December 6, 2019 • 40 mins
In the early 1970's, CBS axed its slate of hit country-themed sitcoms. The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction were just three of the shows that bought the farm. Mo talks to Linda Henning (star of Petticoat Junction), author Sara Eskridge and TV critic Alan Sepinwall about the sitcom slaughter.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
On the evening of January eighth, four, nearly half of
American households tuned to their TV sets to CBS for
an epic matchup. No, it was huge at the Juggernauts.
It was a classic one. No, it wasn't Muhammad Ali
versus Sunny. Listen, I don't accom peaceable or do I
(00:28):
have to take you? It was a fight between a
feisty grandmother and a kangaroo she had mistaken for a
giant jack rabbit. Giant jack rabbits. I had him card.
This was the actual premise of an episode of the
classic sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies. And while it may seem preposterous,
(00:53):
you have to understand this aired less than two months
after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In fact,
earlier that same day, the new President, Lyndon Johnson delivered
his first State of the Union address to a still
traumatized nation. And you know, here's this little old, you know,
hillbilly lady confused by what of kangaroo is? You don't
(01:15):
get more escapist than that. The Beverly Hillbillies, a classic
fish out of water story featuring the Backwoods Clampet family
who Strike It Rich went on to become one of
the most successful sitcoms of all time, averaging upwards of
fifty million viewers during its run, the kind of numbers
(01:37):
you never see today outside of Super Bowl profits. Sword
and CBS greenlit a whole host of new shows catering
to audiences who couldn't get enough of country themed programming.
(01:59):
This was the height of rural representation on network TV.
JE Manhattan, just give me that country shid. But by
the end of the decade, the network put the Clampet
clan and all of their country cousins out to pasture.
These city folks don't want our tang around I whatever,
put that notion in your here. They even put down
(02:21):
Lassie anything in the country, anything that was not in
a city with breaking concrete, Bye bye. In this episode,
we'll investigate what caused the largest slaughter in sitcom history
and meet the man who wielded the axe. He and
I literally whacked the hell out of that schedule and
(02:45):
cancel about a dozen and a half shows from CBS
Sunday Morning and Simon and Schuster. I'm Morocca and this
is Mobituaries, This mobid, the rural purge March sixteenth, nine
(03:08):
death of the country broadcasting system Big Wheels had the
network started spinning. The verdict was that heha had to
go to city slickers don't believe in grinning and who
(03:30):
the heckniques jokes and coma. That's Hehaw co host and
country music legend Roy Clark singing about the rural purge
in n two, one year after CBS canceled the musical
variety show, consigning it to syndication. They canceled all the
singing and the picking, but the scubborn little Donkey wouldn't leave,
(03:55):
and then little Fella is still alive and kicking. That
song is is smart, it's satirical. I mean it's about
the rural purge. I think it's about rural people in
general feeling left behind. And I think this is them saying,
you know, the networks don't care about us, like we're forgotten,
(04:17):
and this is a show that remembers that we're here.
Sarah s. Gridge hails from Virginia and wrote a book
all about the sitcom slaughter route to CBS and rural
comedies in the nineteen sixties, And so how much TV
did you have to watch to write this book. I
was watching about four hours a day over the course
of about a year, year and a half. So basically
(04:38):
you were an average American. Yeah, except that I was
having to take notes and look for themes and um,
you know, so it was work after all. Let's go
back to the beginning, okay, and by which I mean
the beginning of television, because life didn't really exist before television.
What is CBS in the late forties and nineteen fifties,
what is its image? CBS is the Sterling Network in
(05:01):
the forties and fifties is CBS They calumb me a
broadcasting system also known as the Tiffany Network. Now, in
those early days, the only people with access to TV
signals lived in cities at that point. They're they're putting
a lot of programming on that features immigrants, that features
Jewish families, that features people of color. They're trying to
(05:24):
appeal to the demographics of the place where they're making
the shows. Amos and Andy, which revolved around a group
of African American friends in Harlem, was originally created and
voiced by white actors on radio. On TV, the show
still played to racial stereotypes, but the cast was entirely
African American, the first show with an all black cast,
(05:46):
something that wouldn't be seen on CBS again until the
nineteen seventies. And this one really surprised me. More than
sixty years before The Goldberg's premiered on ABC, there was
The gold Egs on CBS. Just hearing from your relatives
in Europe after not hearing for so many years. That's
beautiful and Jade, did you count how many times they asked?
(06:09):
And the characters are obviously Jewish, yes, And that's a
big part of the stuff, the story. They don't try
to hide that, it's emphasized. And then unfortunately what happens
with The Goldbergs is that one of the lead characters
is included in one of those lists. Sarah is referring
to lists of communist sympathizers, which included actor Philip Loebe,
(06:29):
who played the male lead on The Goldbergs. This was
all at the height of the Red Scare, with the
government investigating so called communist infiltration of American institutions, including
the media. FBI director j Edgar Hoover reportedly dubbed CBS
the communist broadcasting system. Not the image you wanted in
(06:52):
Cold War America. Around the same time, TV signals were
beginning to spread beyond urban centers into a America's heartland.
So it was audios to those ethnic comedies. So CBS
is entertainment slate becomes whitewashed. Basically, yes, um, they're trying
to find something that's going to appeal to the largest
(07:13):
possible demographic, and so they start out by saying, Okay,
quiz shows, that's a great way to go check before Yes,
let's check before questions. That is until CBS and NBC
came under investigation for rigging the results. But there was
a new television craze riding to the rescue. Westerns are
(07:41):
popular across the board. Every network is doing them, and
that's emphasizing new American ideals. It's the idea of the
West and American individualism and being rugged and masculine and
you know Western from the title. I mean, there's no
kidding around here, right Gunsmoke starring James gunn Smoke, I
(08:06):
mean is just a monster. Oh yeah, absolutely. There were
about forty one Westerns on television at one time, and
this is across three networks. Wow. Westerns were especially popular
with the expanding rural and southern markets, and it was
those markets CBS was aiming at with its very first
rural comedy, premiering in nine six, The Andy Griffith Show
(08:32):
starring Andy Griffin. So The Andy Griffith Show is one
of the great shows of all time, one of the
great family sitcoms of all time, maybe the best show
about small town life ever made. You may remember Alan
Seppondwall from our season one episode on sitcom character Deaths
and Disappearances. Allan is the chief TV critic for Rolling Stone,
(08:54):
and if you couldn't tell, he's a big fan of
The Andy Griffith Show. Andy Griffith plays Sheriff Andy Taylor
of maybe Are, a small town in North Carolina. He
has a deputy, Barney Fife, played by the great Don Notts,
who is who is really eager but also completely bumbling.
So and you will not allow him to put a
bullet in his gun that you've come very near shooting
yourself in the foot. You know, they ain't exactly much
(09:16):
of a call for one legged deputy. You're combining some
of the elements of the western with some of the
elements of the rural comedy. So you've got a sheriff.
He's kind of standing in as that law figure in
Mayberry is kind of an idol. I mean it's for
for a lot of people, right, it's a fantasy. I
mean the only the only lawbreaker is the town drunk
(09:37):
and he locks himself in at night. I didn't get
mindfull eight hours in one. I don't get mindfull eight hours.
I'm grouchi. Do you mind? The Andy Griffith Show became
such a breakout success that it birthed its own set
of lesser quality spinoffs throughout the nineteen six U s
(09:59):
mc gomer Pyle was originally Mayberry's lovably dim weighted filling
station attendant, and Jim Nighbors played him. You know, I
had a lot of catchphrases, you know, golli and shazam uh.
And then at a certain point they decided to have
(10:20):
him enlist in the Marines, and later in the decade
there was Mayberry RFD. Note to our urban listeners, r
f D stands for Rural Free Delivery. It's basically the
Andy Griffith Show without Andy. It's it's Andy Griffith was
ready to move on, but they wanted to keep the
show going. Now, this burgeoning rural comedy cornucopia isn't happening
(10:40):
on its own. Someone's green lighting these shows. James Aubrey
is really the mastermind of the rural craze at CBS.
I just have to say his name is mud to
me because he canceled the Judy Garland show. Yeah so,
and and that is just that's a capital crime in
(11:01):
my opinion. The types of shows championed by James Aubrey
invited a rebuke in from Federal Communications Chairman Newton Minno,
who thought the networks could do better. When television is good, nothing,
not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers, nothing is better.
(11:24):
But when television is bad, nothing is worth. This is
what came to be known as the vast Wasteland speech.
I can assure you that what you will observe is
a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, formula,
comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, ma'am, violence,
(11:46):
say it is a murder Western badmans. He is arguing
that he did not feel television was living up to
its vast potential, the kind of potential that a network
like CBS had displayed often throughout the fifties, and of course,
about a year and a half after that speech, I
think after maybe a little bit of soul searching, maybe
there was they felt a little bit chastened. The Beverly
Hillbillies premieres. You know, we thought about what you said,
(12:11):
Newton Minno, but we really liked this Clampitt family pitch,
and oh boy, did that corn yield a prophet. This
is Beverly Hills, dared dwell, the rich, the famous, the glamorous.
(12:32):
In September nine, CBS premiered a new series about one
of the most exclusive enclaves in the country, home to
sportsman play boys, gilbillies, Hillbillies. Who are these people? Where
are they from? And why did they come to Beverly Hills.
(12:55):
The Beverly Hillbillies was one of the most popular shows
on television in the ninth seen sixties. Well as as
a wise man once saying, it's it's the story of
a man named Jed. He was a poor mountaineer. He
barely kept his family fed. But then one day he
was shooting at some food and you know what happened.
Up through the ground came bubble and crude oil that
(13:15):
is black Gold, Texas. T Jed, along with his daughter
Ellie May, nephew Jeff Throw and Granny decided to pack
up and moved to Beverly Hills. That is yeah, movie
stars swimming pools. The Beverly Hillbillies was the brainchild of
comedy writer Paul Henning, who would come to California by
way of Independence, Missouri, which also happened to be the
(13:37):
hometown of President Harry Truman. Young Paul got his start
as a soda jerk at the local drug store. And
who should come in there but Harry Truman, And he
talked with him a couple of times. That's Henning's daughter Linda,
and Harry you know, said, well, one thing you ought
to do is go to law school. He said, it'll
never hurt you to get a degree in law. Well,
(14:00):
thank god he didn't stick with that. Yes, the inspiration
for the Hillbillies came from Henning's summers in the Ozarks.
I think he observed people and he loved the honesty. Uh.
He always called Jed one of nature's noblemen, Jed Clampett. Yeah,
he must have known somebody kind of like Jed. I
(14:24):
would think, Now I know that Ellie May was partially
based on me because I'm an animal nut. And can
we just say the actors who played these roles. I
mean Irene Ryan who played Granny. She was a great actress.
Oh she's wonderful. She was great. And she came in
to see Daddy to read for him, dressed kind of
(14:46):
as Granny, and Daddy took one look at her and thought,
here she is, you know, this is Cranny. Veteran Hollywood
actor Buddy Ebsen played Jed Quick aside. Ebsen was the
original choice to play the tin Man in The Wizard
of Oz. Well, people that asked me to what I
attribute to success of the Hill it was people humor,
(15:06):
genuine humor, Paul Hitting, It's a genius. Who out there
do you think he was writing the show for. I
think the people he he basically knew, which was in
between the two coasts, you know, just your basic people.
He certainly wasn't writing for the critics. Reviewers called the
series painful to sit through and the most shamelessly corny
(15:31):
show in years. Even the Hillbillies should take Umbridge as
a TV critic, what's your take on the Beverly Hillbillies
I don't think that's a show I would review very
positively were to debut today. Look, they made a lot
of money off of it, so some somebody was being
smart about something, even though everyone on that show is
so dumb. Turns out even some of the folks working
inside CBS at the time were flummixed. Here's the late
(15:54):
newsman Mike Wallace. I confess I didn't really understand what
was going on. I mean, this was, after all, the
Network of all the Stars and suddenly Beverly Hillbillies. But
Sarah Eskridge thinks, to critics then and now have it backwards.
(16:15):
It's very subversive because I think what you see with
this family um is that they make fools out of
the people that are around them in Beverly Hills. I
tell you, Jed, this place is full of the laziest, greasiest,
unfriendliest mess of people. I ever did lay my eyes
all okay, And there's an old tradition of this, right,
like the country folk who are in fact to have
(16:35):
horse sense, who are smarter than the city slickers, and
the ways that matter exactly, and so you know, they
might not be well versed in twentieth century consumer culture.
But they're well versed in family, They're well versed in
how to survive off the lands. They're well versed in
how to be a good friend and community member. The
rural comedies were beginning to reshape CBS. Meanwhile, sitting atop
(16:57):
the network was a man known for his fine taste
and air udition, William Paley, the legendary chairman of CBS.
I mean, sort of very sophisticated guy. What does he
think of these shows? He is less than pleased. By
the time to Beverly Hillbillies comes along, you start hearing CBS.
It's not the communist broadcast system anymore, but it's now
(17:18):
the country broadcast system. However, the money that they're minting
from these shows helps ease the pain a little bit. Yeah, no,
it was huge. This was you know. They aired one
of the most watched episodes of television ever, in which
Granny goes in punches kangaroo that she mistakes for a
giant jack rabbit. Yes, is she trying to cook the
jack rabbit? Why are you asking me these questions? I
(17:41):
don't know. Well, I'll tell you this story. That's Linda
Henning again. One day I looked out of my dressing
room window and saw Granny who I thought was Granny.
It turned out to be the stunt man dressed like Granny,
riding a kangaroo that had been saddled down the street.
So that's the kind of thing you'd sometimes run into
(18:05):
when you worked there. That didn't happen on the set
of All in the Family, not at all. No, no
kangaroos on that set. Linda Henning was nearby because she
was working on the set of her father's latest hit sitcom,
Petticoat Junction. Come ride a little train that is rolling
down the tracks to the Junction. I really didn't know
(18:28):
much about Petticoat, and quite frankly, there isn't much to know.
I'll let the show's theme song explain. There's a little
hotel call the Shady Rest at the Junction. It is
run by Kate. Come and be her guest at the junto.
(18:50):
The show takes place at a hotel along a spur
of a railroad that's been cut off from the main track.
Once a week, a new visitor will check in. That's
the whole show, Like, nothing really much happens. It's just
sort of lingering around the hotel. The train station, a
little bit of the town. B Benadrrett played family matriarch
and hotel owner Kate. As long as you're a guest
(19:11):
in my hotel, you're entitled to shady rest hospitality. But
TV fans of all ages may know her far better
for another role. What's going on, Bernie? What are you
up to? B Benadrrett was Betty Rubble. I loved Betty
Rubble flint Stones she was. She was wonderful, kind of
my mentor. The widowed Kate had three daughters whose names
(19:35):
were forever confused, Billy Joe, Betty Joe, and Bobby Joe.
And I was Betty Joe the youngest. I'll admit I'm
not doing so well in my mind or subjects, but
I'm leading my class in basketball, gymnastics, and ice hockey.
Probably the most memorable image from the show was from
the opening credits, with all three teenage girls peering out
from the inside of a water tower with their petticoats
(19:58):
hanging over the side. Lynn Double was the Redhead. I
would get fan letters from girls who'ld say, when I
come home from school, uh, we play petticoat junction and
I'm you now along that Railroad was the fictional Hooterville,
and thanks to the continuing country comedy craze, the Paul
Henning universe expanded a third and final time in n
(20:22):
with Green Acres. How do you feel about New York City,
Mr Douglas, I hate it. Mrs Douglas disagrees. I certain
Green Acres was the reverse Beverly Hillbillies. A city slicker
lawyer played by Eddie Albert convinces his socialite wife played
by Ava Gabore to move to the country. My wife,
(20:43):
good fine acres. We are exactly that's a great theme song.
So they moved. They moved to Hooterville. They start running
a farm instead of him being a big city lawyer. Uh.
And then weirdly she fits in much better than he does.
Even though it was his idea. The show was edge.
You're more imaginative than the Beverly Hillbillies or Petticoat Junction
(21:04):
that you know. There's a pig with a full name,
Arnold zipfle Um. Square eggs. Yeah, there's an episode where
the hen starts laying square eggs. Things were very strange
and surreal and just much more creative than they tended
to get on the other two shows. And by the way,
we need to do a better job educating our children.
I mean, too many young people who think that Jaja
go Boar was the star. Ja Ja Gabor came to
(21:28):
Gilligan's Island on a speedboat and didn't rescue them for
reasons passing understanding. Is that true? Yes, but a vagabar
was Lisa on Green Acres. You know they had another sister, Magda.
I did not. Yeah, she didn't really do much. She
was a socialite. Zeppo said, there you go, exactly. She
was a zeppo, which is better than being there is
(21:50):
still yet another one, gummo, gummo. Okay, okay early, So
at least she was a Zeppo. Since the worlds of
Paul Hennings shows all overlapped, there were plenty of opportunities
for crossover episodes. His daughter Linda remembers, and when I
did the Hillbillies, Granny and and Jed and everybody came
out to Hooterville to the Shady Rest Hotel, and Granny
(22:12):
mistook the dog who had jumped in the baby carriage
for my child for a lot of animal confusion with Danny.
One thing all the rural comedies had in common, they
seem to exist in a parallel universe. You know, when
I watched these shows, and I didn't watch petticoat Junction,
but when I watched certainly Green Acres and UM and
(22:34):
Andrew Griffith Show and Beverly Hillbillies, you know, I would
look for clues about what was going on in the
world at that time, and if they were there, boy,
they're hard to find. Now. Those those shows are entirely
designed to get like create a big impenetrable wall between
the world outside your window and the one being projected
on your TV s hermetically sealed, so it's very escapist.
(22:55):
All of these horrible things that are happening in the country,
um that are that seemed to be tearing the entry apart.
None of that's happening in rural comedy. No special episodes
acknowledging the assassinations of JFK, m l K or RFK.
No references to violence in the South linked to the
Civil rights movement. The Andy Griffith Show, that's supposed to
(23:15):
be Mount Airy, which is a stone's throw from Greensboro
where the first sit in took place in and that
took place within just a couple of months of the
show airing. And I gotta tell you, when you think
of Sheriff Andy, I mean, if you say to me
law enforcement officer the South nineteen sixties, I think Bull
Connor right in Alabama, in African Americans being attacked with
(23:37):
water hoses, exactly, and and he's completely the exact opposite.
And I think that it's presenting a kinder, gentler self
and what's being shown on the news. And pretty much
all the characters on these shows are white. Absolutely with
the rural comedies, you will have black guest stars. You
will have um, maybe a storyline that revolves around one
(24:00):
black character, which happened in the Andy Griffith Show, but
I think total that Um, it's a story where Obie's
football coach, Um is also playing the piano and teaches
him that it's okay to be cultured. And also, like sports,
if things are sort of planned and worked out, it's
always possible to pursue several interests at the same time.
It's the only episode out of two forty nine that
(24:22):
features a speaking black character. You know, Sammy Davis Jr.
Guest start on The Beverly Hillbillies in a later season
as a cop as a cop which is which is
kind of odds is an interesting choice and not just
a copy is an Irish cop. That's sorry, I didn't
have the pleasure of making the like of the Oaks.
(24:43):
And of course he nails the accent because he's Sammy
Davis Jr. And can do anything. Big fan here that
I think that might have been my favorite five minutes
I watched in the entire year and a half that
I was watching Rural Comedy nine were in Vietnam. Certainly
wasn't being mentioned on these shows. Remember Gomer Pyle, you know,
(25:05):
the character who moved from Mayberry to a marine base
in the mid nineteen sixties. You know, the fact that
he's a marine. He wouldn't He would have been in
donang Um faster than he could have stabbed his fingers
and you know, and yet somehow he never gets deployed
out if his friends gets deployed, no one gets killed.
And it doesn't get any more cut off from the
main world than Petticoat Junction. Remember, the entire premise was
(25:27):
built around a train that was quite literally cut off
from the main line. Yet Linda Henning defends the value
of escapism. She remembers receiving fan mail from servicemen who
were watching her show overseas. Oh, it moved me a lot,
and I was glad that there was something that talked
(25:48):
about escape, that there was something that they could say
that maybe would take them away from some of the
horror of what they were experiencing. But a new generation
of viewers wanted an escape from escapism from television. In Hollywood,
Ladies and Gentlemen beat the Smothers Brothers with the Smothers
(26:11):
Brothers Comedy Hour in the late nineteen sixties, CBS ventured
out of the bubble with a show that dared to
address current events. They were clean cuts, war suits. They
looked like the boys next door, but their comedy was
(26:32):
very subversive and they seemed to have their finger on
the pulse of the music scene especially, and so they
had all of these wonderful musical groups. Their comedy had
a lot of double entendres that were considered risque. They
had Pete Seeger come on to sing an anti war song.
It was a very big deal. Yes, And and that's
part of the problem is that as they become more popular,
they also start to become more political. Are you aware
(26:55):
of what the Smothers Brothers is replaced with I don't remember,
oh my yes, oh my god. The Smothers Brothers were
too much, too soon for CBS and the words of
the network brass. The Brothers were unwilling to accept the
criteria of taste established by CBS, and we're pulled off
(27:15):
the air in nine nine they're replaced by this you know,
country music variety show, which could not be more philosophically
or stylistically opposite of what the Smothers were doing. It's
um I mean, it does seem like it's designed to
appeal to every possible Southern stereotype. And um, I confess,
(27:37):
out of all the rural comedies, that's the only one
that I actually was watched growing up. Was not on purpose.
And my grandparents loved heiha. Why do you think they
loved it? Because they liked the music. The music, And
let's let's just point out Roy Clark and Buck Owens,
the hosts, great musical talents. They're gonna put me in
a movie. They're gonna make a big star out of me,
(28:00):
you know, a film about a man who sat alonely
but all I gotta do is at naturally. Yeah, he's
great just incredible musicians, but they loved the music. The
jokes were corny, would be putting it mildly. What's the
difference between a hair dresser and a sculptor. Well, a
(28:20):
hairdresser curls up and dies and a sculptor makes faces
and buff You kind of had to watch between your
fingers because I felt a little embarrassed for them that
they were doing it. But they, you know, the older folks,
and my wife loved that show. So it was on
and he Hall was a hit, but it turned out
to be a last stand for rural comedy. With the
(28:42):
arrival of a new sheriff at CBS, he Hall was
about to get the old Heath ho In. Through the
saloon doors comes Fred Silverman, and he detests rural comedy
(29:07):
with a passion that exceeds a thousand burning suns um.
He thinks that rural comedy is stupid. Fred Silverman would
go on to become a network television legend known as
the Man with the Golden Gut, responsible for Roots, Mash
and Scooby Doo. But back in he was the brash,
(29:28):
thirty three year old, brand new head of programming at CBS,
and he had one mission to rid the network of
rural comedy. Fred Silverman called those rural comedies shit kicking.
Is that necessarily an insult? I don't think anything that
you use the words ship to describe is probably going
(29:48):
to be considered a positive. Well, if I say you're
the ship, not you, that would be a compliment, But okay,
sort of. I don't say that. Um. I think that
he thinks that people who watch those shows are people
who are literally kicking ship for a living. Fred Silverman
did not really strike me as the kind of guy
who would kick back and watch petticoat Junction or some
of these other shows. But it's really a matter of
(30:10):
changing demographics. Earlier, Nielsen was largely just measuring audiences, how
many people are watching, how many how sets are tuned in.
At a certain point, they were able to break it
down and say, this number of people in the city
are watching versus this number of people in rural America.
You know, these households that are wealthy versus these households
that are blue collar. But a lot of people were
still watching. People still like these shows. Fred Silverman, his
(30:33):
business people were saying, look, we can't sell advertising on
these because the only people are watching them are the
hicks from the sticks, And we want to be able
to sell ads to people in big cities with big
disposable income, because that's where advertisers want. Here's Fred Silverman
in Choots House in one. Something had to be done,
and I think there was total agreement. Bob bodho is
(30:55):
president of the network, his boss, Jack Schneider and Paley
said let's let's bite the boat. Silverman and his bosses
began with a little target practice. Petticoat Junction was the
first to buy the farm. Linda Henning remembers, I still
to this day think it was kind of lousy what
(31:17):
they did. We never heard from the powers that be
at CBS. Nobody bothered to call us the Beverly Hillbillyes,
Green Acres and Hehaw were soon primed for slaughter. Were
scheduled for Tuesday night. As Fred Silverman saw it, let
Tuesday be the receptacle for all the crap that that
we we weren't able to cancel yet. Meanwhile, CBS began
(31:40):
experimenting with more urban and gritty fair The results of
those experiments were mixed. You've got an appointment with the
interns on Friday. These weren't about unpaid employees. They were
young doctors, and the tagline was the interns, It's about
what it's all about. Wait, wait, you're using that tagline
(32:01):
for a doctor show. I guess so, I mean by
Jean Paulsard, I mean, it's just it feels like a
Seinfeld tagline or something. And then there was the Storefront Lawyers,
And this was an earnest attempt to sort of be
attuned to what was going on in the world, change
within the establishment, young advocates practicing law in Century City
to pay the bills in the ghetto, to pay their dues.
(32:24):
Both shows were canceled after one season, but hope was
not lost. That same season, a certain show about a
girl who turned the world on with her smile from
the Silverman realized that the Mary Tyler Moore Show was
(32:45):
the kind of show that could restore luster to the
Tiffany Network. And I looked at Mary Tyler Mona said,
this is such a terrific show. We got this sitting
in the middle of Allas Ship Kicker shows. And then
halfway through the nineteen seventies seventy one season, CBS took
a chance on producers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin and
(33:06):
their new comedy All in the Family, This country coming
to anyhow? What what else we get out of Vietnam
or something? Don't be a wise guy, smart, controversial, thrilling
television that made people laugh and think, and for Archie
(33:27):
Bunker to live, Jed Clampett would have to die. Fred
Silverman explained, I work from Amber Dame of Bob Wood,
who was president of the network, and uh he and
I literally whacked the hell out of that schedule and
cancel about a dozen and a half shows. The casualty
list eventually included all the rural comedies, the largest slaughter
(33:50):
in sitcom history. TV legend ed Sullivan was collateral damage
due to his older skewing audience. Silverman's like wielding a
machete through this cornfield, gleefully, gleefully. So. One actor may
have put it best when he lamented CBS canceled everything
with a tree in it, anything in the country, anything
(34:10):
that was not in a city with breaking concrete. Bye bye. Yeah.
I would not have wanted to be a CBS switchboard
operator in the death of these programs wasn't only a
gut punch for fans, it was personal for creators like
Paul Henning. I think he took it very personally, because
I mean he had poured all of his blooded, sweat
and tears into these shows, well, certainly into Beverly Hillbillies,
(34:33):
and he was quite an introvert anyway, and he he
kind of withdrew after that. Now it's tempting to paint
Fred Silverman as the villain in this story, but we
actually owe him a debt of gratitude. During Silverman's tenure
at CBS, the Norman Lear Universe expanded to include Maud
(34:54):
and One Day at a Time and Good Times, and
the Jefferson's Became Two was the first CBS sitcom's featuring
largely African American casts since the days of Amos and Andy.
He basically created this new, sophisticated Golden Age of sitcom's,
arguably the best era for sitcom's in the medium's history.
(35:14):
Did Fred Silverman have to be ruthless? I think he
did um because I think if you look at CBS
from like, you know, seventy two to seventies six or so,
when they had you know, all in the family, Mary
Tyler Moore, the Bob Newhart Show, Mash Carol Burnett. They
were airing those five shows on one night for a season.
That's probably the best night of programming in the history
(35:36):
of network television. That's amazing. It is amazing, and I
don't know that that would have been post like could
you imagine a network airing All in the Family and
Pettico Junction. Do you think that Southern audiences felt abandoned
when CBS acts all those shows. I think so because
(35:57):
if you think about Southern re presentation since then, you
see pockets, but it's nowhere near as prevalent as it
was during the sixties. Even if these were caricatures in
many ways. Yeah, but at the same time, they're still
they have hearts there, they have substance, and they have
a soul. I, like many of you listening, discovered the
rural comedies and reruns usually after I got home from school.
(36:21):
They were corny and funny, but I had no idea
of their former glory. How many tens of millions used
to watch them in prime time and how many were
still watching them when they were canceled. I can understand
why many people in the middle of the country might
have felt aggrieved that Network executives on the coasts thought
(36:41):
they weren't the right market or desirable demographic. The rural
Purge happened almost fifty years ago, and yet there's something
very contemporary about the story. Awesome. As for he Hawk,
(37:06):
remember Roy Clark singing about the rural Purge at the
beginning of the episode, Well he had the last laugh.
When the show was resurrected in first run syndication. The
show lived for another twenty five years. We'd like to
(37:36):
conclude this mobituary with an in memorium for the victims
of the Rural Purge. Green Acres, Petty co Chunction, The
Beverly Hillbillies, The Red Skelton Show, The Ed Sullivan Show,
(38:01):
Family Affair, Hehaw, Hogan's Heroes, The Jackie Gleason Show, The
Jim Neighbor's Hour, Mayberry r f D, The New Andy
Griffith Show, and Lassie. Next Time on Mobituaries, The story
(38:36):
of how Aies Pop Song. It is a song with
velocity right, so big and bold and brash. Product two
thousand nineteen Sports Team Back to Life. I will go
to my grave singing or champ Yes, I will. I
(39:00):
certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary. May I ask you
to please rate and review our podcast. You can also
follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and you can follow
me on Twitter at Morocca. You can subscribe to Mobituaries
wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was
produced by Megan Marcus. Our team of producers also includes
(39:23):
Harry Wood and me Morocca. It was edited by Meg
Dalton and Nathan Miller and engineered by Nathan Miller. Additional
editing by Sam Egan. Indispensable support from Genia Staneski, Lucy Kirk,
Richard Rohrer, and everyone at CBS News Radio. Special thanks
to David Bushman at the Paley Center for Media. Our
(39:45):
theme music is written by Daniel Hart and, as always,
undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John Carp without whom
Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi, It's mo. If you're enjoying Mobituaries
(40:05):
the podcast, May I invite you to check out Mobituaries
the book. It's chock full of stories not in the podcast.
Celebrities who put their butts on the line, sports teams
that threw in the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses,
presidential candidacies that cratered whole countries that went to put
(40:26):
and dragons, Yes, dragons, you see. People used to believe
the dragons will real until just get the book. You
can order Mobituaries the book from any online bookseller, or
stop by your local bookstore and look for me when
I come to your city. Tour information and lots more
at mobituaries dot com
On the evening of January eighth, four, nearly half of
American households tuned to their TV sets to CBS for
an epic matchup. No, it was huge at the Juggernauts.
It was a classic one. No, it wasn't Muhammad Ali
versus Sunny. Listen, I don't accom peaceable or do I
(00:28):
have to take you? It was a fight between a
feisty grandmother and a kangaroo she had mistaken for a
giant jack rabbit. Giant jack rabbits. I had him card.
This was the actual premise of an episode of the
classic sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies. And while it may seem preposterous,
(00:53):
you have to understand this aired less than two months
after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In fact,
earlier that same day, the new President, Lyndon Johnson delivered
his first State of the Union address to a still
traumatized nation. And you know, here's this little old, you know,
hillbilly lady confused by what of kangaroo is? You don't
(01:15):
get more escapist than that. The Beverly Hillbillies, a classic
fish out of water story featuring the Backwoods Clampet family
who Strike It Rich went on to become one of
the most successful sitcoms of all time, averaging upwards of
fifty million viewers during its run, the kind of numbers
(01:37):
you never see today outside of Super Bowl profits. Sword
and CBS greenlit a whole host of new shows catering
to audiences who couldn't get enough of country themed programming.
(01:59):
This was the height of rural representation on network TV.
JE Manhattan, just give me that country shid. But by
the end of the decade, the network put the Clampet
clan and all of their country cousins out to pasture.
These city folks don't want our tang around I whatever,
put that notion in your here. They even put down
(02:21):
Lassie anything in the country, anything that was not in
a city with breaking concrete, Bye bye. In this episode,
we'll investigate what caused the largest slaughter in sitcom history
and meet the man who wielded the axe. He and
I literally whacked the hell out of that schedule and
(02:45):
cancel about a dozen and a half shows from CBS
Sunday Morning and Simon and Schuster. I'm Morocca and this
is Mobituaries, This mobid, the rural purge March sixteenth, nine
(03:08):
death of the country broadcasting system Big Wheels had the
network started spinning. The verdict was that heha had to
go to city slickers don't believe in grinning and who
(03:30):
the heckniques jokes and coma. That's Hehaw co host and
country music legend Roy Clark singing about the rural purge
in n two, one year after CBS canceled the musical
variety show, consigning it to syndication. They canceled all the
singing and the picking, but the scubborn little Donkey wouldn't leave,
(03:55):
and then little Fella is still alive and kicking. That
song is is smart, it's satirical. I mean it's about
the rural purge. I think it's about rural people in
general feeling left behind. And I think this is them saying,
you know, the networks don't care about us, like we're forgotten,
(04:17):
and this is a show that remembers that we're here.
Sarah s. Gridge hails from Virginia and wrote a book
all about the sitcom slaughter route to CBS and rural
comedies in the nineteen sixties, And so how much TV
did you have to watch to write this book. I
was watching about four hours a day over the course
of about a year, year and a half. So basically
(04:38):
you were an average American. Yeah, except that I was
having to take notes and look for themes and um,
you know, so it was work after all. Let's go
back to the beginning, okay, and by which I mean
the beginning of television, because life didn't really exist before television.
What is CBS in the late forties and nineteen fifties,
what is its image? CBS is the Sterling Network in
(05:01):
the forties and fifties is CBS They calumb me a
broadcasting system also known as the Tiffany Network. Now, in
those early days, the only people with access to TV
signals lived in cities at that point. They're they're putting
a lot of programming on that features immigrants, that features
Jewish families, that features people of color. They're trying to
(05:24):
appeal to the demographics of the place where they're making
the shows. Amos and Andy, which revolved around a group
of African American friends in Harlem, was originally created and
voiced by white actors on radio. On TV, the show
still played to racial stereotypes, but the cast was entirely
African American, the first show with an all black cast,
(05:46):
something that wouldn't be seen on CBS again until the
nineteen seventies. And this one really surprised me. More than
sixty years before The Goldberg's premiered on ABC, there was
The gold Egs on CBS. Just hearing from your relatives
in Europe after not hearing for so many years. That's
beautiful and Jade, did you count how many times they asked?
(06:09):
And the characters are obviously Jewish, yes, And that's a
big part of the stuff, the story. They don't try
to hide that, it's emphasized. And then unfortunately what happens
with The Goldbergs is that one of the lead characters
is included in one of those lists. Sarah is referring
to lists of communist sympathizers, which included actor Philip Loebe,
(06:29):
who played the male lead on The Goldbergs. This was
all at the height of the Red Scare, with the
government investigating so called communist infiltration of American institutions, including
the media. FBI director j Edgar Hoover reportedly dubbed CBS
the communist broadcasting system. Not the image you wanted in
(06:52):
Cold War America. Around the same time, TV signals were
beginning to spread beyond urban centers into a America's heartland.
So it was audios to those ethnic comedies. So CBS
is entertainment slate becomes whitewashed. Basically, yes, um, they're trying
to find something that's going to appeal to the largest
(07:13):
possible demographic, and so they start out by saying, Okay,
quiz shows, that's a great way to go check before Yes,
let's check before questions. That is until CBS and NBC
came under investigation for rigging the results. But there was
a new television craze riding to the rescue. Westerns are
(07:41):
popular across the board. Every network is doing them, and
that's emphasizing new American ideals. It's the idea of the
West and American individualism and being rugged and masculine and
you know Western from the title. I mean, there's no
kidding around here, right Gunsmoke starring James gunn Smoke, I
(08:06):
mean is just a monster. Oh yeah, absolutely. There were
about forty one Westerns on television at one time, and
this is across three networks. Wow. Westerns were especially popular
with the expanding rural and southern markets, and it was
those markets CBS was aiming at with its very first
rural comedy, premiering in nine six, The Andy Griffith Show
(08:32):
starring Andy Griffin. So The Andy Griffith Show is one
of the great shows of all time, one of the
great family sitcoms of all time, maybe the best show
about small town life ever made. You may remember Alan
Seppondwall from our season one episode on sitcom character Deaths
and Disappearances. Allan is the chief TV critic for Rolling Stone,
(08:54):
and if you couldn't tell, he's a big fan of
The Andy Griffith Show. Andy Griffith plays Sheriff Andy Taylor
of maybe Are, a small town in North Carolina. He
has a deputy, Barney Fife, played by the great Don Notts,
who is who is really eager but also completely bumbling.
So and you will not allow him to put a
bullet in his gun that you've come very near shooting
yourself in the foot. You know, they ain't exactly much
(09:16):
of a call for one legged deputy. You're combining some
of the elements of the western with some of the
elements of the rural comedy. So you've got a sheriff.
He's kind of standing in as that law figure in
Mayberry is kind of an idol. I mean it's for
for a lot of people, right, it's a fantasy. I
mean the only the only lawbreaker is the town drunk
(09:37):
and he locks himself in at night. I didn't get
mindfull eight hours in one. I don't get mindfull eight hours.
I'm grouchi. Do you mind? The Andy Griffith Show became
such a breakout success that it birthed its own set
of lesser quality spinoffs throughout the nineteen six U s
(09:59):
mc gomer Pyle was originally Mayberry's lovably dim weighted filling
station attendant, and Jim Nighbors played him. You know, I
had a lot of catchphrases, you know, golli and shazam uh.
And then at a certain point they decided to have
(10:20):
him enlist in the Marines, and later in the decade
there was Mayberry RFD. Note to our urban listeners, r
f D stands for Rural Free Delivery. It's basically the
Andy Griffith Show without Andy. It's it's Andy Griffith was
ready to move on, but they wanted to keep the
show going. Now, this burgeoning rural comedy cornucopia isn't happening
(10:40):
on its own. Someone's green lighting these shows. James Aubrey
is really the mastermind of the rural craze at CBS.
I just have to say his name is mud to
me because he canceled the Judy Garland show. Yeah so,
and and that is just that's a capital crime in
(11:01):
my opinion. The types of shows championed by James Aubrey
invited a rebuke in from Federal Communications Chairman Newton Minno,
who thought the networks could do better. When television is good, nothing,
not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers, nothing is better.
(11:24):
But when television is bad, nothing is worth. This is
what came to be known as the vast Wasteland speech.
I can assure you that what you will observe is
a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, formula,
comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, ma'am, violence,
(11:46):
say it is a murder Western badmans. He is arguing
that he did not feel television was living up to
its vast potential, the kind of potential that a network
like CBS had displayed often throughout the fifties, and of course,
about a year and a half after that speech, I
think after maybe a little bit of soul searching, maybe
there was they felt a little bit chastened. The Beverly
Hillbillies premieres. You know, we thought about what you said,
(12:11):
Newton Minno, but we really liked this Clampitt family pitch,
and oh boy, did that corn yield a prophet. This
is Beverly Hills, dared dwell, the rich, the famous, the glamorous.
(12:32):
In September nine, CBS premiered a new series about one
of the most exclusive enclaves in the country, home to
sportsman play boys, gilbillies, Hillbillies. Who are these people? Where
are they from? And why did they come to Beverly Hills.
(12:55):
The Beverly Hillbillies was one of the most popular shows
on television in the ninth seen sixties. Well as as
a wise man once saying, it's it's the story of
a man named Jed. He was a poor mountaineer. He
barely kept his family fed. But then one day he
was shooting at some food and you know what happened.
Up through the ground came bubble and crude oil that
(13:15):
is black Gold, Texas. T Jed, along with his daughter
Ellie May, nephew Jeff Throw and Granny decided to pack
up and moved to Beverly Hills. That is yeah, movie
stars swimming pools. The Beverly Hillbillies was the brainchild of
comedy writer Paul Henning, who would come to California by
way of Independence, Missouri, which also happened to be the
(13:37):
hometown of President Harry Truman. Young Paul got his start
as a soda jerk at the local drug store. And
who should come in there but Harry Truman, And he
talked with him a couple of times. That's Henning's daughter Linda,
and Harry you know, said, well, one thing you ought
to do is go to law school. He said, it'll
never hurt you to get a degree in law. Well,
(14:00):
thank god he didn't stick with that. Yes, the inspiration
for the Hillbillies came from Henning's summers in the Ozarks.
I think he observed people and he loved the honesty. Uh.
He always called Jed one of nature's noblemen, Jed Clampett. Yeah,
he must have known somebody kind of like Jed. I
(14:24):
would think, Now I know that Ellie May was partially
based on me because I'm an animal nut. And can
we just say the actors who played these roles. I
mean Irene Ryan who played Granny. She was a great actress.
Oh she's wonderful. She was great. And she came in
to see Daddy to read for him, dressed kind of
(14:46):
as Granny, and Daddy took one look at her and thought,
here she is, you know, this is Cranny. Veteran Hollywood
actor Buddy Ebsen played Jed Quick aside. Ebsen was the
original choice to play the tin Man in The Wizard
of Oz. Well, people that asked me to what I
attribute to success of the Hill it was people humor,
(15:06):
genuine humor, Paul Hitting, It's a genius. Who out there
do you think he was writing the show for. I
think the people he he basically knew, which was in
between the two coasts, you know, just your basic people.
He certainly wasn't writing for the critics. Reviewers called the
series painful to sit through and the most shamelessly corny
(15:31):
show in years. Even the Hillbillies should take Umbridge as
a TV critic, what's your take on the Beverly Hillbillies
I don't think that's a show I would review very
positively were to debut today. Look, they made a lot
of money off of it, so some somebody was being
smart about something, even though everyone on that show is
so dumb. Turns out even some of the folks working
inside CBS at the time were flummixed. Here's the late
(15:54):
newsman Mike Wallace. I confess I didn't really understand what
was going on. I mean, this was, after all, the
Network of all the Stars and suddenly Beverly Hillbillies. But
Sarah Eskridge thinks, to critics then and now have it backwards.
(16:15):
It's very subversive because I think what you see with
this family um is that they make fools out of
the people that are around them in Beverly Hills. I
tell you, Jed, this place is full of the laziest, greasiest,
unfriendliest mess of people. I ever did lay my eyes
all okay, And there's an old tradition of this, right,
like the country folk who are in fact to have
(16:35):
horse sense, who are smarter than the city slickers, and
the ways that matter exactly, and so you know, they
might not be well versed in twentieth century consumer culture.
But they're well versed in family, They're well versed in
how to survive off the lands. They're well versed in
how to be a good friend and community member. The
rural comedies were beginning to reshape CBS. Meanwhile, sitting atop
(16:57):
the network was a man known for his fine taste
and air udition, William Paley, the legendary chairman of CBS.
I mean, sort of very sophisticated guy. What does he
think of these shows? He is less than pleased. By
the time to Beverly Hillbillies comes along, you start hearing CBS.
It's not the communist broadcast system anymore, but it's now
(17:18):
the country broadcast system. However, the money that they're minting
from these shows helps ease the pain a little bit. Yeah, no,
it was huge. This was you know. They aired one
of the most watched episodes of television ever, in which
Granny goes in punches kangaroo that she mistakes for a
giant jack rabbit. Yes, is she trying to cook the
jack rabbit? Why are you asking me these questions? I
(17:41):
don't know. Well, I'll tell you this story. That's Linda
Henning again. One day I looked out of my dressing
room window and saw Granny who I thought was Granny.
It turned out to be the stunt man dressed like Granny,
riding a kangaroo that had been saddled down the street.
So that's the kind of thing you'd sometimes run into
(18:05):
when you worked there. That didn't happen on the set
of All in the Family, not at all. No, no
kangaroos on that set. Linda Henning was nearby because she
was working on the set of her father's latest hit sitcom,
Petticoat Junction. Come ride a little train that is rolling
down the tracks to the Junction. I really didn't know
(18:28):
much about Petticoat, and quite frankly, there isn't much to know.
I'll let the show's theme song explain. There's a little
hotel call the Shady Rest at the Junction. It is
run by Kate. Come and be her guest at the junto.
(18:50):
The show takes place at a hotel along a spur
of a railroad that's been cut off from the main track.
Once a week, a new visitor will check in. That's
the whole show, Like, nothing really much happens. It's just
sort of lingering around the hotel. The train station, a
little bit of the town. B Benadrrett played family matriarch
and hotel owner Kate. As long as you're a guest
(19:11):
in my hotel, you're entitled to shady rest hospitality. But
TV fans of all ages may know her far better
for another role. What's going on, Bernie? What are you
up to? B Benadrrett was Betty Rubble. I loved Betty
Rubble flint Stones she was. She was wonderful, kind of
my mentor. The widowed Kate had three daughters whose names
(19:35):
were forever confused, Billy Joe, Betty Joe, and Bobby Joe.
And I was Betty Joe the youngest. I'll admit I'm
not doing so well in my mind or subjects, but
I'm leading my class in basketball, gymnastics, and ice hockey.
Probably the most memorable image from the show was from
the opening credits, with all three teenage girls peering out
from the inside of a water tower with their petticoats
(19:58):
hanging over the side. Lynn Double was the Redhead. I
would get fan letters from girls who'ld say, when I
come home from school, uh, we play petticoat junction and
I'm you now along that Railroad was the fictional Hooterville,
and thanks to the continuing country comedy craze, the Paul
Henning universe expanded a third and final time in n
(20:22):
with Green Acres. How do you feel about New York City,
Mr Douglas, I hate it. Mrs Douglas disagrees. I certain
Green Acres was the reverse Beverly Hillbillies. A city slicker
lawyer played by Eddie Albert convinces his socialite wife played
by Ava Gabore to move to the country. My wife,
(20:43):
good fine acres. We are exactly that's a great theme song.
So they moved. They moved to Hooterville. They start running
a farm instead of him being a big city lawyer. Uh.
And then weirdly she fits in much better than he does.
Even though it was his idea. The show was edge.
You're more imaginative than the Beverly Hillbillies or Petticoat Junction
(21:04):
that you know. There's a pig with a full name,
Arnold zipfle Um. Square eggs. Yeah, there's an episode where
the hen starts laying square eggs. Things were very strange
and surreal and just much more creative than they tended
to get on the other two shows. And by the way,
we need to do a better job educating our children.
I mean, too many young people who think that Jaja
go Boar was the star. Ja Ja Gabor came to
(21:28):
Gilligan's Island on a speedboat and didn't rescue them for
reasons passing understanding. Is that true? Yes, but a vagabar
was Lisa on Green Acres. You know they had another sister, Magda.
I did not. Yeah, she didn't really do much. She
was a socialite. Zeppo said, there you go, exactly. She
was a zeppo, which is better than being there is
(21:50):
still yet another one, gummo, gummo. Okay, okay early, So
at least she was a Zeppo. Since the worlds of
Paul Hennings shows all overlapped, there were plenty of opportunities
for crossover episodes. His daughter Linda remembers, and when I
did the Hillbillies, Granny and and Jed and everybody came
out to Hooterville to the Shady Rest Hotel, and Granny
(22:12):
mistook the dog who had jumped in the baby carriage
for my child for a lot of animal confusion with Danny.
One thing all the rural comedies had in common, they
seem to exist in a parallel universe. You know, when
I watched these shows, and I didn't watch petticoat Junction,
but when I watched certainly Green Acres and UM and
(22:34):
Andrew Griffith Show and Beverly Hillbillies, you know, I would
look for clues about what was going on in the
world at that time, and if they were there, boy,
they're hard to find. Now. Those those shows are entirely
designed to get like create a big impenetrable wall between
the world outside your window and the one being projected
on your TV s hermetically sealed, so it's very escapist.
(22:55):
All of these horrible things that are happening in the country,
um that are that seemed to be tearing the entry apart.
None of that's happening in rural comedy. No special episodes
acknowledging the assassinations of JFK, m l K or RFK.
No references to violence in the South linked to the
Civil rights movement. The Andy Griffith Show, that's supposed to
(23:15):
be Mount Airy, which is a stone's throw from Greensboro
where the first sit in took place in and that
took place within just a couple of months of the
show airing. And I gotta tell you, when you think
of Sheriff Andy, I mean, if you say to me
law enforcement officer the South nineteen sixties, I think Bull
Connor right in Alabama, in African Americans being attacked with
(23:37):
water hoses, exactly, and and he's completely the exact opposite.
And I think that it's presenting a kinder, gentler self
and what's being shown on the news. And pretty much
all the characters on these shows are white. Absolutely with
the rural comedies, you will have black guest stars. You
will have um, maybe a storyline that revolves around one
(24:00):
black character, which happened in the Andy Griffith Show, but
I think total that Um, it's a story where Obie's
football coach, Um is also playing the piano and teaches
him that it's okay to be cultured. And also, like sports,
if things are sort of planned and worked out, it's
always possible to pursue several interests at the same time.
It's the only episode out of two forty nine that
(24:22):
features a speaking black character. You know, Sammy Davis Jr.
Guest start on The Beverly Hillbillies in a later season
as a cop as a cop which is which is
kind of odds is an interesting choice and not just
a copy is an Irish cop. That's sorry, I didn't
have the pleasure of making the like of the Oaks.
(24:43):
And of course he nails the accent because he's Sammy
Davis Jr. And can do anything. Big fan here that
I think that might have been my favorite five minutes
I watched in the entire year and a half that
I was watching Rural Comedy nine were in Vietnam. Certainly
wasn't being mentioned on these shows. Remember Gomer Pyle, you know,
(25:05):
the character who moved from Mayberry to a marine base
in the mid nineteen sixties. You know, the fact that
he's a marine. He wouldn't He would have been in
donang Um faster than he could have stabbed his fingers
and you know, and yet somehow he never gets deployed
out if his friends gets deployed, no one gets killed.
And it doesn't get any more cut off from the
main world than Petticoat Junction. Remember, the entire premise was
(25:27):
built around a train that was quite literally cut off
from the main line. Yet Linda Henning defends the value
of escapism. She remembers receiving fan mail from servicemen who
were watching her show overseas. Oh, it moved me a lot,
and I was glad that there was something that talked
(25:48):
about escape, that there was something that they could say
that maybe would take them away from some of the
horror of what they were experiencing. But a new generation
of viewers wanted an escape from escapism from television. In Hollywood,
Ladies and Gentlemen beat the Smothers Brothers with the Smothers
(26:11):
Brothers Comedy Hour in the late nineteen sixties, CBS ventured
out of the bubble with a show that dared to
address current events. They were clean cuts, war suits. They
looked like the boys next door, but their comedy was
(26:32):
very subversive and they seemed to have their finger on
the pulse of the music scene especially, and so they
had all of these wonderful musical groups. Their comedy had
a lot of double entendres that were considered risque. They
had Pete Seeger come on to sing an anti war song.
It was a very big deal. Yes, And and that's
part of the problem is that as they become more popular,
they also start to become more political. Are you aware
(26:55):
of what the Smothers Brothers is replaced with I don't remember,
oh my yes, oh my god. The Smothers Brothers were
too much, too soon for CBS and the words of
the network brass. The Brothers were unwilling to accept the
criteria of taste established by CBS, and we're pulled off
(27:15):
the air in nine nine they're replaced by this you know,
country music variety show, which could not be more philosophically
or stylistically opposite of what the Smothers were doing. It's
um I mean, it does seem like it's designed to
appeal to every possible Southern stereotype. And um, I confess,
(27:37):
out of all the rural comedies, that's the only one
that I actually was watched growing up. Was not on purpose.
And my grandparents loved heiha. Why do you think they
loved it? Because they liked the music. The music, And
let's let's just point out Roy Clark and Buck Owens,
the hosts, great musical talents. They're gonna put me in
a movie. They're gonna make a big star out of me,
(28:00):
you know, a film about a man who sat alonely
but all I gotta do is at naturally. Yeah, he's
great just incredible musicians, but they loved the music. The
jokes were corny, would be putting it mildly. What's the
difference between a hair dresser and a sculptor. Well, a
(28:20):
hairdresser curls up and dies and a sculptor makes faces
and buff You kind of had to watch between your
fingers because I felt a little embarrassed for them that
they were doing it. But they, you know, the older folks,
and my wife loved that show. So it was on
and he Hall was a hit, but it turned out
to be a last stand for rural comedy. With the
(28:42):
arrival of a new sheriff at CBS, he Hall was
about to get the old Heath ho In. Through the
saloon doors comes Fred Silverman, and he detests rural comedy
(29:07):
with a passion that exceeds a thousand burning suns um.
He thinks that rural comedy is stupid. Fred Silverman would
go on to become a network television legend known as
the Man with the Golden Gut, responsible for Roots, Mash
and Scooby Doo. But back in he was the brash,
(29:28):
thirty three year old, brand new head of programming at CBS,
and he had one mission to rid the network of
rural comedy. Fred Silverman called those rural comedies shit kicking.
Is that necessarily an insult? I don't think anything that
you use the words ship to describe is probably going
(29:48):
to be considered a positive. Well, if I say you're
the ship, not you, that would be a compliment, But okay,
sort of. I don't say that. Um. I think that
he thinks that people who watch those shows are people
who are literally kicking ship for a living. Fred Silverman
did not really strike me as the kind of guy
who would kick back and watch petticoat Junction or some
of these other shows. But it's really a matter of
(30:10):
changing demographics. Earlier, Nielsen was largely just measuring audiences, how
many people are watching, how many how sets are tuned in.
At a certain point, they were able to break it
down and say, this number of people in the city
are watching versus this number of people in rural America.
You know, these households that are wealthy versus these households
that are blue collar. But a lot of people were
still watching. People still like these shows. Fred Silverman, his
(30:33):
business people were saying, look, we can't sell advertising on
these because the only people are watching them are the
hicks from the sticks, And we want to be able
to sell ads to people in big cities with big
disposable income, because that's where advertisers want. Here's Fred Silverman
in Choots House in one. Something had to be done,
and I think there was total agreement. Bob bodho is
(30:55):
president of the network, his boss, Jack Schneider and Paley
said let's let's bite the boat. Silverman and his bosses
began with a little target practice. Petticoat Junction was the
first to buy the farm. Linda Henning remembers, I still
to this day think it was kind of lousy what
(31:17):
they did. We never heard from the powers that be
at CBS. Nobody bothered to call us the Beverly Hillbillyes,
Green Acres and Hehaw were soon primed for slaughter. Were
scheduled for Tuesday night. As Fred Silverman saw it, let
Tuesday be the receptacle for all the crap that that
we we weren't able to cancel yet. Meanwhile, CBS began
(31:40):
experimenting with more urban and gritty fair The results of
those experiments were mixed. You've got an appointment with the
interns on Friday. These weren't about unpaid employees. They were
young doctors, and the tagline was the interns, It's about
what it's all about. Wait, wait, you're using that tagline
(32:01):
for a doctor show. I guess so, I mean by
Jean Paulsard, I mean, it's just it feels like a
Seinfeld tagline or something. And then there was the Storefront Lawyers,
And this was an earnest attempt to sort of be
attuned to what was going on in the world, change
within the establishment, young advocates practicing law in Century City
to pay the bills in the ghetto, to pay their dues.
(32:24):
Both shows were canceled after one season, but hope was
not lost. That same season, a certain show about a
girl who turned the world on with her smile from
the Silverman realized that the Mary Tyler Moore Show was
(32:45):
the kind of show that could restore luster to the
Tiffany Network. And I looked at Mary Tyler Mona said,
this is such a terrific show. We got this sitting
in the middle of Allas Ship Kicker shows. And then
halfway through the nineteen seventies seventy one season, CBS took
a chance on producers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin and
(33:06):
their new comedy All in the Family, This country coming
to anyhow? What what else we get out of Vietnam
or something? Don't be a wise guy, smart, controversial, thrilling
television that made people laugh and think, and for Archie
(33:27):
Bunker to live, Jed Clampett would have to die. Fred
Silverman explained, I work from Amber Dame of Bob Wood,
who was president of the network, and uh he and
I literally whacked the hell out of that schedule and
cancel about a dozen and a half shows. The casualty
list eventually included all the rural comedies, the largest slaughter
(33:50):
in sitcom history. TV legend ed Sullivan was collateral damage
due to his older skewing audience. Silverman's like wielding a
machete through this cornfield, gleefully, gleefully. So. One actor may
have put it best when he lamented CBS canceled everything
with a tree in it, anything in the country, anything
(34:10):
that was not in a city with breaking concrete. Bye bye. Yeah.
I would not have wanted to be a CBS switchboard
operator in the death of these programs wasn't only a
gut punch for fans, it was personal for creators like
Paul Henning. I think he took it very personally, because
I mean he had poured all of his blooded, sweat
and tears into these shows, well, certainly into Beverly Hillbillies,
(34:33):
and he was quite an introvert anyway, and he he
kind of withdrew after that. Now it's tempting to paint
Fred Silverman as the villain in this story, but we
actually owe him a debt of gratitude. During Silverman's tenure
at CBS, the Norman Lear Universe expanded to include Maud
(34:54):
and One Day at a Time and Good Times, and
the Jefferson's Became Two was the first CBS sitcom's featuring
largely African American casts since the days of Amos and Andy.
He basically created this new, sophisticated Golden Age of sitcom's,
arguably the best era for sitcom's in the medium's history.
(35:14):
Did Fred Silverman have to be ruthless? I think he
did um because I think if you look at CBS
from like, you know, seventy two to seventies six or so,
when they had you know, all in the family, Mary
Tyler Moore, the Bob Newhart Show, Mash Carol Burnett. They
were airing those five shows on one night for a season.
That's probably the best night of programming in the history
(35:36):
of network television. That's amazing. It is amazing, and I
don't know that that would have been post like could
you imagine a network airing All in the Family and
Pettico Junction. Do you think that Southern audiences felt abandoned
when CBS acts all those shows. I think so because
(35:57):
if you think about Southern re presentation since then, you
see pockets, but it's nowhere near as prevalent as it
was during the sixties. Even if these were caricatures in
many ways. Yeah, but at the same time, they're still
they have hearts there, they have substance, and they have
a soul. I, like many of you listening, discovered the
rural comedies and reruns usually after I got home from school.
(36:21):
They were corny and funny, but I had no idea
of their former glory. How many tens of millions used
to watch them in prime time and how many were
still watching them when they were canceled. I can understand
why many people in the middle of the country might
have felt aggrieved that Network executives on the coasts thought
(36:41):
they weren't the right market or desirable demographic. The rural
Purge happened almost fifty years ago, and yet there's something
very contemporary about the story. Awesome. As for he Hawk,
(37:06):
remember Roy Clark singing about the rural Purge at the
beginning of the episode, Well he had the last laugh.
When the show was resurrected in first run syndication. The
show lived for another twenty five years. We'd like to
(37:36):
conclude this mobituary with an in memorium for the victims
of the Rural Purge. Green Acres, Petty co Chunction, The
Beverly Hillbillies, The Red Skelton Show, The Ed Sullivan Show,
(38:01):
Family Affair, Hehaw, Hogan's Heroes, The Jackie Gleason Show, The
Jim Neighbor's Hour, Mayberry r f D, The New Andy
Griffith Show, and Lassie. Next Time on Mobituaries, The story
(38:36):
of how Aies Pop Song. It is a song with
velocity right, so big and bold and brash. Product two
thousand nineteen Sports Team Back to Life. I will go
to my grave singing or champ Yes, I will. I
(39:00):
certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary. May I ask you
to please rate and review our podcast. You can also
follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and you can follow
me on Twitter at Morocca. You can subscribe to Mobituaries
wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was
produced by Megan Marcus. Our team of producers also includes
(39:23):
Harry Wood and me Morocca. It was edited by Meg
Dalton and Nathan Miller and engineered by Nathan Miller. Additional
editing by Sam Egan. Indispensable support from Genia Staneski, Lucy Kirk,
Richard Rohrer, and everyone at CBS News Radio. Special thanks
to David Bushman at the Paley Center for Media. Our
(39:45):
theme music is written by Daniel Hart and, as always,
undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John Carp without whom
Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi, It's mo. If you're enjoying Mobituaries
(40:05):
the podcast, May I invite you to check out Mobituaries
the book. It's chock full of stories not in the podcast.
Celebrities who put their butts on the line, sports teams
that threw in the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses,
presidential candidacies that cratered whole countries that went to put
(40:26):
and dragons, Yes, dragons, you see. People used to believe
the dragons will real until just get the book. You
can order Mobituaries the book from any online bookseller, or
stop by your local bookstore and look for me when
I come to your city. Tour information and lots more
at mobituaries dot com
Host
Mo Rocca
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