LOL .. love it .. I never realized the producers pulled that stunt that many times in the series .. That's one example of why Green Acres was so popular - they weren't reluctant to take a step back and laugh at themselves .. Thanks so much for putting this video together ..
Dick Chevillat may have started this back in radio, when he and Ray Singer were writing the Phil Harris-Alice Faye show. Phil's buddy Frankie Remley (played by Elliott Lewis) got a big laugh once telling Phil he was going to borrow "Dick's Chevrolet."
Eddie Albert also starred in the Outer Limits ep, "Cry of Silence," which was basically Green Acres Meets the Twilight Zone. My favorite GA episode? The one where Arnold Ziffel gets drafted: Oliver Wendell Douglass to draft board guy: "Arnold Ziffel is a PIG!" Draft board guy: "We don't care about his eating habits."
@@jeffphakenewz8556 With a silly comedy like this, there's a very fine line between cute, clever, hilariously funny and dorky, stupid, totally un-funny. The Hillbillies crossed that line to the stupid side, IMO.
It's interesting that if you listen to some of the radio shows that CBS did you can see that they were often much like the shows that came to TV in the 50's and 60's. Paul Henning did a radio show called "Lum & Abner" which was in the same vein as the shows on CBS in the 1960's. "Petty Coat Junction" , "Beverly Hillbillies" and Green Acres" among them. Another TV show with deep roots in radio was "Gunsmoke".
A great example is the many variations on "How Lisa and Oliver met" -- none of which agreed with any other. Sometimes they meet during WWII, other times in NYC, once in Paris IIRC, etc. Lisa's entire history was retconned 5-6 times at least during the run. It is always Lisa telling the story; once or twice Oliver agrees with the thrust of it, but mostly it's clear that she's telling the Hootervillians a tall tale -- which they of course swallow whole no matter how different the details are from what they've heard previously.
Moonlighting , Did that Some,,,, David Addison would say,, We would have done caught them By Now,,, But we still have 5 minutes left in the episode,,,,,,
I think there were some others. One had Sam using a printing press to print the town newsletter, but it keeps printing the names instead. He gets more and more frustrated with the machine, but then it finally starts printing the newsletter.
@@marshamariner7897 If my life was a TV show, my exwife would wake me up about the names about the bed. I would be the one talking about that it is 5am.
Sommers & "Chevrolet" - the two most talented writers in the era of the "rural series" back then .. That's why Green Acres was the most "high brow" of all three of them w. the cleverest writing ..
Most of Henning's ideas would have ran one season at most in the hands of most other producers. The Beverly Hillbillies & this, The Reverse Beverly Hillbillies kept us laughing as the main characters never became sophisticated on one hand or country-wise on the other. Still trying to make Lisa Douglas hotcakes than will double as replacement shingles on my roof.
They should have made Oliver and Steve Douglas brothers so "My Three Sons" was part of the Hooterville universe. Uncle Charley would've gotten along great with some of those characters.
Malcolm in the Middle did it routinely. Malcolm would talk directly to the viewer on camera or narrate in voice-over. But aside from that one you're right.
We laughed how in the late 60’s Oliver had to climb the telephone pole to talk. Here we are in 2022 and we still have plenty of dead cell phone zones where I feel like we might still have to climb a pole to get reception.🤔
One of my favorite shows as a kid... loved Eva Gabor, especially her cooking for "Oliver"! 🤣😂🤣 I was fortunate to meet her briefly when I was working at the Robinson's-May store in Beverly Hills. I was working in the women's shoe department, and said "hello" to her, asked if she needed any assistance. She said "no thank you". She was just like you see here in Green Acres, pretty and petite! 😍 Sadly, she passed away less than a month later while on vacation in Mexico. I couldn't believe it when I found out, realizing I had just met her? 😢
Did you ever hear Letters from Wingfield Farm? I used to listen to it on CBC but it was made into a stage production and movie. You can still get the CD
@@pirbird14 Yes I remember listening to it but at the time my favourite hick was Charlie Farquharson -- yer Pee Hair Trousseau with his ascot around his neck heeyonk heeyonk
I grew up in 'the country' with rural neighbors like these. Then the city folk started moving in. It took me awhile to see the humor in Green Acres since it reflected too closely what I saw everyday in real life.
I always did get a kick out of the surreal touches in this farcical show--once I was old enough to figure it out (kinda like those risque elements in classic Looney Tune cartoons).
This show was so funny. I used to get off work then smoke a joint and look at the reruns on this show. Crack up laughing tears coming out of my eyes. I miss those good old days.
I kind of lived this reality growing up. I actually live in an old farm house now and still refer to the show all the time. We cant plug in anything more than a 7 or we blow a circuit.
It was a great time to grow up. No hot running water, an outhouse, frozen pipes, bathed in a washtub, went to a one room school, woodstove for heat, etc. My sisters, brothers, and I still laugh about it today. (10 kids) Wonder how we made it all of these years.
@@bdickinson6751 As a kid you learn to put up with things like that. We didn't have it as bad as you, but when I moved out I realize how much it sucked.
I think the high point of the series was that one episode (wish I could remember the title of it) where Oliver had to hold a meeting at the schoolhouse to discuss some local topic of concern/interest with the other show regs .. EXCELLENT writing in that episode .. Each of the regs is trying to talk over each other w. their usual "unique personal characteristics", Oliver, in the meantime, getting more and more exasperated over their behavior, and this oral give-and-take just keeps building until you can't help but bust a gut .. I bet they had to rehearse that scene several times to get it just right, for the benefit of all .. 🙂
The ep that had me in convulsions was the one where a nailed shut door in the house was finally jimmied open and it was a door to a cistern under the house and both Lisa and Oliver ended up down there and they were locked in. they called upstairs thru the drain in the sink and nobody could figure out where they were, except Arnold. He came in and held an intelligent conversation with Lisa and then she sent him to Druckers store to tell sam their predicament, to which Arnold did just that and Sam perfectly understood the pigs grunts. I fell on the floor laughing at that one.
Back when TV was actually funny. I heard the ratings for Green Acres were solid but they booted the show because some executive thought there were too many shows about life in rural America. Wouldn't it be refreshing to go back to those simpler times? Oliver! Loved Eva in that role, she was a gem. 🥰
@@robertmac7833 The rural purge was undertaken to clear the schedule of shows that appealed mostly to older and rural viewers, who generally did not purchase products high-dollar advertisers wanted to push. The hospital and cop dramas and slick fantasy shows that replaced them drew a younger, better-educated and more affluent audience to whom one could sell autos, vacations, and other high-priced products -- not just cigarettes and floor wax. Thus the network made more $$ from those shows.
The masterful writing of Dick Chevillat is on full display on NBC Radio's "Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show", which ran in the late 1940s/early 1950s, and sponsored by Rexall Pharmacies. There are plenty of episodes available on RU-vid. I highly recommend seeking them out.
Holy crap! I'd seen all these episodes several times, in two different languages, and I never ever noticed these title gags! They went right over my head! ...wait, what was that?!
Wow I had no idea this show did this, very cool. So strange to see Eddie Albert in such a goofy role after watching him be a total bastard in "The Longest Yard."
It's worth noting that Paul Henning, besides being the executive producer, did some writing on the show, mainly doing bits of Eva Gabor's dialog. Henning cut his teeth in radio, where he wrote a lot of Gracie Allen's lines for the "Burns and Allen" show. Good practice for doing Lisa Douglas.
Ingenious. When I used to extoll the delights of this highly intelligent show, people who didn't watch it would look at me like I had three heads. No, they really DO this kind of thing, I'd tell them.
I do not think any other TV show ever did something like this with their opening titles. Since the show was not filmed outdoors, whenever they are pretending to be outdoors I like to look at painted back wall. It looks so phony but entertaining at the same time.
I remember the "automatic" control on the TVs, where if there's something that you don't like, you "automatically" got off the chair and turned the tuner knob.
We were in the suburbs of Los Angeles for many years. KCBS channel 2, KNBC channel 4, KTLA channel 5, KABC channel 7, KHJ channel 9, KTTV channel 11, KCOP channel 13, PBS on UHF, that was about it then.....also the sign off during the nights
Jay Somers and Dick Chevalet were writers for a radio show titled The Phil Harris Alice Faye Show. One of the funniest radio shows in the late 40’s & early 50’s, so lam told.
Another example of the GA crowd breaking the 4th wall was when Mrs. Douglass kept referring to "the fifer" who would play patriotic bits whenever Oliver Wendell Douglass would go on about what America meant to him. Of course, only she could hear the fifer.
Yes -- the part about the simple dignity of working the soil, and watching plants shoot up toward the sun, and how farmers were the backbone of the American economy. It was always the same exact little speech, with the fifer coming in over it.
Slipping in real content in a show goes way back to the days of radio and 30's movies. Retailers would pay for their products to be used in an obvious way during the show. In the movie "Wings" with Clara Bow for example, she partly eats a chocolate bar, then puts it down. The director then zooms in on the chocolate bar, so you can see it's a Hershey's. lol
