Q1: When did we know for certain that Granny was Jed’s mother-in-law?
Q2: Was that always Paul Henning’s idea that Granny was the M-I-L, or did he decide that later?
By episode #22 at the latest, since Granny talks about her daughter, Jed’s deceased wife, but my memory is that had already been confirmed earlier in the season–but it was not obvious at all in the first several episodes.
In one of the early episodes, the Clampetts are in jail and Mr. Drysdale refers to Granny as Jed’s mother, but they had just moved to Beverly Hills, so he might not have known.
I’ve never seen the first season other than in syndication, so it’s possible there were some clues that ended up as syndication cuts.
It did seem unclear when the series started. I couldn’t say exactly when they established Granny as Jed’s MIL, but there are early references to Pearl and Jethrine that might have indicated the relationship.
I have the pilot on DVD somewhere, and I think it’s mentioned (or at least heavily implied) at one point when they’re talking about Elly May, and how she deserves a better life now that she’s of “marryin’ age.”
Wikipedia says “Paul Henning, the show’s creator/producer, quickly disposed of the idea of Granny being Jed’s mother, which would have changed the show’s dynamics, making Granny the matriarch and Jed subordinate to her.” It doesn’t say how quickly, but I suspect that it was within the first few episodes.
I must admit that I never really gave much thought to the exact relationships between the characters, apart from the obvious fact that Elly May was Jed’s daughter. For example, only by reading the Wikipedia article did I realize that Pearl was Jed’s cousin, not his sister. Thus, Jethro is really Jed’s first cousin once removed, for all that he calls Jed “Uncle.”
I’m looking through some transcripts. The first episode, Mr. Drysdale calls Granny Jed’s mother, and no one objects. (He first says “money,” but corrects that to “mother.”) In the third episode, Granny refers to “we Clampets,” saying that they are all gonna be clean.
Unfortunately the transcripts get spotty after that. But I got interested enough to watch some episodes, so I’m doing that. I’m halfway through episode 7, and still no mention of Granny being Jed’s mother-in-law. Well, unless the earlier transcripts missed it. They appear to be based on the Closed Captioning.
Edit: And, apparently, by the time I got there, someone else answered it.
I watched the first two episodes today. There really were indications that the relationship between Jed and Granny wasn’t a close as a mother/son one would be.
For one thing, she refers to Elly May as “That young’un of your’n,” even though she’s her granddaughter; in other words, she’s a bit harsher with Jed than I’d expect his mother to be.
When they meet Mr Brewster for the first time, Jed introduces Elly May as his daughter, but Granny as “Granny,” not “my mother, Daisy.”
In a tender moment, Jed remembers how Granny came to live with them to “help out” after Elly’s mother died. Had she been Jed’s mother, she likely would have been living with them already. Either that, or an invitation/offer wouldn’t have been necessary.
Drysdale’s mistake was perfectly natural, since he’d never seen them before and may not have known just who was moving to California with Jed. (Besides, “money … mother” is a great joke!)
I don’t think it’s incongruous that Granny would refer to the family as “we Clampetts.” She is, after all, a member of Jed’s clan by marriage and grandmotherhood. Hill folk would probably associate her with the Clampetts automatically.
What I find interesting is that in 1962, the Clampetts had never heard of telephones and flying machines. I mean, I know they were living in the backwoods, but twenty years after WWII they had no clue? Come on! They’d never seen a plane fly overhead, or had somebody from the draft board drop by? There weren’t any phones in Bug Tussel, which they must have visited sometime? They’re that ignorant of the outside world, but they have no trouble dealing with a truck that has an internal combustion engine? They don’t know how valuable oil is in such a world?
