Ashley Seymour
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2000
- Messages
- 938
It was a time before VCR’s, TIVO, etc. and you planned your evening to watch the Beverly Hillbillies, just as you did Ricky and Luci or Uncle Miltie a decade earlier. Paul Henning and Neil Simon were masters of the inside joke. Each week an audience in the tens of millions were the ones in on the joke that a bunch of hillbillies didn’t know how a doorbell or a garbage disposal worked. Inheritors of immense wealth and living in a city of unlimited consumer goods, they felt disadvantaged as they were bereft of such basic necessities as crawdads.
With wealth came a cascade of scam artists who weekly were turned away by the simple, naïve, yet highly moral Jed and Granny. At the end of the series run, we perhaps learned that the inside joke was on us viewers. Virtually all the viewers were richer than the Clampetts before they became rich, yet how many of us could have remained as unfazed by such immense riches. Ultimately the story dealt with the love and respect the family members had for each other – both in times of feast and famine. At times it was the funniest TV show of all time and one of the most up lifting.
Paul Henning was a master writer and creator of a classic piece of comedy. Thanks Paul
With wealth came a cascade of scam artists who weekly were turned away by the simple, naïve, yet highly moral Jed and Granny. At the end of the series run, we perhaps learned that the inside joke was on us viewers. Virtually all the viewers were richer than the Clampetts before they became rich, yet how many of us could have remained as unfazed by such immense riches. Ultimately the story dealt with the love and respect the family members had for each other – both in times of feast and famine. At times it was the funniest TV show of all time and one of the most up lifting.
Paul Henning was a master writer and creator of a classic piece of comedy. Thanks Paul