The final season of The Beverly Hillbillies was awful. Here are some reasons why:

Instead of playing the theme song, they cut to when the characters are driving around in the truck and they tell the actors' names.

Phil Silvers and Shorty Kellums were on the show way too much.

Granny became a total idiot. Elly was dating a Navy frogman and Granny thought that everyone was turning into frogs.

With his bushy sideburns, Jethro looked more like an Elvis impersonator than a hillbilly.

Yeah, I kinda have to agree with you on this...that final season...well, everything made after 1968...pretty much sucks. For years they never played any of the post '68 episodes in syndication, and on viewing them you can understand why.

To wit:
Jethro went from being a naive but likable boob to a complete moron (small wonder Max Baer Jr. was embarrassed by this character);

Elly May's tomboy character, while cute when the show first premired, became somewhat pathetic during the final seasons (and, not to be nasty to Donna Douglas, but, on the real tip, homegirl was a li'l 'long in the tooth' to be still playing a backwoods ingunie{?} at this point in her career);

Granny, Mr. Drysdale, and Miss Jane evolved into badly-drawn caricatures, their particular character tics being run into the ground (in Drysdale's case, annoyingly so; how he went from being the Clampett's only friend to a money-mad ogre with absolutely no redeeming qualities is a waste of a good character...and actor...R.I.P., Ray Bailey);

Finally, the concept had, after nine long seasons, pretty much run its course...there was no logical reason for the Clampetts to be as ignorant in 1971 as they were when they first arrived in Beverly Hills in 1962...common sense demands that constant exposure to the crookedness of the outer world would have made our heroes either more guarded in their dealings...or more crooked.

I don't mean to sound negative about all this..."The Beverly Hillbillies" is one of my all-time favorite tv sitcoms, but even your favorites start to get stale after a fashion...

Thank God for reruns! (and the VCR!!)

I love watching the black and white episodes. They are hilarious and hold up well, even today.

They sure do!! The b&w episodes are the best, mainly because those shows were new and innovative, and the basic concept still had years of unmined material.

Here we see the Clampetts as they were meant to be seen: naive, but industrious; ignorant of the ways of the big city, but clever in their dealings with those who would rob or shame them for being just them, be they bankers (with the exception, at first, of Milburn Drysdale, who, along with Jane Hathaway, were the Clampett clan's only true friends in Beverly Hills), socialites, movie moguls or just plain ordinary conmen (Jake Clampett, anyone?)...they always kept their souls, even when others would try to deprive them of it. The show was very life-affirming, without hitting you over the head with it (a fact that most of the show's critics failed to grasp...but then you all know how I feel about those @#*&!!in' tv critics, anyway...)

Plus, we're introduced to strong characters during these years that we never see again once the show switches to color (i.e. Cousin Pearl, Jethrine, Mr. Brewster from the OK Oil Co., Lafe Crik, among others...), Jethro's alleged genius and Elly May's critters hadn't become cliched, Granny, while cantankerous, was warm and motherly when the situation called for it, and Jed, as ever, was a moutain of strength, the glue that kept what would be an otherwise truly dysfunctional family truly functional.

A lot of that folksy charm was lost once the show switched to color during the 1966-67 season, though it was a gradual process and the series was still more-or-less watchable. But once the writers started satirizing late 60s culture with a heavy hand, whatever charm the show still retained was tossed straight out the window (The Girls From G.R.U.N. ? There's no way in hell they'd be able to get away with that in 2004, I can tell you that right now!) After the second time the Clampetts went to England, the show took a severe nose dive ( the Jethro-As-Robin Hood with the hippie Merry Men was a last hurrah.), and things got progressively worse from there.

But, even with all these later missteps, "The Beverly Hillbillies" takes its rightful place as one of American Television's true classics...a sort of video "Huck Finn"...and you couldn't ask for a better pedigree than that.

Yes, one of the classics that unfortunately should have been taken out behind the studio and put out of its misery a year or two earlier

Not to knock TBH (some folks are very sensitive if you come across as the slightest bit negative) but some of the later episodes where I think the writing was on the wall:

*When that guy Roger Torrey showed up playing the navy frogman. This guy had absolutely no personality and must have been related to the producer or something. The first half of the final season was taken up with this awful frogman idea, and then deteriorated further into the equally bad Grun/Liberation episodes.

*Way too much Shorty in season 8.

*'Hotel For Women' and all the other miniskirts running around in the last two seasons was a pathetic attempt near the end to prop up ratings with sex appeal.

Not all the color episodes were bad, there are still some real winners in there but they pale in comparison to when we were first introduced to the Hillbillies in B&W.

I actually don't agree. The last season wasn't that bad. However, the whole storyline w/ the Japanese women living in the mansion, and Ms. Hathaway's apartment storylines were a little odd...but not too bad...

TO the person who said something like "people would eventually adapt to culture and the Clampetts should not have been so ignorant at this point,," That's not entirely true, I know quite a few back woods people who have been exposed to MANY "big city ways" and they haven't changed a bit!

They sure do!! The b&w episodes are the best, mainly because those shows were new and innovative, and the basic concept still had years of unmined material.

Here we see the Clampetts as they were meant to be seen: naive, but industrious; ignorant of the ways of the big city, but clever in their dealings with those who would rob or shame them for being just them, be they bankers (with the exception, at first, of Milburn Drysdale, who, along with Jane Hathaway, were the Clampett clan's only true friends in Beverly Hills), socialites, movie moguls or just plain ordinary conmen (Jake Clampett, anyone?)...they always kept their souls, even when others would try to deprive them of it. The show was very life-affirming, without hitting you over the head with it (a fact that most of the show's critics failed to grasp...but then you all know how I feel about those @#*&!!in' tv critics, anyway...)

Plus, we're introduced to strong characters during these years that we never see again once the show switches to color (i.e. Cousin Pearl, Jethrine, Mr. Brewster from the OK Oil Co., Lafe Crik, among others...), Jethro's alleged genius and Elly May's critters hadn't become cliched, Granny, while cantankerous, was warm and motherly when the situation called for it, and Jed, as ever, was a moutain of strength, the glue that kept what would be an otherwise truly dysfunctional family truly functional.

A lot of that folksy charm was lost once the show switched to color during the 1966-67 season, though it was a gradual process and the series was still more-or-less watchable. But once the writers started satirizing late 60s culture with a heavy hand, whatever charm the show still retained was tossed straight out the window (The Girls From G.R.U.N. ? There's no way in hell they'd be able to get away with that in 2004, I can tell you that right now!) After the second time the Clampetts went to England, the show took a severe nose dive ( the Jethro-As-Robin Hood with the hippie Merry Men was a last hurrah.), and things got progressively worse from there.

But, even with all these later missteps, "The Beverly Hillbillies" takes its rightful place as one of American Television's true classics...a sort of video "Huck Finn"...and you couldn't ask for a better pedigree than that.
The show switched to color in 1965 not 1966.