I loved the Beverly Hillibillies and Green Acres, but one of the new shows they put out in 1971 was " All in the Family." The first six seasons of this were very good, I have them all on dvd. And the first 4 seasons were absolute classic, when Archie and Meathead would go at it.

        And Jethro could never decide whether to be a Double-knott Spy, short-order cook or a brain surgeon. After all he had a " prett-near 6th grade education." Each grade kept promoting him to get rid of him, and he graduated grade school in one day. He was the first Clampett to go that far in school. Jethro also tried to be a modeling agent and a big-time Hollywood producer. The show where he tries for the Los Angeles Dodgers with Leo Durocer is a classic too.

        Old sitcoms are great.

[Andy Griffin]

          Even when it was cancelled, it was still in the top 10 or 12 of all shows. I think it was CBS in 1970, that cancelled all it's " soft shows."  The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Petticoat junction were all still top 25 shows and very popular. But CBS wanted to put on more hard-edged programing to fit the new decade.

         

Actually, what happened was that in 1971, CBS wanted to move away from its "rural" programming due to the perceived notion that only "city folk" respond to advertising.  Pat Buttram, who played Mr. Haney in "Green Acres," bitterly describes 1971 as the year "CBS cancelled any show with a tree in it." 

Hee Haw was cancelled by CBS in 1971, but lived another 20 years in syndication.  I guess those fudgepackers at CBS didn't quite know everything there was to know. 

[Geo]

if I were jethro I would have jumped all over Ellie may..........sister or not !