0:05

On the evening of January eighth, four,

0:09

nearly half of American households

0:11

tuned to their TV sets to CBS

0:14

for an epic matchup. No, it was

0:16

huge at the Juggernauts. It was a classic

0:19

one. No, it wasn't Muhammad Ali versus

0:21

Sunny. Listen, I

0:26

don't accom peaceable or do I

0:28

have to take you? It

0:30

was a fight between a feisty grandmother

0:33

and a kangaroo she had mistaken

0:35

for a giant jack

0:37

rabbit. Giant jack rabbits. I had

0:40

him card. This

0:45

was the actual premise of an episode

0:47

of the classic sitcom The Beverly

0:49

Hillbillies. And while it may seem

0:52

preposterous, you have to understand

0:54

this aired less than two months after

0:56

the assassination of President John

0:59

F. Kennedy. In fact, earlier

1:01

that same day, the new President, Lyndon

1:03

Johnson delivered his first

1:06

State of the Union address to a still

1:08

traumatized nation. And

1:10

you know, here's this little old, you know, hillbilly

1:12

lady confused by what of kangaroo is?

1:15

You don't get more escapist than that. The

1:20

Beverly Hillbillies, a classic fish

1:22

out of water story featuring the Backwoods

1:24

Clampet family who Strike It Rich

1:27

went on to become one of the most successful

1:30

sitcoms of all time, averaging

1:32

upwards of fifty million viewers

1:35

during its run, the kind of numbers

1:37

you never see today outside of Super

1:39

Bowl profits.

1:42

Sword and CBS greenlit a

1:44

whole host of new shows catering

1:46

to audiences who couldn't get enough of

1:49

country themed programming. This

1:59

was the height of rural representation

2:02

on network TV. JE Manhattan,

2:04

just give me that country shid. But

2:07

by the end of the decade, the network

2:10

put the Clampet clan and all

2:12

of their country cousins out to pasture.

2:15

These city folks don't

2:17

want our tang around I whatever,

2:19

put that notion in your here. They even put

2:21

down Lassie

2:26

anything in the country, anything that was not in

2:28

a city with breaking concrete, Bye bye.

2:31

In this episode, we'll investigate

2:33

what caused the largest slaughter

2:36

in sitcom history and meet

2:38

the man who wielded the axe. He

2:41

and I literally whacked

2:43

the hell out of that schedule and cancel about

2:45

a dozen and a half shows from

2:47

CBS Sunday Morning and Simon

2:50

and Schuster. I'm Morocca

2:52

and this is Mobituaries, This

3:01

mobid, the rural purge

3:05

March sixteenth, nine death

3:09

of the country broadcasting system

3:17

Big Wheels had the network started

3:20

spinning. The

3:22

verdict was that heha had to

3:24

go to city

3:26

slickers don't believe in grinning

3:30

and who the heckniques jokes and coma.

3:33

That's Hehaw co host and country

3:35

music legend Roy Clark singing

3:38

about the rural purge in n two,

3:41

one year after CBS canceled

3:43

the musical variety show, consigning

3:45

it to syndication. They canceled all

3:48

the singing and the picking, but

3:51

the scubborn little Donkey wouldn't

3:53

leave, and then

3:55

little Fella is still alive and kicking.

4:03

That song is is smart, it's

4:06

satirical. I mean it's about the rural

4:08

purge. I think it's about rural people

4:10

in general feeling left behind. And

4:12

I think this is them saying, you know, the

4:14

networks don't care about us, like we're forgotten,

4:17

and this is a show that remembers that we're here. Sarah

4:20

s. Gridge hails from Virginia and

4:22

wrote a book all about the sitcom slaughter

4:25

route to CBS and rural

4:27

comedies in the nineteen sixties, And

4:29

so how much TV did you have to watch to

4:31

write this book. I was watching

4:33

about four hours a day over the course

4:35

of about a year, year and a half. So basically

4:38

you were an average American. Yeah, except

4:40

that I was having to take notes and look for themes

4:43

and um, you know, so it was work after

4:45

all. Let's go back to the beginning,

4:47

okay, and by which I mean the beginning of

4:50

television, because life didn't really

4:52

exist before television. What

4:54

is CBS in the late forties and

4:56

nineteen fifties, what is its image?

4:59

CBS is the Sterling Network

5:01

in the forties and fifties is

5:03

CBS They calumb me a broadcasting

5:06

system also known as

5:08

the Tiffany Network. Now,

5:10

in those early days, the only people with

5:12

access to TV signals lived

5:14

in cities at that point. They're they're

5:17

putting a lot of programming on that features immigrants,

5:19

that features Jewish families, that

5:21

features people of color. They're trying

5:23

to appeal to the demographics of the place where

5:26

they're making the shows. Amos and Andy,

5:28

which revolved around a group of African

5:30

American friends in Harlem, was originally

5:33

created and voiced by white actors

5:35

on radio. On TV, the

5:37

show still played to racial stereotypes,

5:40

but the cast was entirely African American,

5:43

the first show with an all black cast,

5:46

something that wouldn't be seen on CBS again

5:48

until the nineteen seventies. And

5:50

this one really surprised me. More

5:52

than sixty years before The Goldberg's

5:55

premiered on ABC, there

5:59

was The gold Egs on CBS.

6:01

Just hearing from your relatives in Europe after

6:03

not hearing for so many years. That's beautiful

6:06

and Jade, did you count how many times they

6:08

asked? And the characters are obviously

6:10

Jewish, yes, And that's a big part of the stuff,

6:13

the story. They don't try to hide that, it's emphasized.

6:16

And then unfortunately what happens with The Goldbergs

6:18

is that one of the lead characters

6:20

is included in one of those lists. Sarah

6:23

is referring to lists of communist

6:25

sympathizers, which included

6:27

actor Philip Loebe, who played the

6:30

male lead on The Goldbergs. This

6:32

was all at the height of the Red Scare, with

6:35

the government investigating so called

6:37

communist infiltration of American

6:40

institutions, including the

6:42

media. FBI director

6:44

j Edgar Hoover reportedly dubbed

6:47

CBS the communist broadcasting

6:49

system. Not the image you

6:51

wanted in Cold War America.

6:54

Around the same time, TV signals

6:56

were beginning to spread beyond urban centers

6:59

into a America's heartland. So

7:01

it was audios to those ethnic

7:04

comedies. So CBS is

7:06

entertainment slate becomes whitewashed.

7:08

Basically, yes, um, they're trying to find

7:11

something that's going to appeal to the largest

7:13

possible demographic, and so they

7:15

start out by saying, Okay, quiz shows,

7:18

that's a great way to go check before

7:20

Yes, let's check before questions.

7:24

That is until CBS and NBC

7:27

came under investigation for rigging

7:29

the results. But

7:32

there was a new television craze riding

7:34

to the rescue.

7:40

Westerns are popular across the

7:42

board. Every network is doing them, and that's

7:45

emphasizing new American ideals.

7:47

It's the idea of the West and

7:50

American individualism and being

7:52

rugged and masculine and

7:55

you know Western from the title. I mean,

7:57

there's no kidding around here, right Gunsmoke

8:04

starring James gunn Smoke, I

8:06

mean is just a monster. Oh

8:08

yeah, absolutely. There were about forty one Westerns

8:11

on television at one time, and this is across three

8:13

networks. Wow. Westerns

8:15

were especially popular with the expanding

8:18

rural and southern markets, and

8:20

it was those markets CBS was

8:22

aiming at with its very first rural

8:25

comedy, premiering in nine six,

8:29

The Andy Griffith Show starring

8:33

Andy Griffin. So The

8:35

Andy Griffith Show is one of the great shows

8:37

of all time, one of the great family sitcoms of

8:39

all time, maybe the best show

8:41

about small town life ever made.

8:44

You may remember Alan Seppondwall from

8:46

our season one episode on sitcom

8:48

character Deaths and Disappearances. Allan

8:51

is the chief TV critic for Rolling Stone,

8:54

and if you couldn't tell, he's a big fan

8:56

of The Andy Griffith Show. Andy Griffith

8:58

plays Sheriff Andy Taylor of maybe Are, a small

9:00

town in North Carolina. He has a deputy,

9:02

Barney Fife, played by the great Don Notts,

9:04

who is who is really eager

9:07

but also completely bumbling. So and

9:09

you will not allow him to put a bullet

9:11

in his gun that you've come very near shooting yourself

9:14

in the foot. You know, they ain't exactly much

9:16

of a call for one legged deputy.

9:18

You're combining some of the elements of

9:20

the western with some of the elements of

9:23

the rural comedy. So you've got a sheriff.

9:25

He's kind of standing in as that law

9:28

figure in Mayberry

9:30

is kind of an idol. I mean it's for for

9:32

a lot of people, right, it's a fantasy. I

9:34

mean the only the only lawbreaker

9:37

is the town drunk and he locks himself in at

9:39

night. I didn't get mindfull eight hours

9:41

in one. I don't get mindfull eight hours. I'm

9:43

grouchi. Do you mind? The

9:46

Andy Griffith Show became such a breakout

9:48

success that it birthed its own

9:50

set of lesser quality spinoffs

9:53

throughout the nineteen six U

9:59

s mc gomer

10:01

Pyle was originally Mayberry's lovably

10:04

dim weighted filling station attendant,

10:07

and Jim

10:10

Nighbors played him. You know, I had

10:12

a lot of catchphrases, you know, golli and

10:15

shazam uh.

10:18

And then at a certain point they decided to have him

10:20

enlist in the Marines, and later in the decade

10:23

there was Mayberry RFD. Note

10:25

to our urban listeners, r f D stands

10:28

for Rural Free Delivery. It's

10:30

basically the Andy Griffith Show without Andy.

10:32

It's it's Andy Griffith was ready to move on,

10:34

but they wanted to keep the show going. Now,

10:37

this burgeoning rural comedy

10:39

cornucopia isn't happening on its

10:41

own. Someone's green lighting

10:43

these shows. James Aubrey is

10:45

really the mastermind of the rural

10:47

craze at CBS. I just have to

10:49

say his name is mud to

10:52

me because he canceled

10:54

the Judy Garland show. Yeah

10:57

so, and and that is just

11:00

that's a capital crime in my opinion.

11:03

The types of shows championed by

11:05

James Aubrey invited a rebuke

11:07

in from Federal

11:09

Communications Chairman Newton Minno,

11:12

who thought the networks could do better. When

11:14

television is good, nothing,

11:18

not the theater, not the magazines

11:20

or newspapers, nothing is better. But

11:24

when television is bad, nothing

11:27

is worth. This is what came to be known

11:29

as the vast Wasteland speech.

11:32

I can assure you that what you will observe

11:35

is a vast wasteland. You

11:38

will see a procession of game shows,

11:40

formula, comedies about totally unbelievable

11:42

families, blood and thunder, ma'am,

11:45

violence, say it is a murder

11:48

Western badmans. He is arguing that he did

11:50

not feel television was living up to its vast

11:52

potential, the kind of potential that a network

11:54

like CBS had displayed often throughout

11:56

the fifties, and of course, about

11:58

a year and a half after that speech, I think after

12:01

maybe a little bit of soul searching, maybe

12:03

there was they felt a little bit chastened. The

12:06

Beverly Hillbillies premieres. You

12:10

know, we thought about what you said, Newton Minno, but

12:12

we really liked this Clampitt family pitch,

12:15

and oh boy, did that corn

12:18

yield a prophet. This

12:25

is Beverly Hills, dared

12:28

dwell, the rich, the famous,

12:31

the glamorous. In September nine, CBS

12:34

premiered a new series about

12:36

one of the most exclusive enclaves

12:39

in the country, home to sportsman

12:42

play boys, gilbillies,

12:45

Hillbillies. Who

12:48

are these people? Where

12:50

are they from? And why did they

12:52

come to Beverly Hills. The

12:55

Beverly Hillbillies was one of the most

12:57

popular shows on television in the ninth

13:00

seen sixties. Well as as a wise

13:02

man once saying, it's it's the story of a man

13:04

named Jed. He was a poor mountaineer. He

13:06

barely kept his family fed. But

13:08

then one day he was shooting at some food and

13:11

you know what happened. Up through the ground

13:13

came bubble and crude oil that is

13:15

black Gold, Texas. T Jed,

13:18

along with his daughter Ellie May, nephew

13:20

Jeff Throw and Granny decided to pack

13:23

up and moved to Beverly Hills.

13:25

That is yeah, movie stars swimming pools.

13:28

The Beverly Hillbillies was the brainchild

13:30

of comedy writer Paul Henning, who

13:32

would come to California by way of Independence,

13:35

Missouri, which also happened to be

13:37

the hometown of President Harry Truman.

13:40

Young Paul got his start as a soda

13:42

jerk at the local drug store. And who

13:44

should come in there but Harry Truman, And

13:47

he talked with him a couple of times.

13:49

That's Henning's daughter Linda, and

13:52

Harry you know, said, well, one thing

13:54

you ought to do is go to law school. He said, it'll

13:56

never hurt you to get a degree

13:58

in law. Well, thank god he didn't

14:01

stick with that. Yes, the

14:04

inspiration for the Hillbillies came from

14:06

Henning's summers in the Ozarks.

14:08

I think he observed people and

14:10

he loved the honesty.

14:14

Uh. He always called Jed

14:16

one of nature's noblemen, Jed

14:18

Clampett. Yeah, he must have known

14:21

somebody kind of like Jed.

14:24

I would think, Now I know

14:26

that Ellie May was

14:29

partially based on me because I'm

14:31

an animal nut. And can we just say

14:33

the actors who played these roles.

14:36

I mean Irene Ryan who played Granny.

14:38

She was a great actress. Oh she's wonderful.

14:40

She was great. And she came in to see Daddy

14:43

to read for him, dressed

14:45

kind of as Granny, and Daddy

14:48

took one look at her and thought, here she is,

14:50

you know, this is Cranny. Veteran Hollywood

14:52

actor Buddy Ebsen played Jed

14:55

Quick aside. Ebsen was the original

14:57

choice to play the tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.

15:00

Well, people that asked me to

15:02

what I attribute to success of the Hill it

15:05

was people humor, genuine

15:07

humor, Paul Hitting, It's

15:09

a genius. Who out there do you

15:11

think he was writing the show for. I

15:15

think the people he he basically

15:17

knew, which was in between

15:20

the two coasts, you know, just

15:22

your basic people. He certainly wasn't

15:24

writing for the critics. Reviewers

15:26

called the series painful to sit through

15:28

and the most shamelessly

15:31

corny show in years. Even the

15:33

Hillbillies should take Umbridge

15:35

as a TV critic, what's your take on the Beverly

15:37

Hillbillies I don't think that's

15:39

a show I would review very positively were

15:41

to debut today. Look, they made a lot of

15:43

money off of it, so some somebody

15:45

was being smart about something, even though everyone on that

15:48

show is so dumb. Turns out even some

15:50

of the folks working inside CBS

15:52

at the time were flummixed. Here's

15:54

the late newsman Mike Wallace. I

15:57

confess I didn't really understand what

15:59

was going on. I mean, this was, after

16:01

all, the Network

16:03

of all the Stars

16:06

and suddenly Beverly

16:09

Hillbillies. But

16:11

Sarah Eskridge thinks, to critics then and

16:13

now have it backwards. It's very subversive

16:16

because I think what you see with this family

16:19

um is that they make fools out of the people

16:21

that are around them in Beverly Hills. I tell

16:23

you, Jed, this place is full of the laziest,

16:26

greasiest, unfriendliest mess of people.

16:28

I ever did lay my eyes all okay,

16:30

And there's an old tradition of this, right, like the country

16:33

folk who are in fact to have horse sense,

16:35

who are smarter than the city slickers, and the

16:37

ways that matter exactly, and so you know, they

16:40

might not be well versed in twentieth

16:42

century consumer culture. But they're well versed

16:45

in family, They're well versed in

16:47

how to survive off the lands. They're well

16:49

versed in how to be a good friend and community

16:51

member. The rural comedies were beginning

16:54

to reshape CBS. Meanwhile,

16:57

sitting atop the network was a

16:59

man known for his fine taste and

17:01

air udition, William Paley, the

17:03

legendary chairman of CBS.

17:06

I mean, sort of very sophisticated guy.

17:08

What does he think of these shows? He

17:11

is less than pleased. By the time to Beverly

17:13

Hillbillies comes along, you start hearing CBS.

17:15

It's not the communist broadcast system anymore,

17:17

but it's now the country broadcast system. However,

17:20

the money that they're minting from

17:22

these shows helps ease the pain a little bit.

17:24

Yeah, no, it was huge. This was you

17:26

know. They aired one of the most watched

17:28

episodes of television ever, in which

17:31

Granny goes in punches kangaroo

17:34

that she mistakes for a giant jack rabbit.

17:36

Yes, is she trying to cook the jack rabbit?

17:40

Why are you asking me these questions? I don't know.

17:42

Well, I'll tell you this story. That's

17:44

Linda Henning again. One day I looked

17:46

out of my dressing room window and

17:49

saw Granny who I thought was Granny.

17:52

It turned out to be the stunt man

17:54

dressed like Granny, riding

17:56

a kangaroo that had

17:58

been saddled down the street. So

18:02

that's the kind of thing you'd sometimes run

18:04

into when you worked there. That didn't

18:06

happen on the set of All in the Family, not

18:10

at all. No, no kangaroos

18:12

on that set. Linda Henning was

18:14

nearby because she was working on the

18:16

set of her father's latest hit sitcom,

18:19

Petticoat Junction. Come

18:22

ride a little train that is rolling

18:24

down the tracks to the Junction. I

18:28

really didn't know much about Petticoat, and quite

18:30

frankly, there isn't much to know.

18:33

I'll let the show's theme song explain. There's

18:37

a little hotel call the Shady

18:39

Rest at the Junction. It

18:43

is run by Kate. Come and be her

18:46

guest at the junto.

18:50

The show takes place at a hotel along

18:52

a spur of a railroad that's been cut

18:54

off from the main track. Once

18:56

a week, a new visitor will check in.

18:59

That's the whole show, Like, nothing really much happens.

19:01

It's just sort of lingering around the hotel.

19:03

The train station, a little bit of the town. B

19:06

Benadrrett played family matriarch

19:08

and hotel owner Kate. As long

19:10

as you're a guest in my hotel,

19:12

you're entitled to shady rest hospitality.

19:15

But TV fans of all ages may

19:17

know her far better for another role.

19:20

What's going on, Bernie? What are you up

19:22

to? B Benadrrett was Betty Rubble.

19:25

I loved Betty Rubble flint

19:27

Stones she was. She

19:29

was wonderful, kind of my mentor.

19:32

The widowed Kate had three daughters

19:34

whose names were forever confused,

19:36

Billy Joe, Betty Joe, and Bobby Joe. And I

19:39

was Betty Joe the youngest. I'll admit

19:41

I'm not doing so well in my mind or subjects,

19:44

but I'm leading my class in basketball, gymnastics,

19:46

and ice hockey. Probably the most

19:48

memorable image from the show was from

19:51

the opening credits, with all three teenage

19:53

girls peering out from the inside

19:55

of a water tower with their petticoats

19:58

hanging over the side. Lynn Double

20:00

was the Redhead. I would get fan

20:02

letters from girls who'ld say, when I

20:04

come home from school, uh, we

20:07

play petticoat junction and I'm

20:09

you now along that Railroad was

20:11

the fictional Hooterville, and

20:13

thanks to the continuing country comedy

20:15

craze, the Paul Henning universe

20:18

expanded a third and final time

20:20

in n with

20:22

Green Acres. How do you feel about

20:24

New York City, Mr Douglas, I

20:26

hate it. Mrs Douglas disagrees.

20:30

I certain Green Acres was

20:32

the reverse Beverly Hillbillies. A

20:34

city slicker lawyer played by Eddie

20:36

Albert convinces his socialite

20:38

wife played by Ava Gabore to

20:41

move to the country. My wife, good

20:44

fine acres.

20:46

We are exactly

20:49

that's a great theme song. So they moved. They moved to Hooterville.

20:51

They start running a farm instead of him being a

20:53

big city lawyer. Uh. And then weirdly

20:56

she fits in much better than he does. Even though

20:58

it was his idea. The show was edge. You're

21:00

more imaginative than the Beverly Hillbillies

21:03

or Petticoat Junction that you know. There's

21:05

a pig with a full name, Arnold zipfle

21:08

Um. Square eggs. Yeah, there's an episode

21:10

where the hen starts laying square eggs.

21:12

Things were very strange and surreal and just

21:14

much more creative than they tended

21:16

to get on the other two shows. And by the way, we

21:18

need to do a better job educating our children.

21:21

I mean, too many young people who

21:23

think that Jaja go Boar was

21:25

the star. Ja Ja

21:27

Gabor came to Gilligan's Island on

21:29

a speedboat and didn't rescue

21:32

them for reasons passing understanding.

21:34

Is that true? Yes, but a vagabar

21:37

was Lisa on Green Acres. You know they had another

21:39

sister, Magda. I did not. Yeah,

21:41

she didn't really do much. She was a socialite. Zeppo

21:44

said, there you go, exactly. She was

21:46

a zeppo, which is better than

21:48

being there is still yet another one,

21:51

gummo, gummo. Okay, okay early,

21:53

So at least she was a Zeppo. Since the

21:55

worlds of Paul Hennings shows all

21:57

overlapped, there were plenty of opportunities

22:00

for crossover episodes. His

22:02

daughter Linda remembers, and when I

22:04

did the Hillbillies, Granny and

22:06

and Jed and everybody came out

22:09

to Hooterville to the Shady Rest Hotel,

22:11

and Granny mistook the dog who had jumped

22:14

in the baby carriage for my child

22:16

for a lot of animal confusion with Danny.

22:20

One thing all the rural comedies had

22:22

in common, they seem to exist

22:25

in a parallel universe. You know, when

22:27

I watched these shows, and I didn't watch petticoat

22:29

Junction, but when I watched certainly Green

22:31

Acres and UM

22:33

and Andrew Griffith Show and Beverly Hillbillies,

22:36

you know, I would look for clues about what

22:38

was going on in the world at that time, and

22:41

if they were there, boy, they're hard to find. Now.

22:43

Those those shows are entirely designed to get

22:45

like create a big impenetrable

22:48

wall between the world outside your window

22:50

and the one being projected on your TV s hermetically

22:53

sealed, so it's very escapist.

22:55

All of these horrible things that are happening in the country,

22:58

um that are that seemed to be tearing the entry apart.

23:00

None of that's happening in rural comedy. No

23:03

special episodes acknowledging the

23:05

assassinations of JFK, m

23:07

l K or RFK. No

23:10

references to violence in the South

23:12

linked to the Civil rights movement. The

23:14

Andy Griffith Show, that's supposed to be Mount Airy, which

23:16

is a stone's throw from Greensboro

23:18

where the first sit in took place in and

23:21

that took place within just a couple of months

23:23

of the show airing. And I gotta tell you, when you

23:25

think of Sheriff Andy, I mean, if you say

23:27

to me law enforcement

23:30

officer the South nineteen sixties,

23:32

I think Bull Connor right in

23:34

Alabama, in African Americans being

23:37

attacked with water hoses, exactly, and

23:39

and he's completely the exact opposite.

23:41

And I think that it's presenting

23:43

a kinder, gentler self and what's being

23:46

shown on the news. And pretty much all

23:48

the characters on these shows are

23:50

white. Absolutely with

23:52

the rural comedies, you will have black guest

23:55

stars. You will have um,

23:57

maybe a storyline that revolves around

24:00

one black character, which happened in the Andy Griffith

24:02

Show, but I think total that Um,

24:04

it's a story where Obie's football coach,

24:07

Um is also playing the piano and

24:09

teaches him that it's okay to be cultured. And also,

24:12

like sports, if things are sort of planned

24:14

and worked out, it's always possible

24:16

to pursue several interests at the same time. It's

24:19

the only episode out of two forty

24:21

nine that features a speaking black character.

24:25

You know, Sammy Davis Jr. Guest start

24:27

on The Beverly Hillbillies in a later season

24:30

as a cop as a cop which is which

24:32

is kind of odds is an interesting choice

24:34

and not just a copy is an Irish cop.

24:39

That's sorry, I didn't have the pleasure

24:41

of making the like of the Oaks.

24:43

And of course he nails the accent because he's Sammy

24:45

Davis Jr. And can do anything. Big

24:47

fan here that I think that might have been my favorite

24:49

five minutes I watched in the entire year and a half

24:51

that I was watching Rural Comedy

24:59

nine were in Vietnam. Certainly

25:01

wasn't being mentioned on these shows. Remember

25:04

Gomer Pyle, you know, the character

25:06

who moved from Mayberry to a marine

25:08

base in the mid nineteen sixties. You

25:10

know, the fact that he's a marine. He wouldn't He would have

25:12

been in donang Um faster than he could have stabbed

25:14

his fingers and you know, and yet somehow

25:16

he never gets deployed out if his friends gets

25:18

deployed, no one gets killed. And it doesn't

25:21

get any more cut off from the main world

25:23

than Petticoat Junction. Remember,

25:25

the entire premise was built around

25:27

a train that was quite literally

25:30

cut off from the main line. Yet

25:32

Linda Henning defends the value of escapism.

25:36

She remembers receiving fan mail from

25:38

servicemen who were watching her show overseas.

25:41

Oh, it moved me a lot,

25:44

and I was glad that

25:46

there was something that talked about

25:48

escape, that there was something that they could

25:50

say that maybe would take them away

25:53

from some of the horror

25:55

of what they were experiencing. But

25:57

a new generation of viewers wanted

26:00

an escape from escapism

26:03

from television. In Hollywood,

26:05

Ladies and Gentlemen beat the Smothers

26:08

Brothers with

26:11

the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the

26:13

late nineteen sixties, CBS

26:15

ventured out of the bubble with a show

26:18

that dared to address current events.

26:27

They were clean cuts, war suits. They

26:29

looked like the boys next door, but their comedy

26:32

was very subversive and they seemed to have their finger

26:34

on the pulse of the music scene

26:36

especially, and so they had all of these wonderful

26:38

musical groups. Their comedy had

26:41

a lot of double entendres that were considered risque.

26:43

They had Pete Seeger come on to sing an anti

26:46

war song. It was a very big deal. Yes,

26:48

And and that's part of the problem is that as

26:50

they become more popular, they

26:52

also start to become more political. Are

26:55

you aware of what the Smothers Brothers is

26:57

replaced with I

26:59

don't remember, oh my yes,

27:02

oh my god. The Smothers Brothers were

27:04

too much, too soon for CBS

27:07

and the words of the network brass. The Brothers

27:09

were unwilling to accept the criteria

27:12

of taste established by CBS,

27:15

and we're pulled off the air in nine nine

27:17

they're replaced by this you know, country

27:20

music variety show, which could

27:22

not be more philosophically or stylistically

27:24

opposite of what the Smothers were doing. It's

27:30

um I mean, it does seem like it's

27:32

designed to appeal to every possible Southern stereotype.

27:35

And um, I confess, out of all the rural

27:37

comedies, that's the only one that I actually was

27:41

watched growing up. Was not on

27:43

purpose. And my grandparents loved heiha. Why

27:45

do you think they loved it? Because

27:47

they liked the music. The music, And let's let's just

27:50

point out Roy Clark and Buck Owens, the hosts,

27:53

great musical talents.

27:55

They're gonna put me in a movie. They're

27:58

gonna make a big star out of me, you

28:00

know, a film about a man

28:02

who sat alonely but all I gotta do

28:04

is at naturally. Yeah,

28:07

he's great just incredible musicians,

28:10

but they loved the music. The jokes were corny,

28:13

would be putting it mildly. What's

28:15

the difference between a hair dresser and

28:17

a sculptor. Well,

28:20

a hairdresser curls up and dies and

28:22

a sculptor makes faces

28:23

and buff You kind

28:26

of had to watch between your fingers because

28:28

I felt a little embarrassed for them that they were doing

28:30

it. But they, you know, the older folks,

28:32

and my wife loved that show. So it

28:35

was on and he Hall was a hit,

28:37

but it turned out to be a last stand

28:40

for rural comedy. With

28:42

the arrival of a new sheriff at CBS,

28:45

he Hall was about to get the old

28:48

Heath ho In.

29:00

Through the saloon doors comes

29:03

Fred Silverman, and he detests

29:06

rural comedy with a passion that exceeds

29:08

a thousand burning suns um. He thinks

29:10

that rural comedy is stupid. Fred

29:14

Silverman would go on to become a network

29:17

television legend known as

29:19

the Man with the Golden Gut, responsible

29:21

for Roots, Mash and Scooby

29:24

Doo. But back in he

29:27

was the brash, thirty three year old,

29:29

brand new head of programming at CBS,

29:32

and he had one mission to

29:34

rid the network of rural

29:37

comedy. Fred Silverman called

29:39

those rural comedies shit kicking.

29:42

Is that necessarily an insult? I don't think

29:44

anything that you use the

29:46

words ship to describe is probably

29:48

going to be considered a positive. Well, if I say you're

29:51

the ship, not you, that would be a compliment,

29:53

But okay, sort of. I

29:55

don't say that. Um. I think

29:57

that he thinks that people who watch those shows

29:59

are people who are literally

30:02

kicking ship for a living. Fred Silverman did

30:04

not really strike me as the kind of guy who

30:06

would kick back and watch petticoat Junction

30:08

or some of these other shows. But it's really a matter

30:10

of changing demographics. Earlier, Nielsen

30:12

was largely just measuring audiences, how

30:14

many people are watching, how many how sets are

30:17

tuned in. At a certain point, they were able

30:19

to break it down and say, this number of people

30:21

in the city are watching versus this number of people in rural

30:23

America. You know, these households

30:25

that are wealthy versus these households that are blue

30:27

collar. But a lot of people were still watching.

30:30

People still like these shows. Fred

30:32

Silverman, his business people were saying, look,

30:35

we can't sell advertising on these because

30:37

the only people are watching them are the hicks from the

30:39

sticks, And we want to be able to sell

30:41

ads to people in big cities with big disposable

30:44

income, because that's where advertisers

30:46

want. Here's Fred Silverman in

30:48

Choots House in one. Something had

30:51

to be done, and I think

30:53

there was total agreement. Bob bodho

30:55

is president of the network, his boss, Jack Schneider

30:58

and Paley said

31:00

let's let's bite the boat.

31:02

Silverman and his bosses began with

31:04

a little target practice. Petticoat

31:07

Junction was the first to buy the

31:09

farm. Linda Henning remembers,

31:12

I still to this day think it

31:14

was kind of lousy what

31:17

they did. We never heard from

31:20

the powers that be at CBS. Nobody

31:22

bothered to call us the Beverly Hillbillyes,

31:25

Green Acres and Hehaw were

31:27

soon primed for slaughter. Were

31:29

scheduled for Tuesday night. As

31:32

Fred Silverman saw it, let Tuesday

31:34

be the receptacle for all the crap that

31:36

that we we weren't able to cancel yet.

31:39

Meanwhile, CBS began experimenting

31:41

with more urban and gritty fair

31:44

The results of those experiments were mixed.

31:47

You've got an appointment with the interns

31:50

on Friday. These weren't about unpaid employees.

31:53

They were young doctors, and the tagline

31:55

was the interns, It's

31:57

about what it's all about. Wait,

32:00

wait, you're using that tagline for a doctor show.

32:02

I guess so, I mean by Jean Paulsard,

32:04

I mean, it's just it feels like a Seinfeld tagline

32:07

or something. And then there was the Storefront Lawyers,

32:09

And this was an earnest attempt to sort

32:11

of be attuned to what was going on in the

32:13

world, change within the establishment,

32:16

young advocates practicing law in

32:19

Century City to pay the bills in

32:21

the ghetto, to pay their dues. Both

32:24

shows were canceled after one season,

32:27

but hope was not lost. That

32:30

same season, a certain show

32:32

about a girl who turned the world on with

32:34

her smile from the

32:42

Silverman realized that the Mary

32:44

Tyler Moore Show was the kind of show

32:46

that could restore luster to the Tiffany

32:49

Network. And I looked at Mary Tyler

32:51

Mona said, this is such a terrific show. We

32:53

got this sitting in the middle of Allas

32:57

Ship Kicker shows. And then halfway

32:59

through the nineteen seventies seventy one season,

33:02

CBS took a chance on producers

33:04

Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin and

33:06

their new comedy All in the

33:08

Family, This country coming to anyhow?

33:11

What what else

33:14

we get out of Vietnam or something? Don't

33:18

be a wise guy, smart,

33:21

controversial, thrilling television

33:23

that made people laugh and think, and

33:26

for Archie Bunker to live, Jed

33:28

Clampett would have to die. Fred

33:31

Silverman explained, I work from

33:33

Amber Dame of Bob Wood, who was president

33:36

of the network, and uh he and

33:38

I literally whacked the

33:40

hell out of that schedule and cancel about

33:42

a dozen and a half shows. The casualty

33:44

list eventually included all

33:47

the rural comedies, the largest

33:49

slaughter in sitcom history.

33:52

TV legend ed Sullivan was collateral

33:54

damage due to his older skewing

33:56

audience. Silverman's like wielding

33:58

a machete through this cornfield,

34:01

gleefully, gleefully. So. One actor

34:03

may have put it best when he lamented CBS

34:06

canceled everything with a tree in

34:08

it, anything in the country, anything that was

34:11

not in a city with breaking concrete. Bye

34:13

bye. Yeah. I would not have wanted to be a CBS switchboard

34:15

operator in the

34:17

death of these programs wasn't only a

34:19

gut punch for fans, it was personal

34:22

for creators like Paul Henning. I

34:24

think he took it very personally,

34:26

because I mean he had poured all of

34:29

his blooded, sweat and tears into these shows, well,

34:31

certainly into Beverly Hillbillies,

34:33

and he was quite an

34:35

introvert anyway, and

34:37

he he kind of withdrew after

34:40

that. Now it's tempting to paint

34:42

Fred Silverman as the villain in this story,

34:45

but we actually owe him a debt of gratitude.

34:48

During Silverman's tenure at CBS,

34:50

the Norman Lear Universe expanded

34:53

to include Maud and One Day

34:55

at a Time and Good Times,

34:57

and the Jefferson's Became Two was

34:59

the first CBS sitcom's featuring

35:02

largely African American casts

35:04

since the days of Amos and Andy.

35:06

He basically created this new, sophisticated

35:09

Golden Age of sitcom's,

35:11

arguably the best era for sitcom's in

35:14

the medium's history. Did Fred Silverman

35:16

have to be ruthless? I think

35:18

he did um because I think if you look

35:20

at CBS from like, you know, seventy two

35:22

to seventies six or so, when they had you

35:25

know, all in the family, Mary Tyler Moore, the Bob

35:27

Newhart Show, Mash Carol Burnett.

35:29

They were airing those five shows on one

35:32

night for a season. That's probably the best night

35:34

of programming in the history of network

35:36

television. That's amazing. It is amazing,

35:39

and I don't know that that would have been post like could

35:41

you imagine a network airing All in

35:43

the Family and Pettico Junction.

35:46

Do you think that Southern audiences

35:49

felt abandoned when

35:51

CBS acts all those shows. I

35:55

think so because if

35:57

you think about Southern re presentation

36:01

since then, you see pockets,

36:03

but it's nowhere near as prevalent as

36:05

it was during the sixties. Even if these were

36:08

caricatures in many ways. Yeah, but at

36:10

the same time, they're still they have hearts

36:12

there, they have substance, and they have a soul. I,

36:15

like many of you listening, discovered

36:17

the rural comedies and reruns usually

36:19

after I got home from school. They

36:21

were corny and funny, but I

36:23

had no idea of their former glory.

36:26

How many tens of millions used to watch

36:28

them in prime time and how

36:30

many were still watching them when they were canceled.

36:33

I can understand why many people in

36:35

the middle of the country might have felt aggrieved

36:38

that Network executives on the coasts

36:41

thought they weren't the right market or

36:43

desirable demographic. The

36:46

rural Purge happened almost fifty years

36:48

ago, and yet there's

36:50

something very contemporary about the story.

37:00

Awesome. As

37:05

for he Hawk, remember Roy Clark

37:07

singing about the rural Purge at the beginning

37:09

of the episode, Well he

37:12

had the last laugh. When the show

37:14

was resurrected in first run syndication.

37:23

The show lived for another twenty

37:26

five years.

37:36

We'd like to conclude this mobituary

37:38

with an in memorium for the victims

37:41

of the Rural Purge. Green

37:46

Acres, Petty

37:48

co Chunction, The

37:51

Beverly Hillbillies, The

37:54

Red Skelton Show,

37:56

The Ed Sullivan Show, Family

38:01

Affair, Hehaw,

38:06

Hogan's Heroes, The

38:08

Jackie Gleason Show, The

38:11

Jim Neighbor's Hour, Mayberry

38:15

r f D, The

38:19

New Andy Griffith Show, and

38:23

Lassie.

38:33

Next Time on Mobituaries, The

38:36

story of how Aies Pop

38:38

Song. It is a song with velocity right,

38:41

so big and bold and brash.

38:44

Product two thousand nineteen Sports

38:46

Team Back to Life. I

38:48

will go to my grave singing

38:51

or champ Yes, I will. I

39:00

certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary.

39:02

May I ask you to please rate and review our

39:05

podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries

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on Facebook and Instagram, and

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you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca.

39:12

You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever

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you get your podcasts. This episode

39:17

of Mobituaries was produced by Megan

39:20

Marcus. Our team of producers

39:22

also includes Harry Wood and me

39:24

Morocca. It was edited

39:27

by Meg Dalton and Nathan Miller

39:29

and engineered by Nathan Miller. Additional

39:32

editing by Sam Egan. Indispensable

39:35

support from Genia Staneski, Lucy

39:37

Kirk, Richard Rohrer, and everyone

39:39

at CBS News Radio. Special

39:41

thanks to David Bushman at the Paley

39:43

Center for Media. Our theme music

39:46

is written by Daniel Hart and, as

39:48

always, undying thanks to Rand

39:50

Morrison and John Carp without

39:52

whom Mobituaries couldn't

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live. Hi,

40:02

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