What did Bea think of June taking over the female lead? Also this article said Bea filmed five shows but only four counting Valley has A Baby aired. What was the fifth?

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ccZOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=oAEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7336,3957865&dq=petticoat-junction&hl=en

This article shows that production probably filming of June's first show took place September 28th but that they still hoped Bea would return to star by June. (That or they didn't know how to write the awful truth.) Since they wanted Bea to return maybe that is why Kate is mentioned going out of town leaving a way for her character to come back.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cmktAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HooFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3801,5768536&dq=petticoat-junction&hl=en

I wonder if they were going to have them on the show together? :)

...Rosemary DeCamp (who co-starred opposite Bob Cummings in Paul Henning's "BOB CUMMINGS SHOW" [aka "LOVE THAT BOB"]), as "Aunt Helen", temporarily replaced Bea in several episodes until she recovered from her cancer treatments. Obviously, the plan was for June, as "Dr. Janet Craig", to be another "temporary replacement" until Bea's cancer was again in remission. Apparently, Bea didn't mind either Rosemary or June replacing her for a brief period, as she had more serious issues to attend to- including her recovery from cancer. This was not to be- she returned one last time for "The Valley Has A Baby" (her voice, actually, as her stand-in filled her role on screen), when Betty Jo had her baby {she wanted to be in on that one}, filmed several weeks before her death in October 1968. After Benaderet's death, "Kate Bradley" was never seen or referred to again, and June became Edgar Buchanan's co-star for the remainder of the series.

:tv:

This was such a difficult period for the series. If I'm not mistaken, although Kate is never again mentioned by name following Bea's death, there was still the occasional mention of "Mom."

It's interesting that the replacement of Gunilla Hutton with Meredith MacRae and later Bea's passing not only necessitated new openings, but actually there were 4 different color openings. All of these also featured Lori Saunders and of course Linda Kaye Henning:

A. Bea and Edgar with Gunilla (Season 3 only)
B. Bea and Edgar with Meredith
C. Edgar with Meredith (relatively few eps) -- "It is run by Joe..."
D. Edgar and June with Meredith (the "Lady MD" opening) -- through to the end

The original b/w opening had Bea, Edgar, Linda, Jeannine Riley, and Pat Woodell (Seasons 1 & 2)

Finally, I might add that when Meredith replaced Gunilla, the scene of the girls walking down from the tower was never changed -- Gunilla remained in that long-shot all the way to the end.

There is a rare alternate take of Kate waking Uncle Joe. It was uploaded you-know-where but I can't find it now. Bea kind of awkwardly dangles one of her wrists, which is probably why it was re-shot. I think it was only on a small portion of 3rd season eps, but that brings the total number of color opening variations to five. Incidentally, the opening introduced when Kate went out of town permanently had a wide shot of the entire hotel (using the miniature, of course) and the lines "it's a real friendly place, come and be our guest at the Junction / There's Uncle Joe...." It apparently was used on a few more episodes originally, beginning with 'Wings' at least through 'Strange Case of Joseph P. Carson'. If someone gets a chance to look through the end credits of season 6 episodes, any one with June Lockhart credited at the end would have originally had the interim opening.