I’ve always been a sucker for that Norman Rockwell-Green Acres type of life. So I was wondering two things:
In the old Green Acres series do they ever tell us where Hooterville is? Is it near Pettycoat Junction?
Are there still places like that in America? I was thinking of moving to upstate NY or NH in search of that kind of life. Livin’ in Delaware is getting tedious.
Now here is a question worthy of Cecil. I will fight ignorance as best as memory serves. The town of Hooterville, from “Green Acrees” is the same as in “Petticoat Junction.” Just a train ride away. I always imagined Hooterville to be the county seat, and Petticoat Junction to be a small community, probably so-named because of the fact that it was the home of four women, three of whom bathed in the only water supply available.
Since Paul Henning created/produced both shows, it was an easy way of saving money on supporting characters, I suppose (Sam, the store owner). Also, “The Beverly Hillbillies” came from the same basic area, as I recall Jed Clampett calling Sam in one episode. I believe the state was never mentioned, but I always assumed it was Arkansas.
Now, as to your question, does it exist ITRW. Yes, and no. I am from a quaint, small town in Kentucky, and in many ways life is slower and simpler (read: boring) there, but come on, the world is the world. Good and bad everywhere. You’re not gonna find such innocent backward “wholesomeness” anywhere.
Sir
Can’t respond to the first part of your question, but I can to the second part.
When my wife and I decided we wanted one more move before we settled down for good. We weighed a lot of pluses and minuses and poured over a lot of maps before we found what we wanted.
We think of it as more Mayberry than Hooterville, but some might see Hooterville. Town of 1,200, one grocery store, one hardware store, two banks, a flower shop, families whose grandparents went to school together and a Main Street about a block and a half long. We even had a Barney Fife, but he quit so we had to get another deputy, a lot less fun.
Now, if you are interested, we are short a town barber. It’s just not the same to sit in Jannelle’s Touch of Class hair salon and watch who’s going in and out of the post office, so we’re looking for that.
Pretty much all the other stuff though. Regular town celebration each year. Town theatrics once or twice a year. During the summer, we sit out in front of the bank and eat ice cream cones or go down to the pool to watch the kids swim.
Town pretty much comes to a stop for homecoming and to send off the local high school team to state competitions. That’s happened quite a bit the last few years, it seems.
My wife and I are glad we made this move. We did the city thing, have a number of degrees between us, and are making a lot less money than we were, but you’ll hear no complaints from our corner of the world.
We’re happy.
I don’t think places exactly like Hooterville or Petticoat Junction ever really existed anywhere. The closest I’ve seen is some of the small towns in West Virginia when I lived there. (TV time could be describing the town in W.Va. where I lived). I’ve lived in both upstate New York and New Hampshire, but I’ve never seen any towns in New York that remind me much of TV’s version of small-town life. There are a few Mayberry-like towns in northern New Hampshire. (Lancaster comes to mind, but I can’t say for sure what it’s really like, since I’ve only been there once). Much of southern New Hampshire is a lot like Delaware: crowded, congested and over-developed.
Green Acres (1965-71), Petticoat Junction (1963-70), and the Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971) definitely inhabited the same fictional universe. Frank Cady played Sam Drucker in all three series. But I never thought that Petticoat Junction and Hooterville might be near the Clampets’ original home. It just never occurred to me.
I recall one episode of either Petticoat Junction or Green Acres with Max Baer (as Jethro Bodine from the Beverly Hillbillies) guest starring. There was a phone conversation where one character was trying to give directions to get from Beverly Hills to Hooterville. The only part I remember is that you have to cross the Grand Canyon.
The Beverly Hillbillies were from Arkansas, you say? Could be. There are minor petroleum deposits in SW Arkansas. The only clue I definitely remember is that Granny grew up in Tennessee. My mother was always convinced they were from West Virginia, and I figured Tennessee (minor petroleum deposits in both states).
It all took place in the tri-city area; Hooterville, Pixley, and Bugtussle (sp?).
I’m not trying to pull a wofstu here, I actually have concrete information about the possible state location of Hooterville.
First, I actually shelled out $12.95 for a four tape omnibus of “Petticoat Junction” first season B/W episodes, including the very first episode (Henning, because of the popularity of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” was not required to produce a pilot), “Spur Line To Shady Rest.” In an early scene, Homer Bedloe (played by the still-alive-at-96 Charles Lane) and his boss are looking at a map which shows Hooterville and Pixley. The map is large, drawn to show several states, and (I have NO LIFE!) after staring at it on freeze-frame, I can report that it shows nonesensical states, no outlines of recognizable states.
But, then there’s the way-late “Return To Green Acres” movie from 1990. Sam Drucker (still-alive-in-his-late-80s Frank Cady) states that the zip code of Hooterville is 405??. Now, we have something. For Kentucky is home to the 4-0/4-1, etc. zip codes. Perhaps some other state is too, I don’t know. I recall CA is 9-etc., TN is 3-etc.
Actually, Henning has stated that the writers gave conflicting clues, so there really isn’t an identifiable state, but I’ve always suspected that if I followed the railroad tracks on up through Harlan and Hazard, maybe even past Typo and Flat Lick and Dunraven and Hardburley and Paintsville, past “all the curves you bet,” eventually I’d find Hooterville.
Sir Rhosis
There’s lots of tiny little towns like those (and smaller) in central Texas.
Hooterville is near Calabasas, CA. I had a friend who lived in Calabasas, he said you could still see the water tower even in the late 1980s. I’m not kidding, they turned the old Hooterville film location into a theme park. I’m sure it’s gone by now.
I grew up near Pixley, CA, and though trains do run through, the surrounding towns aren’t Hooterville and Bugstuggle. They’re also something like 70% Hispanic, which was cool for me, being 100% Hispanic…
Sir Rhosis has covered the location question quite nicely, but I will add this. Green Acres was created by Jay Sommers based on his earlier radio series Granby’s Green Acres. (Henning executive produced the television series and helped integrate the pantheon of GA characters into the already existing worlds of TBH and PJ.) Sommers had based the radio series on fond memories spent as a child on his stepfather’s farm in Greendale New York (circa 1924). So, by this reckoning, the “farm livin’” you seek is (or was) available in upstate NY.
One other comment… despite the very entertaining send up by TVLand, the girls are NOT swimming in the town’s water supply. That’s a water tank for the train. The Cannonball Express was a steam engine, if you recall.
Sir Rhosis said
The USPS at
http://www.framed.usps.com/cgi-bin/zip4/ctystzip2
says area codes 40500 and 40501 are unassigned at present (maybe that’s why it was chosen for the TV show, just like telephone numbers 555-xxxx), but 40502,40503,40504 are Lexington, Kentucky.
I caught Beetlejucie the other night and saw that it was filmed in East Corinth, VT. Expedia places it about 1/2 way up Vermont near NH.
I wonder if the Dietzes are selling?
My final post on this most unusual GQ. According to this site:
http://www.maggiore.net/greenacres/episodes/gamovie.asp
the zip code is 40516 and 1/2.
I was unable to access Musicat’s USPS site, so if someone wanted to check (drop the 1/2) for 40516, you will finally be able to ascertain if there is such a location and the world will finally know where Hooterville is.
Sir
“Jed, we raised some mighty big porkers back home–but that one makes our Arkansas Razorbacks look like a ground squirrel.”
Even though that’s the name of the breed, and not necessarily “back home,” I think that quote is the reason that I always thought of “back home” as being Arkansas. However, since it’s just a TV show, and observing the mentality of the Hollywood, it’s almost a pointless question. AR is WV is SC is GA, etc. The South, and its various isolated mountain tribe subcultures are all one big state.:rolleyes:
From a Green Acres FAQ on the same site posted by Sir Rhosis:
“Where IS Hooterville? The actual location of Hooterville was one of the many running gags of the show. It was never disclosed as to what state Hooterville was supposedly in. Frequently, the writers would put conflicting “hints” into the episodes to further confuse viewers.”
40516 is Lexington, KY.
Sorry about that, y’all, bad URL (BAD URL, go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done).
This should be the correct link to look up a USPS ZIP code and find the city or vice-versa:
http://www.framed.usps.com/ncsc/lookups/lookup_ctystzip.html
Any chance that those “states” are really counties that you’re unfamiliar with? Take another look, tell us the names, and we’ll research them! Enquiring minds want to know!
I was always under the impression that the Clampetts were from Tennessee (and that the Bugtussle-Pettycoat Junction-Hooterville universe was therefore in Tennessee as well)?
Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but aren’t there repeated references to Tennessee in The Beverly Hillbillies? Or do they always just refer generically to “the Hills” and “back home”?
But in one episode, the Clampetts are talking to a Gypsy fortune teller, who–while giving Granny a reading–says "I see a “10” and a “C.” Uncle Jed then says something like, “Well that makes, since, Granny, since you were born in Tennessee.”