Anyone else stoked that TVLand is finally carrying Green Acres? I TiVo'd an episode yesterday, the one where Oliver and Lisa finally have phone service installed -- atop a telephone poll planted right outside their bedroom window! This show was absolutely surreal. Oliver working the farm in a tie and vest, Lisa leaving the hen a note about how many eggs to lay, ... hubby and I laughed a lot more than we did during Everybody Loves Raymond.

We just found the show and watched it delightedly. Wouldn't want a steady diet, but two episodes were fun!

It really was as bizarre in its own way as "Twin Peaks", and much earlier. I always loved how Lisa, for all her resistance, settled into life in Hooterville much more easily than Oliver, and how the Douglases so completely loved each other.

Today's episodes were especially good - Oliver wasn't too humiliated and there wasn't too too much quirky townness.

This was one of the funniest shows ever. I laugh just thinking about it. I loved how they kind of built their own reality that included everyone but Oliver, how he was always so flabergasted....

Lisa says Oliver shouldn't be working because it's some obscure Hungarian holiday, Oliver pish-toshes her away, and then goes to Drucker's store...only to find it closed because it's an obscure Hungarian holiday....

A master criminal is on the loose, and everyone recounting his exploits tells Oliver that he "skiied down the Alps to Paris", despite Oliver's protestations that you CAN'T....

Does anyone but me remember Molly Turgess? God, that episode got inside my head so bad, to this day I can't hear the name Molly without singing "Oh Molly, Oh Molly as ugly can be..." (this does not reflect on the two women who I know as Molly, btw)

My memory is failing on Molly, bigmonster, but I'll be on the look-out. I set the TiVo to record a few more episodes today.

I *heart* Lisa's clothes. They were sophisiticated chic without going over-the-top (at least from what I've seen so far). Carrie Bradshaw could take a few tips.

I'm looking forward to the episodes when Oliver's mother visits the farm.

Funny how well this show is holding up, unlike 'Mr. Ed'. It WAS surrealistic in its own way. Good point.

Glad to see it back. Better than ELR and W&G, that's for damned sure. And there's that wonderful theme song too.

Oh, I just LOVE this show! If they hadn't began airing it again I would have bought the DVD sets for sure. My favs include the one in which Zeb was trying to win the "Name that song" contest on the radio that played the same music every time but had different titles and any of the eps with that genius kid who got moon rocks.

And wasn't there an hilarious pair of repair people (a man and a woman) both named Ralph? Am I remembering this incorrectly?

Wonder who's had the rights to this show for so long that they've kept it off the air?

IIRC - and I may not - they were Ralph and Alf, and Ralph was the woman. She was played by Mary Grace Canfield, and there was a memorable episode in which she developed a serious crush on Mr. Kimball. Lisa gave her a makeover. It did not go over all that well, and Ralph went back to her rather androgynous self.

Ralph always had the hots for Mr Kimball, but I'm having trouble remembering this ep because I keep thinking of the ep in which Zeb got an acting corresondence course by mistake and glued his eyes shut in the "stage makeup" lesson.

Dave Foley (Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio) is such an enormous Green Acres fan -- it's his favorite show of all time -- that they wrote his fandom into the character of Dave on NewsRadio.

Hard to believe that this was a semi-spinoff from the bland "Petticoat Junction" -- both shows took place in Hooterville and there were occasional crossovers, but the GA Hooterville was completely insane whereas the PJ Hooterville was cozy and dull.

In many ways, you still couldn't do a show this weird today -- or if you did, it wouldn't last seven years or however long this ran. The first season is out on DVD, but I hope they bring out the later seasons (it got more surreal as it went on)>

It may have spun off from Petticoat Junction, but in spirit, it was like a reverse Beverly Hillbillies with the city folk going to the country.

About 20 years ago my brother suggested the following twist to the Superman story: what if the baby from Krypton had landed on the Douglas farm rather than with the Kents? IIRC, his casting ideas for the inevitable big-budget movie included Robert DeNiro as Oliver and Nastassia Kinski as Lisa.

Once Oliver set out to compile a collection of folk music, and asked were there any folk stories around Hooterville. This set a lot of folks to tell him that there weren't any, except "You-Know-Who". YKW was Molly Turgess, who was so ugly even the dogs were afraid of her ("Well, Mr. Douglas, on second thought, the dogs kinda liked her. She was shaped like a bone."). When she died she swore to curse anyone who spoke her name. Eventually Lisa meets the ghost and gives her a makeover, and Oliver is free to write his folk song "Oh, Molly, oh, Molly, as ugly can be..."

Cracks my shit up every time!

Thanks, bigmonster. According to TiVo, the Molly Turgess episode is coming up this week -- I'm all set to record and enjoy!

I got my wish to see Mama Douglas last night -- twice. She appeared in the episode about Oliver and Lisa's first wedding anniversary since moving to the farm, which had some great flashbacks to Oliver's first "farm" on his Park Avenue penthouse terrace. Loved the calls to the Dept. of Agriculture: "How come every time I call it's the secretary's anniversary?"

Mama also turned up in Lisa's quest to bring a beauty parlor to "Hootersville." (So sweet how she always puts the "s" in there.) Seeing the ladies of Hootersville in their sky-high teased-up hairdos was too much! Just what did happen in Scranton, I wonder...

I loved that Ralph character too. Aw, she was so homely looking and was deadpan funny.

My father always got a kick out of Lisa and her terrible "hotcakes". That's what she called pancakes right, or am I remembering wrong?

Inquisitionist, can you share when re the Molly Turgess episode? This is one I've never seen.

valny, I too always got a kick out of Lisa's cooking.

Amazing how we're all enjoying the return of this show. Again, where HAS it been all this time? Bill Cosby tied up the rights until now? {sarcasm...not so much}

Could it be a reaction to the pseudo-reality-, comedy barren sitcom-, formulaic ad nauseum successful-, sensationalistic crime-, and just all around craptastic- shows currently being fed to us on network television?

Whatever the case, I'll enjoy it until they yank it for being politically incorrect to rich people living in the rural outlands.

She called them "hotscakes". Don't forget her coffee either.


Ahh, so THAT'S where she got it!

Someone please tell me when the Molly Turgess ep is on?

The Ballad of Molly Turgiss is scheduled to air this Monday, March 29 at 3:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m (EST). You can search for schedules by TV show here. TVLand's synopsis:


Just before Molly, at 5:00 is A Pig in a Poke, which I vaguely recall from eons ago:

Harry Dean Stanton's a musician? I did not know that.

D.C.:


D.C. maybe I am showing my age, but didn't he have some vague connection to the Monkees at some point? Or am I insane?

The "Harry Dean Stanton as musician" question got to me, and I turned to IMDb. I found this:

Thanks for the heads-up on Molly Turgiss, bigmonster -- that was a hoot, and I don't recall seeing it before. Looks like there is a Green Acres marathon planned for this weekend, starting with the very first episode, which I 've missed so far on TVLand.

I'm watching the marathon on TVland and never noticed they have a subtle sense of continuity I never noticed before now. The bedroom gets expanded, they eventually get electricity, etc.

Oh, just saw one of my fav eps, the one in which The Hooterville Players does The Beverly Hillbillies, modified to "make it funny". Hee! I just know there's some interesting stories about that...

I watched parts of the marathon today and rediscovered my love for this show. Eva Gabor just played Lisa so well and brought the funny to her lines. Love Love Love this show.

Not only is this Dave Foley's favorite show, I think the creators of NewsRadio had it in mind when coming up with their show. In the final NR, Dave makes one last mention of GA, and his description of the series sounds just like what NR was trying to do.

The genius of this show is that they took two aspects of '60s TV - childishly dumb comedy and the rural sitcoms craze - and turned them on their head. Instead of unbelievable dopeyness we get inspired surreality. It's amazing that this show has creative connections to The Beverly Hillbillies, as the Hooterville Players one acknowleged directly (they mention Paul Henning by name) - and made fun of ("... only make it funny.")

And the fairly-normal-guy-stuck-with-a-bunch-of-crazies concept (often "fish out of water") found its way not only in NewsRadio, but WKRP and both classic Newhart shows (Oliver Douglas = Bob Hartley = Dick Lounden = Andy Travis = Dave Nelson). I love that kind of comedy.

Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert were both wonderful, and I second TudorQueen's earlier observation that for all their bluster and occasional insults, it was obvious that Lisa and Oliver deeply loved each other. They looked great, too. Wasn't it nice when middle-aged people didn't have to dress like teenagers on TV?

Re the fish-out-of-water theme, I like that Oliver is a bit loopey in his own way -- established early on by his phoning the family doctor to examine his penthouse corn for borers!

As for where the series is set... though Oliver originally visited Hooterville in conjunction with a business trip to Chicago, he said you had to take two more planes to get there. I always thought it was supposed to be in the not-too-deep rural south, like perhaps Missouri or northern Arkansas.

Edited to make my English sound less like Lisa's.

I can't believe I remember this, but in the Return To Green Acres TV movie they mention a zip code in conjuction to Hooterville that coincides with Kentucky. Which seems about right to me.

So much of this weekend went to watching Green Acres. I haven't really watched since I was a child and it was on Nick at Nite. I'm now going to borrow a the first season DVD's.

This show really was ahead of its time, but wouldn't last for ten minutes in the wonderbread sitcom culture currently running network television.

Odd how much I am enjoying this show. And singing along with its theme song...can't say THAT about any other sitcom currently on television.

Odd how clean the show was. And how funny. And how insanely intelligent and well written and well acted. And how obviously ahead of its time, since I enjoyed it for one reason in the 1960s and am enjoying it for a completely different reason now. And how good Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor were, as well as all the other character actors who dropped in. Hell, even Arnold the pig is better than anyone on Friends or Frasier right now.

Odd how badly America needs a show like this right now, and how so many people here are appreciating it for what it is, and nothing more. No sex, no violence, just well done and funny.

Odd how Dave Foley knew that.

Hateful and sad how sad and hateful today's sitcoms are. I hope all the new brainless wunderkinds out in Hollyweird are tuning in to TV Land and taking note of just how amazing a seemingly dopey show can be if it's done right.

Oh, and finally, just WHERE does the name Green Acres fit in? I thought it was where they lived...is it just a poetic description of their dream place?

What a lovely show. I can't think of a bigger symbol of the America we have all lost right now, even if it was only an America in our minds. All kinds of hell was breaking loose in the real world at that time, but at least we didn't have all kinds of hell and filth and stupidity on television, as we do now.

I was curious about "Green Acres" as a title as well, but during the marathon the name was referenced in regards to the farm on two different occaisions. Eb made the first reference when Oliver was about to fight the government over...something, and he said about the narrowly averted Seige of Green Acres. Then in the first episode of the last season, City Kids, Oliver references the name.

Just rediscovered this show. It's hilarious!


ITA with every word.

I love Oliver's "American Farmer" speeches.

Re: Oliver being loopy, too...

That was part of the genius of those kind of shows; the "normal" guy had his quirks, too. This was definately true of the Newhart shows. And undeniably of the Dave Nelson character on NewsRadio, as well. Something for the crazies to play off of.

A couple other examples of my kind of humor on the show on the second part of the story where Arnold Ziffel went to Hollywood - the "conversation" between the pig and the horse. Interesting how college deferments were referenced there; definately unusual outside of Laugh-In and the Smothers Brothers at the time. And I love how the subtitles continued with the human characters until Lisa told them to stop. Fits in with the occasional credits breaking the forth wall.

I loved the references to the credits as well. They had some really clever ways of making them show up, didn't they?


You can stop playing the flute now.

I thought it was a fife. ;)

Like on Lisa's "hotscakes" as she flipped them over. Of course, the names were gone by the time Oliver came into the kitchen, because as Lisa noted, the names only appear long enough for their mothers to see them -- hee!

My fav is the time they were trying to "sneak" onto the screen while Mister Ziffle was waiting for someone to asnwer the door at the Douglass house, with him eventually yelling "Gotcha!" at the last one.

I noticed in the IMDb credits (and vaguely recalled) that there were two successive actresses who played Doris Ziffel. I was curious what happened to Barbara Pepper, who was so hysterical as Mrs. Z No. 1. Sad story at IMDb. What really caught my eye was this "trivia" at the bottom of the page:

Barbara Pepper was an old friend of Lucille Ball's from her Goldwyn Girl days, and while she wasn't able to induce Desi to give her friend the plum role of Ethel - she couldn't get Bea Benaderet either - Lucy gave Pepper several roles in the course of "ILL". One wonders if this kept the actress - who really was quite funny; check her out as one of the aging chorines in the "Ricky Has A Sore Throat" episode - sufficiently on the radar to help her get the role of Mrs. Ziffel down the road...

Thanks, TudorQueen. Do you think this is actually Ms. Pepper as the eBay listing says? If so, she would have been about 23 at the time.

Caught a couple of episodes this weekend. Loved Lisa's "hots-kabobs" -- and how Mr. Drucker's store carried skewers for them! The Christmas tree episode was very touching as well as funny.

I think it's quite likely, Inquisitionist. She looks right, and the age is about right.

One of the charms of "Green Acres" is the way Lisa's 'mangled' English seems to work quite well in this part of the heartland. I keep going back to the idea that Lisa actually fits in better than Oliver does, though they rarely go too far and make Oliver look like a total moron.

"Five!"

I just wish I'd see Oliver in some real work clothes. I know they're saying something with the country squire outfits he's always wearing, but those waistcoats get kind of old.

Oh my god, I finally saw the episode where the Hooterville Players perform The Beverly Hillbillies. I thought I'd bust a gut at Lisa/Eva hopping around as Granny with her Hungarian hillbilly accent! Have to say Hank Kimball made a pretty fine Jed though. The inside jokes at producer Paul Henning were good, too.

It's threads like this that make me know ya'll is family.

Thanks for heads-up - I didn't know it was back on tv! I can't remember specific storylines but I still can sing the themesong and I loved it as a kid.

The episode this week with Oliver and Lisa returning to NYC for a two-years-on-the-farm anniversary trip was a gem. It seems Oliver is a fish-out-of-water wherever he goes, as the hotel staff repeatedly mistake him for a high-roller named Mr. Cummings, the restaurant staff keeps losing his chair and his drink, and he constantly complains about the high cost of everything. Until, that is... he runs into an old flame who invites him and Lisa to a swinging party in Greenwich Village. Suddenly Oliver is back in his bachelor days' groove and it's Lisa who wants to get him back to the farm. Cute, sweet, and very funny.

Did anyone catch the very brief interview clip with Eva Gabor in the second part of the TVLand Moguls series? I think it was circa 1990, and she looked great. I had always wondered how Paul Henning had the stroke of genius to cast her. Apparently the network initially didn't like the idea. [TAN] There very several nice clips of Hennings' daughter Linda, aka Betty Jo Bradley, talking about her father and his three shows. [/TAN]

At the end of the first episode, Oliver said, "I'm going to call it 'Green Acres'."

The show did have a lot of continuity, but not when it came to how they met.

In one episode, there is a flash-back as Lisa tells the farmers in the General Store that they met when she hid Oliver in her barn from the German soldiers during World War II. Afterwards, Oliver said, "That's not what happened!"

In other episode, Oliver said that they met when they were at the bar at the Stork Club, and Lisa was hogging the pretzels. (There really was a Stork Club in New York City.) Lisa said that she wasn't hogging the pretzels - she was hogging the peanuts.

In other episode, there was a flash-back showing Oliver trying to ask Lisa's father for permission to marry her. It took place in Budapest. Lisa's father slammed the door in Oliver's face, and he threatened to go back to New York. "Where is that?" Lisa asked. "It's where I live," Oliver answered. "I thought you live in America," Lisa said. "New York is in America," Oliver said. "I guess I missed school that day," Lisa said. That flash-back appears to be genuine, because Lisa still had the dress that she wore that night, and Oliver said that he still had the scar on his head that he got when Lisa threw her suitcase out the window and it hit him. Even if Lisa had been in New York on a foreign vacation when she met Oliver at the Stork Club, wouldn't she have remembered that it was in New York, which was in America?

I also remember a story about how they met on an ocean liner - she was a passenger and he was in the ship's band. Their first date was very expensive because the waiter kept bringing bottles of champagne.

Details are fuzzy, but I remember it being the episode where Eb wanted to go on a date and didn't know where to take her.

TV Land is going to have a 48 hour "Green Acres" marathon next weekend, May 22 and 23.

I've caught big chunks of the marathon this weekend. I had forgotten (or more likely, never known) how great this show was. Just a masterwork of absurdism. I love in particular how every crazy malapropism of Lisa's is instantly adopted by everyone in town, and the crazy kind of magic that happens -- Alice the hen who lays eggs on command (but only for Lisa), the alarm clock that goes off when Oliver yells but will stop when Lisa shushes it, the sculpture that has a built-in lie detector.

I'm just watching the ep that flashes back to when they met, in WWII -- the sight of Eva Gabor in that military uniform with the rifle is a blast.

The mind boggles. The Douglases are at such right-angles to both their rural neighbors as well as their big-city friends and relatives. ....Benjamin Franklin Douglas?

An old friends of mine's mother was also a Hungarian emigre' who parlayed "how to be beautiful" into a business empire just like the Gabor Sisters.....and in many ways though a very smart and tough-minded Lady she coold be just like Lisa at times....Oliver's the insane-one.

I always thought that it was very sky that Lisa is portayed as scatty, though she's very practical-minded, and adapts to whatever life brings. And Olver as normal-one, though totally out of his mind from a practical standpoint chasing his silly preconceptions without understanding the consequences.

Oliver is also the one who supposedly loves living in the country while Lisa hates it -- but she is at home from day one, while he is constantly angry and frustrated.

I had a childhood memory of Eva Gabor being a bit plump, but I realize now that I was just reacting to her flowing gowns -- she's really rather petite, and it's shocking how consistently beautiful she is on the show. (Not that plump can't be beautiful -- it's just that in her case, the two don't go together).

I've also been getting off on the accents -- such a mishmash of "rural" accents on one show -- southern and midwestern. The funniest two are the Monroe Brothers -- Ralph has just a flat all-American accent, while Alf sounds like he's straight from Brooklyn.