View Full Version : Very good but never quite credible was PJ


Best Man
06-02-2007, 11:30 AM
Even in its earliest seasons it was kind of far fetched as being a country show. A date of BobbyJo's describes his town as being large with almost 4,000 people! The Ziffel pigs (minus the impossible not yet invented Arnold) rather farfetchedly hide from a perfume scent from a cologne Joe shows Ziffel. Like I pretty much already said never exactly believable even early on minus the far out Green Acres characters or the crossover visits from the Beverly Hillbillies on the Hillbillies's own show. See my PS!

PS I thought in one ep it was established by the writers that Joe dreamed up his and the Bradley girls association with the Beverly Hillbillies by having Joe dream that he was more or less Jed Clampett with a sketch based on the BH with him and the Bradley girls in the Clampett truck with a song playing in the background like this:

Come and listen to my story about a man named Joe
Struck it really big and made a lot of dough

So therefore I write off the BH eps with the PJ-GA-BH crossover as dreams of Joe's after he saw the beverly Hillbillies on tv and the farfetched GA elements as dreams of Joe's too as he was the character who slept the most. If I didn't get the words to the song right please correct me.

FredScuttle
06-02-2007, 05:38 PM
Even in its earliest seasons it was kind of far fetched as being a country show. A date of BobbyJo's describes his town as being large with almost 4,000 people! The Ziffel pigs (minus the impossible not yet invented Arnold) rather farfetchedly hide from a perfume scent from a cologne Joe shows Ziffel. Like I pretty much already said never exactly believable even early on minus the far out Green Acres characters or the crossover visits from the Beverly Hillbillies on the Hillbillies's own show. See my PS!

PS I thought in one ep it was established by the writers that Joe dreamed up his and the Bradley girls association with the Beverly Hillbillies by having Joe dream that he was more or less Jed Clampett with a sketch based on the BH with him and the Bradley girls in the Clampett truck with a song playing in the background like this:

Come and listen to my story about a man named Joe
Struck it really big and made a lot of dough

So therefore I write off the BH eps with the PJ-GA-BH crossover as dreams of Joe's after he saw the beverly Hillbillies on tv and the farfetched GA elements as dreams of Joe's too as he was the character who slept the most. If I didn't get the words to the song right please correct me.

GA also had an episode where Beverly Hillbillies was a TV show, as they did a play based on the show, with Hank as Uncle Jed, Oliver as Jethro and Lisa as Granny. Oh, and the Uncle Joe song, that was on the last season episode "Golden Spike Ceremony". They're driving a golden spike, and strike oil. They make a few BH references, they go "black gold...texas tea", one of the girls says something like "do you really think you struck oil?", and Uncle Joe replies "Why not, I've seen it on TV"...he then gets hit in the head with a mallet from Grandpappy (who doesn't know they already drove in the spike) and that's when his BH dream sequence happens, with all the PJ cast in the jalopy. Here's the words to the song:
Come and listen to a story 'bout a man Joe.
Struck it rich in oil and made alot of dough.
So he gathered all his kin, and his dog upon his knee,
and went to see the Clampett's in the hills of Beverly

Here's a link to that episode at tv.com:
http://www.tv.com/petticoat-junction/the-golden-spike-ceremony/episode/32720/summary.html

tdr
06-13-2007, 05:06 AM
Those crossover eps in the later years (after BB died) were not dreams; although anyone can view these shows any way one chooses. But they were more than just the Clampetts coming to Hooterville; there was also Sam Drucker coming to visit the Clampetts at their Beverly Hills mansion, besides letters and photos exchanged, and Homer Bedloe is dismissed by the railroad and is hired by banker Drysdale to get the Clampetts out of business in the bank building (they had set up Granny's 'doctor's office' and Jed's fix-it shop on a floor).

As to PJ being a "far-fetched" country comedy-- sure, that's what it was all about. It was based (you can find) on a situation Paul Henning actually knew about growing up in Missouri; that of a small inn run by a widow with 3 nice-looking daughters, and her food was so good that people came there just to eat even though it wasn't a restaurant, per se, and teenage boys made excuses to drop by just to see the girls. But it wasn't all isolated and miles from any town; it was actually in the town. And I think the isolation of the fictional Shady Rest, of being miles between 2 small towns, plus the railroad idea were the devices to create the anachronistic comedy. The railroad as a somehow forgotten branch line separated (by a blown out bridge, I think) from the mainline, and still operating with a wood-burner in the age of diesels [although it actually wasn't until the early 70's that the last of the steam locomotives ceased 'regular' service]. Therefore many styles, ideas, and ways of doing business are decades behind the 1960's, since their whole world is essentially a "branch line" cut off from the rest of the world, although they are not as ignorant of the outside world as the Clampetts were supposed to have been before they moved to Beverly Hills

Best Man
06-16-2007, 02:30 PM
Why is, according to you, rather wrong to consider them dreams when Joe already dreamed (or hallucinated) he was more or less Jed Clampett with even the Hillbillies theme song more or less playing in the dream/hallucination(?). Bedloe being at the Drysdale bank could also be Joe's dream! And so could Sam visiting the Clampetts!

tdr
06-16-2007, 06:54 PM
As I said, one may view these shows as one wishes. If that's your way of seeing them, it's certainly alright with me. I just don't see them that way. But by PJ's final season, in which Joe dreams of striking it rich in oil and dreams of his family being like the BH's, the crossover episodes had ceased, and they may have been sure that was the last season anyway, as the show just wasn't 'working' any more with Bea Benederet's permanent absence.

Best Man
06-18-2007, 02:30 PM
TDR I said you consider it rather wrong to consider it dreams because I saw you said one can view it any way one wishes. However, the fact that Joe was written to have a dream/hallucination that he's more or less Jed Clampett shows that AFTER the crossover eps ended it was hinted they were actually just dreams of his! It is a powerfully possibility since they had that segment with Joe and the beauty Bradley girls in the Clampett car to interpret the crossover eps that way. As for Bea's absence making PJ not as good well the show was 7 years old anyway.

tdr
06-18-2007, 07:38 PM
Very well. Rest ye merry.