http://tv.zap2it.com/news/tvnewsdaily.html?29656

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Even as socialite Paris Hilton is telling late night talk show host Craig Kilborn that she will be taking part in a reality version of "Green Acres" for FOX, CBS is busy defending itself for even considering a reality take on "Beverly Hillbillies," where a real Appalachian family would have their lives filmed as they moved into an affluent suburb.

Answering allegations that the network thinks the rural poor are fair game to poke fun of, CBS President Les Moonves insists that at the heart of the idea is just a good old-fashioned fish-out-of-water story. , "The idea of the show was to question social mores. If you remember the original " Beverly Hillbillies,' the biggest buffoon in it was the rich guy who lived next door, Mr. Drysdale."

The proposed reality show remains very much in the discussion stage. No family has been signed and there's no start date for production. And rather than saying that on further examination of E!'s " The Anna Nicole Show" it's decided the ground has already been sufficiently mined, the network is taking the high ground in addressing its critics.

" It was not in any way, shape or form, or intent, to demean anybody," Moonves stresses. " It wasn't our intent to offend everybody. I'm sorry if we have.""

I guess we should be grateful that CBS isn't doing a reality show based on "Amos 'n' Andy", huh?;)

Okay, I was being something of a wise-guy with that above post, but, really, I find this whole exercise somewhat amusing: Senators and social workers alike are condemning this show, and yet, I feel that these were the same people who found "Amos 'n' Andy" totally HARMLESS back in the fifties...

There's nothing like karma, folks...:lol:

It's presumptious and reactionary to assume that the show would be insulting to the chosen family or any Appalachian family. It's insulting to those people who are candidates for the pogram to assume that they would be so dumbfounded by their surroundings that they'd surely be fodder for ridicule. As the article points out, it was Mr. Drysdale who looked foolish much of the time. He and many of the other guest actors representing the "sophisticated' Bevely Hills folks were forever looking silly because of their pretensions. Do these naysayers and critics actually expect that an Appalacian family would look anymore foolish than many of the more 'upscale' people who have appeared in other 'reality shows'? I doubt that that is possible. I think the show, if it ever makes it past the soap box pundits, could be quite entertaining, and maybe even touching.