Hooterville
Hooterville is a fictional agricultural community that is the setting for the American situation comedies Petticoat Junction (1963–70) and Green Acres.
Hooterville
(1965–1971), two rural-oriented television series created or produced by Paul Henning for Filmways and CBS. Prior to the airing of Petticoat Junction, Hooterville is mentioned in an early episode in the first season of The Beverly Hillbillies, another Paul Henning sitcom. In this episode, Jethrine Bodine, Jethro Bodine's sister (also played by Max Baer, Jr.), has a budding romance with a slick traveling salesman, Jasper, who invites her to a dance in Hooterville. Hooterville is a town, a valley, and a county, and has been described as "a place simultaneously Southern and Midwestern, but in a vague sort of way".[1] Little concrete or reliable information can be gleaned from the two shows about the place, as references in individual episodes are rife with inconsistencies, contradictions, geographic impossibilities and continuity errors. The writers of the two shows often changed the details about the Hooterville community at will for the purpose of cracking a joke, and they left certain details (such as its home state) intentionally vague and unexplained.
Citizens[edit]
Citizens include Oliver Wendell Douglas and Lisa Douglas, the new residents from New York City; Eb Dawson, their farmhand; Newt Kiley, who farms over 80 acres (32 ha); Ben Miller, the apple farmer; Mr. Haney (first name disputed, Eustace or Charlton), the county antiques dealer and grifter; Hank Kimball, the dimwitted repetitiously conversational county agent; Sam Drucker, owner of Sam Drucker's General Store; Sarah Hotchkiss Trendell, the telephone operator; the Monroe Brothers, Alf and Ralph (despite Ralph's name and status as a brother, Ralph is a woman—typically, only Oliver Wendell Douglas questions the bizarre contradiction); Fred Ziffel, a pig farm owner; Doris "Ruthie" Ziffel, Fred's shrewish wife; Arnold Ziffel, Fred and Doris's porcine "son"; and Charley Pratt and Floyd Smoot, the engineer and conductor, respectively, of the local train, the Hooterville Cannonball.[2] Kate Bradley and her Uncle Joe Carson and her three daughters, Betty Jo, Bobbie Jo, and Billie Jo, reside at the Shady Rest Hotel, 25 miles outside of Hooterville.
The citizens of Hooterville are out of touch with the times to the point of thinking that Calvin Coolidge is still President, although they later believe the current President to be Coolidge's successor, Herbert Hoover. They are also quite provincial: they have never heard of the Federal income tax or tax refunds.[3]
Drucker's Store[edit]
Sam Drucker is the proprietor of Hooterville's general store. It is the kind of old-fashioned store where the grocer retrieves many of the items from shelves behind the counter.[4] Drucker sells typical food and household goods, and at times sells such oddities as nail polish that's also a bathtub sealant, as well as dehydrated chickens: "Just add water and bones, and let it sit for a couple hours." He also keeps a pickle barrel full of plastic pickles.[5] Customers are allowed to shop on credit, although Drucker frequently (and exasperatedly) reminds them of their outstanding bills. Drucker's Store is the closest thing Hooterville has to a social club.[6] The locals often come in to chit-chat, or to play checkers, or to rant and rave about community issues. And, on election day, they cast their votes at Drucker's. Exterior shots of the store show a sign that says "Sam Drucker's General Store", but everyone (including Sam Drucker) mostly calls the store either "Drucker's Store" or just "Drucker's".
Post Office[edit]
The Hooterville post office is located in Drucker's Store. One of Sam Drucker's quirks is that he insists on putting on his official postal worker hat and standing behind a small regulation post office grille next to the register whenever his role switches from storekeeper to postmaster. Drucker takes great pride in his association with the Post Office Department, and he's also very pleased that his patrons must come to his store to get their mail. In the 1960s, rural post offices were often located in stores, and some still exist even today. The Green Acres fourth-season episode "Old Mail Day" is about the day when Sam Drucker cleans his store and Hootervillians gather to receive the lost old mail that he finds. A lost letter from 1917 informs Fred Ziffel that he has been drafted into the army to fight in World War I.[7] There is no Rural Free Delivery (RFD) in Hooterville; when new resident Oliver Douglas petitions his Congressman for it to be initiated, Drucker is shocked to learn that an obscure (and fictitious) postal regulation requires him to carry the entire route himself— by bicycle. (This situation is, obviously, soon corrected.) In the 1990 made-for-television film Return to Green Acres, actor Frank Cady in character as Sam Drucker states that the Hooterville ZIP Code is 40516½; the real-life ZIP codes 40516 and 40517 are used by the city of Lexington, Kentucky.
Hooterville Volunteer Fire Department[edit]
The volunteer fire department is run by Fire Chief "Uncle Joe" Carson. The firefighters include Joe, Sam Drucker, Ralph and Alf Monroe, Mr. Haney and an assortment of other Hootervillians. Joe is also the conductor of the Hooterville Volunteer Fire Department Band, which is a brass ensemble marching band that includes Charley Pratt (trumpet), Floyd Smoot (tuba), Ben Miller (French horn), Grandpa Miller (cymbals), and Sam Drucker (bass drum).[8] The only song the band ever plays is "Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight", and no matter how many times they rehearse it, they always play the song at half-speed and somewhat off-key. In the Green Acres episode "I Didn't Raise My Husband to be a Fireman", Oliver Douglas learns that a person has to be able to play an instrument in order to join the fire department. Joe Carson says this is because Hooterville has more parades than fires. Indeed, the Fire Department Band is seen more often on the shows than actual fire emergencies. The band actually pre-dates the fire department; it was used in fundraisers to help establish the department.
The local tourist attractions and events seen and referred to on Petticoat Junction and Green Acres give a (sometimes humorous) picture of old-fashioned small-town life:
Population and elevation inconsistencies[edit]
On the series Petticoat Junction, Hooterville appears to be a fairly large town, able to support a high school and several other institutions. In 1963, the county has a population of around 3,000 citizens. And the sign at the Hooterville railroad station says that the town is situated at an elevation of 1,427 feet.[10] However, on Green Acres, the population of Hooterville is said to be much smaller and the elevation much lower. In the episode "The Youth Center", general store owner Sam Drucker says that a sign showing the population as 48 and the elevation as 23 inches is incorrect since two young people recently moved away and the elevation is down to 18 inches. When Oliver Douglas asks him how the elevation could change, Sam explains that "Hooterville is subject to sinking spells." Oliver refers to Hooterville as being "21⁄2 inches above sea level" in the Green Acres episode "Lisa's Jam Session".
Pop culture[edit]
An episode of the television series Two and a Half Men is titled "It Never Rains in Hooterville". In the episode, Alan Harper tells his brother Charlie about his disastrous rainy camp night with his son Jake. Charlie asks where Jake is now, and Alan says that he went with his friends to Hooterville, to which Charlie replies, "It never rains in Hooterville".
In the song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", singer Gil Scott-Heron refers to "Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction" as symbols of mainstream viewing habits that "will no longer be so damned relevant" when the "Revolution" comes.[18]