I hope I do not burst anyone's bubble here by saying this, but I think we all know The Beverly Hillbillies was a one-camera filmed series without a live audience and a laugh track.

How do you think the show would have been received had it been filmed before a live audience? Would critics have liked it better or worse? Would it have been any more or less popular?

Just curious....

I think it would have done well in front of a live audience, especially since the Giant Jack Rabbit was the most highest watched episode.

I don't think it would have mattered if it had been a live audience or not. I am a huge BH fan so probably not the most objective person to comment..haha

Wouldn't a live audience be impractical with all of the scene changes ? I am just thinking of the last ep I saw, and there were scenes in the parlor, the kitchen, the front of the house, the pool, the bank - inside and out, Jane's apartment, and probably more.
The Honeymooners, with a live audience, took place almost entirely in the kitchen.
But if they would have been able to do it, I can see the live audience rolling aroung in stitches !

I hope I do not burst anyone's bubble here by saying this, but I think we all know The Beverly Hillbillies was a one-camera filmed series without a live audience and a laugh track.

How do you think the show would have been received had it been filmed before a live audience? Would critics have liked it better or worse? Would it have been any more or less popular?

Just curious....


I think that it was fine the way it was. You didn't burst my bubble. I kinda figured it was filmed with one camera. It didn't need a laugh track.

It would have been difficult to be the same show in regard to the props and stunts... all the explosions, for example, couldn't be done as with Jethro fouling up the telephone lines, then Granny's party-line exploded, leaving here covered with dust and soot; and Ellie May throwing Jethro and Ravenswood off the 2nd floor, shooting the skeets, et al. A live audience couldn't really see what was taking place as with screen-editing. But that's probably not as significant as that an audience would have almost forced some changes in character. Imagine the whistling when Donna/Ellie May shows up in a swimsuit, and the cast having to delay the dialogue because of the loud reactions; maybe female screams when Max/Jethro comes on, and plenty of catcalls when Drysdale is scrooging the scenes. So both of those changes would have kept it from being exactly the same show that it was.

I agree with what Don Knotts is reported to have said about audience shows--he detests them, because it's very difficult to please 2 different audiences, the one in the studio and the one "in the camera."

However, one problem many one-camera shows would have had with a live audience would not have been there with TBH... another of Knotts' complaints was that with audience shows they are always "punching up the lines with jokes," as every second line needs to get a laugh to keep the audience 'in it' (and the audiences are all too willing to laugh, even at weak jokes). But (virtually) every seond line getting a laugh was true of TBH even without a live audience.