Petticoat Junction

This was one of a group of CBS rural comedies popular in the 1960's that were actually grouped together as far as having interdependent casts - "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Green Acres" being the other two series.

The show is about life at the rural Shady Rest Hotel, owned and operated by widow Kate Bradley (Bea Benaderet). Action centers around guests at the hotel as well as Kate's three attractive daughters, Betty Jo, Bobbie Jo, and Billie Jo. The actresses portraying Billie Jo and Bobbie Jo changed over the years. In fact, season two is the last of two seasons for the first actresses to portray these roles. Betty Jo, the youngest and the tomboy, was played by Linda Henning, daughter of the series creator Paul Henning, for the entire run of the series.

The hotel is literally in the middle of nowhere, halfway between two very small towns. The actual location (state for example) is never given, and the issue of how exactly it is that Kate manages to make what seems to be quite an adequate living running a hotel that theoretically should have few if any guests is never even addressed. This is a show very much rooted in the early 60's, and the idea is escapism and fun, not realism.

When this show first premiered its biggest attraction were the three Bradley daughters. However, you really got to see a great comedy and the real stars were the late great Bea Benederet as Kate and the late and equally great Edgar Buchanan as Uncle Joe, who was always looking to get rich quick. The girls themselves were pretty well fleshed out characters themselves. Billie Jo was the ambitious star-struck one, Bobbie Jo was the somewhat dim bulb and Betty Jo was the tomboy. Betty Jo became the most evolved character as you saw her grow up from being a girl who was pretty much pre-occupied with sports into a beautiful young woman who eventually settled down and married the man of her dreams. Too bad Bea Benederet passed away. When that happened the wind seemed to go out of the show and within two years it was gone. Perhaps it was a precursor of things to come becuase within a year after it had gone off the air all the great rural television shows were virtually wiped out in the infamous purge of 1971.

"Petticoat Junction" was a great, heart-felt show that would stand alongside "The Andy Griffith Show" in all-time popularity, if only some mucky-muck at Viacom (the distributor of the rerun package) hadn't, in the early 1970's, decided to exclude the first two seasons from their syndication package. Not only were those some of the funniest and most genuine episodes of the entire series, but eliminating them from public memory cut out nearly half of star Bea Benaderet's time on the show (she died of lung cancer shortly after the start of the 1968-69 season). If you ever get a chance to view the first two (black & white) seasons of this series, do so...you will see what I mean.

Hi, everyone. I'm Roy. Petticoat Junction was already halfway through its first season when I first got to view it. This would be February 1964 and I was nine going on ten. I was already hooked on The Beverly Hillbillies and had grown fond of the rural sensibilities of that show. My home town, Fresno California, was a lot like Hooterville in the '50s and '60s.

After seeing my very first episode, which was Last Chance Farm, I knew that I wanted to continue watching the show. I can't really specify what it was about the first episode. I did develop a crush on the youngest daughter, Betty Jo, but that wouldn't happen for weeks. In the meantime I enjoyed watching Kate outwit Homer Bedloe and also looked forward to seeing what Uncle Joe's latest moneymaking scheme would be. Tuesday night (when it originally aired) actually broke up my school week. It was like getting an extra weekend because I enjoyed it so much.

I didn't get to see the pilot episode until the first season had gone to reruns. I remember that night my Mom's brother and his family had arrived from Alabama to visit all the California relatives, and poor Mom had to keep pulling me away from the TV telling me I could watch that anytime. But this was the pilot! I didn't know how to get that point across.

But I certainly concur with everyone who has commented favorably on the first two seasons. They were, for me also, the best. While my favorite Billie Jo was Meredith, who didn't come along until the fourth season, I always liked what Jeannine brought to the character during her time on the show, and Pat Woodell's portrayal of Bobbie Jo.

I was fortunate enough to meet four of the actresses (Linda Henning, Lori Saunders, Jeannine Riley and Gunilla Hutton) at the celebrities conventions held in Southern California. All were sweethearts, just like their characters. I also remember getting jazzed when I heard that TV Land was going to air the first two seasons. But that wound up not happening, and my understanding is that the demand wasn't strong enough. I realize PJ had, and has, something of an esoteric appeal, and isn't a show that's generically referred to the way its sibling shows, Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres, are. That said, though, I discovered six years ago through the miracle of the Internet that I wasn't the only viewer on the planet Earth who appreciated the show as much as I did. I've gotten to meet some other fans who have become some of my closest friends. I'm a regular poster at the Shady Rest Forum, where we have some great discussions and share memories of the series. Sadly, it hasn't aired in the United States since March, 2000, when TV Land pulled it off the air, and I sincerely wish that one of the networks, if not TV Land, would bring it back.

-Roy

Hooterville, Petticoat Junction, Homer Bedloe, some of the names of people and places in this memorable 1960s series.

Edgar Buchanan played Uncle Joe. To me, he was a reminder of the Kingfish in the old Amos 'N Andy series. Old, lazy and shiftless, Buchanan etched an unforgettable character who lived life the way it should be-a leisurely rural existence filled with scheming to improve his lot and to avoid a harder way of doing things.

Bea Benaderet was right on target as the mother of the 3 daughters operating out at the Shady Rest Hotel. What an appropriate name for a hotel out in the sticks.

Charles Lane, who died recently at age 102, was a scene stealer each time he was on. Yes, he was Homer Bedloe, always up to his neck to gain control of Shady Rest for the railroad.

A nostalgic tribute to rural life was depicted here.