# Did you like Green Acres? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 22, 2017, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753 "2017-03-22T13:26:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/21 "2017-03-22T15:14:19Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > . . . > Did you like Green Acres? Did you grow up in a rural area? Yup. Yup. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/22 "2017-03-22T15:16:53Z")
Loved it when I was a kid. Love it now. Absurd, surreal, “comedic Twilight Zone”… all good descriptions. I always assumed the writers were able to get their hands on some really good drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Gay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@Enola\_Gay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Gay)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/23 "2017-03-22T15:17:04Z")
Loved Green Acres, but I grew up in the city. Mr. Haney was my favorite & I loved that they had to climb up a pole to make a phone call. I haven’t seen that show in decades but now I’m going to look for it on netflix 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/24 "2017-03-22T15:36:06Z")
The end of the last episode shows an autistic boy playing with a snow globe of a rural scene. And then Oliver wakes up next to Suzanne Pleschet. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/25 "2017-03-22T15:43:13Z")
I’ve been watching some of the first season episodes that were on an antenna tv marathon over the weekend and I think it holds up very well. Much better than the more convential “Petticoat Junction”…saw a bunch of the last season and first season episodes a few months ago and other than Charles Lane as Homer Bedloe, there isn’t much there. “Green Acres” works very well as its own zany universe. It’s another situation where one actor (Eddie Albert) in real life was only a year younger than the actress playing his mother (Eleanor Audrey). ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/26 "2017-03-22T15:46:49Z")
My mother grew up on a farm, and half her family was still farming or living in farm country when GA was on. She loved it because it was silly. She loved it when the jokes were misinterpretations of literal phrases and she loved it when they were completely surreal. She also loved it because it took years for the telephone company to get a line to her parents’ farm, and she could easily imagine having to climb a pole. She thought Oliver was brilliant when he assigned point values to every appliance so Lisa wouldn’t overload the generator (and she thought Lisa’s convoluted explanation of it to strangers was hilarious.) She milked cows by hand when she was a teenager, so it didn’t bother her in the slightest that Oliver used a beat-up tractor. Those were details that she actually was able to identify with. I think she mainly loved it because she married a boy from the big city who was always more out of place in the country than even Oliver’s mother. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/27 "2017-03-22T16:27:53Z")
Great show, but I liked it even better when they remade it. I believe it was called “Newhart.” ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/28 "2017-03-22T16:36:13Z")
> [@Miss\_Mapp](#): > > I liked that Lisa, who didn’t want to move out to the country in the first place, got on so much better with the Hootervillians and was on the same wavelength with them, while her husband remained clueless. Very basic kindly housewife/stupid dad setup, even though she was painted as anything but a housewife and he was supposed to be a Manhattan lawyer. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/29 "2017-03-22T17:28:22Z")
I’ll never get the image of Oliver in a suit driving a tractor out of my mind. IIRC he was always dressed in a suit. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/30 "2017-03-22T17:39:17Z")
Now if someone could explain Hee Haw to me… ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/31 "2017-03-22T17:47:33Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > It was pretty much the low point of 60s TV, much more so than \*Gilligan’s Island. > \* No, no, no, no, NO!!! Green Acres was clever and surreal and funny. Gilligan’s Island was none of those things. I loved Green Acres when I was a kid, and I still love it. I even have my Tivo set to record it, and we still watch it occasionally. The running gags that left Oliver befuddled were terrific. A recent episode I caught centered around Oliver getting a property tax bill from Pixley. It seems that his barn is in Hooterville, but his house is in Pixley and his land is in Crabwell Corners. Watching Oliver try to straighten it all out is priceless, as he deals with the local government bureaucracies and people asking him “why did you move to Pixley?”. Eva Gabor was incredible as Lisa. Just terrific. I’m saddened to learn that she not only didn’t win an Emmy for Green Acres, but was never even nominated. I also liked and still like The Beverly Hillbillies, or at least the first five or so seasons. It got steadily worse after the midpoint. I grew up in a rural area, and never thought either of those shows insulted or denigrated rural people. If anything, the rural residents and hillbillies were more honest, enterprising, clever and upstanding than the city slickers, even if they lacked sophistication and worldliness. I never much cared for Petticoat Junction. Never found it funny at all. The three daughters weren’t bad to look at, however. ---
**Author:** ![bobtimusprime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/94ad74/32.png) [@bobtimusprime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobtimusprime)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/32 "2017-03-22T17:57:24Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Now if someone could explain Hee Haw to me… That’s the sound a donkey makes. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/33 "2017-03-22T18:06:36Z")
Loved it! Mr. Haney, the fife playing behind Oliver’s speeches, Hank Kimball, the goofy incidental music, the Monroe Brothers, the hotcakes… ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/34 "2017-03-22T18:15:32Z")
> [@bobtimusprime](#): > > That’s the sound a donkey makes. But that’s not important right now. 😃 Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor are buried very close to each other at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. > [@Orwell](#): > > I never much cared for Petticoat Junction. Never found it funny at all. The three daughters weren’t bad to look at, however. And they were played by six different actresses, so you had twice the beauty. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/35 "2017-03-22T18:37:20Z")
I watched it as a kid, but that’s only because I had a major crush on Lisa. (Didn’t remember her name til reading this thread.) Aside from her, I think the only other character I liked was that dude that was always trying to make shady deals with Douglas. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/36 "2017-03-22T18:43:37Z")
I’ve always lived in a rural area and I think Green Acres is wacky surreal fun. The jokes wear a little thin sometimes but it’s a funny show. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/37 "2017-03-22T18:57:44Z")
I dunno, here. The tendency of boomers to go back to worthless pursuits and try and imbue them with mystical, intellectual properties sometimes mystifies me. I watched these shows in the day, and thought they were funny enough, and still laugh at the occasional clip I see, but I don’t feel any need to work complex metaphors into Gilligan or assign “surreality” to GA’s dopey and shopworn kountry humor. You like 'em? Fine, me too, to certain limits. You want to watch them again with all your gray hairs? Go right ahead. You want to put them on the shelf with Shakespeare, Ibsen and Kafka? Uhh… right. ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/38 "2017-03-22T19:01:20Z")
I liked it as a kid, I haven’t seen it in years. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/39 "2017-03-22T19:10:03Z")
Wasn’t there some sort of explanation as to why everybody was incompetent? Apparently, pretty much everybody in Hooterville got their professional training from a mail-order university that was notorious for sending them materials for something other than the profession they wanted. For example, somebody who wanted an agriculture degree ended up with training for a career in acting. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2017, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-like-green-acres/782753/40 "2017-03-22T19:13:20Z")
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