Green Acres
Green Acres is an American television sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a country farm. Produced by Filmways as a sister show to Petticoat Junction, the series was first broadcast on CBS, from September 15, 1965, to April 27, 1971.
This article is about the television series. For other uses, see Green Acres (disambiguation).Green Acres
Jay Sommers
Dick Chevillat
Vic Mizzy
United States
6
170 (list of episodes)
Jay Sommers
25 minutes
September 15, 1965 –
April 27, 1971
Receiving solid ratings during its six-year run, Green Acres was cancelled in 1971 as part of the "rural purge" by CBS. The sitcom has been in syndication and is available on DVD and VHS releases. A reunion movie aired in 1990.
In 1997, the two-part episode "A Star Named Arnold Is Born" was ranked No. 59 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All-Time.[1]
Radio origins[edit]
Green Acres derives from Granby's Green Acres, a comedy show aired on the CBS radio network from July 3 to August 21, 1950. The eight-episode summer series was created by Jay Sommers, who also wrote, produced, and directed.[2]
The principal characters, a married couple played by Bea Benaderet and Gale Gordon, originated (although under a different surname) on Lucille Ball's My Favorite Husband. The Granby's premise was that a big-city banker fulfills a lifelong dream by moving his family to a rundown farm, despite knowing nothing about farming. The nearby feed store is operated by the absent-minded Mr. Kimball, and the Granbys hire an older hand named Eb (voiced by Parley Baer, who guest-starred in several episodes of the television series), who often comments on incompetent management.[3] Benaderet later played Kate Bradley, a main character in Petticoat Junction, which was in the same fictional universe as Green Acres.
Adaptation to television[edit]
Following the success of The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction, CBS offered producer Paul Henning another half-hour slot on the schedule, without requiring a pilot episode. Faced with running three shows, Henning encouraged Sommers to create a series for the time slot.[4] Sommers later wrote and produced about one-third of the episodes.[2]
In pre-production, proposed titles were Country Cousins and The Eddie Albert Show.[5]
Revivals[edit]
The surviving members of the cast (except for Eleanor Audley, who had retired from acting 20 years earlier) were reunited for a TV movie titled Return to Green Acres. It aired on CBS on May 18, 1990. Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor also recreated their Green Acres characters for the 1993 CBS special The Legend of the Beverly Hillbillies.[23]
On November 19, 2007, original series director Richard L. Bare announced that he was working on a revival of Green Acres.[24]
Variety announced on July 22, 2012, that a Broadway-aimed musical was in development, with an initial draft of the book written by Bare. No composer, lyricist, or director was attached.[25] Bare died in 2015.
Reunion film[edit]
In the 1990 reunion TV movie Return to Green Acres,[31] made and set two decades after the series, Oliver and Lisa have moved back to New York but are miserable there. The Hootervillians implore the couple to return and save the town from a scheme to destroy it, cooked up between Mr. Haney and a wealthy, underhanded developer (Henry Gibson). The Monroe brothers still have not finished the Douglases' bedroom, while a 20-something Arnold survived his "parents" and subsequently bunks with his "cousin", the Ziffels' comely niece. With a nod to the times, Haney's latest product is a Russian miracle fertilizer called "Gorby Grow". The film was distributed by Orion Television Entertainment, the successor to Filmways.
Recognition[edit]
In 1984, the USC School of Cinematic Arts gave a retrospective of Green Acres to honor Sommers.[33]