50 Fun Facts About Green Acres

Oliver Douglas gives up what career in Manhattan to become a farmer?

Eddie Albert played him. Albert had two Oscar nominations and a Bronze Star for rescuing Marines at Tarawa.

Which Hungarian-born actress played Lisa Douglas?

She later voiced Duchess in The Aristocats and Miss Bianca in The Rescuers. On the show Lisa admits her only talent is impersonating her sister Zsa Zsa.

On which network did Green Acres air from 1965 to 1971?

Filmways produced it as a sister show to Petticoat Junction, and CBS gave Paul Henning the slot without asking for a pilot.

The 1950 CBS radio series the show grew out of was named after which family?

Jay Sommers created both. The radio couple, played by Bea Benaderet and Gale Gordon, were modelled on their My Favorite Husband characters.

Which of these was a proposed title before the series became Green Acres?

Country Cousins was the other. Sommers ended up writing and producing about a third of the episodes.

What was the Douglases' farm known as before Oliver bought it?

Haney sold it, then stripped out the sink, stove, cow and tractor and sold them back to Oliver one by one.

Which former newscaster and What's My Line host anchored the mockumentary pilot episode?

A few weeks later Albert and Gabor returned the favour as Mystery Guests on What's My Line and thanked him on air.

What is unusual about the Green Acres theme song?

Vic Mizzy composed it. He also wrote The Addams Family theme, complete with finger snaps.

Which instrument plays 'Yankee Doodle' whenever Oliver launches into a speech about the American farmer?

Every character on screen can hear it except Oliver, and they look around trying to work out where it is coming from.

Mr. Douglas's full name honours which famous American?

He does his farm chores in a three-piece suit, which the town decides is ruining Hooterville's image.

What car does Oliver drive in the early seasons, in stark contrast to the town's decrepit vehicles?

Later seasons swapped it for a Mercury Marquis convertible.

According to Lisa in 'Wings Over Hooterville', what was she during World War II when she met Oliver?

He was a US Army Air Forces flier who had bailed out. She gives several other versions in later episodes, including one where her father is the deposed King of Hungary.

What does Lisa sometimes do with dirty dishes instead of washing up?

Her hotcakes, made from Kate Bradley's recipe, became the show's infamous inedible 'hotscakes'.

Which shifty salesman sold Oliver the farm and keeps selling him back his own fittings?

He turns up on cue with a custom sign painted on a green pull-down window shade for every occasion.

Pat Buttram said Mr. Haney was inspired by which real-life showbiz figure?

Buttram had spent years as Gene Autry's comic sidekick, so he knew a few managers.

What does farmhand Eb Dawson habitually call Oliver and Lisa, to Oliver's annoyance?

Tom Lester beat around 400 actors for the part, reportedly because he was the only one who could milk a cow.

Why did Tom Lester say he won the role of Eb over hundreds of other actors?

He grew up on a farm in Laurel, Mississippi. In summer breaks he toured the country preaching at revivals.

How did the show explain Eb's absence during the first half of the 1967-68 season?

Tom Lester actually had mononucleosis.

What kind of animal is Arnold Ziffel?

Fred and Doris Ziffel treat him as their son. He goes to school, watches westerns and signs his own name.

What breed is Arnold?

The original pig came from Union Star, Missouri. Since pigs grow fast, several Arnolds were used over the run.

Who is the only person in Hooterville who insists Arnold is just a pig?

Everyone else understands his grunts as English, and Oliver keeps slipping and treating him as a boy anyway.

Which newscast does Arnold watch to keep up with the issues?

He also plays checkers with the townsfolk and wins, plays the piano and is working on a novel.

Which famous TV animal is implied to be the horse that talks Arnold out of a Hollywood role?

The horse needs the job to send his son to Stanford, so Arnold behaves badly on purpose and gets fired.

Who trained Arnold and virtually all the other animals on the rural sitcoms of the era?

He said you can never force or reprimand a pig or it will stop working for you. Arnold won him three Patsy Awards.

What is the secret about carpenter Ralph Monroe, Alf's 'brother'?

Alf explains they would not get work if people knew. The pair never finish the Douglases' bedroom, not even by the 1990 reunion.

Which newspaper does Sam Drucker edit?

He is also postmaster, notary, constable, justice of the peace and a volunteer firefighter, on top of running the general store.

What is Hank Kimball's job?

He starts a sentence, contradicts himself, contradicts the contradiction and wanders off. Alvy Moore relied on teleprompters to get through the dialogue.

How much older than Eddie Albert was Eleanor Audley, who played his mother Eunice?

She urged Lisa to 'come back to America'. Audley also voiced Maleficent and Cinderella's stepmother for Disney.

Which Petticoat Junction hotel owner gave Lisa the hotcake recipe that became her infamous 'hotscakes'?

Bea Benaderet played her in a few early episodes. Her Billie Jo was the only Bradley sister never to appear on Green Acres.

In a 1967 Green Acres episode, the Hooterville theatre stages a play in homage to which series, with Lisa as Granny?

Oliver played Jethro. From 1968 the Clampetts themselves visited Hooterville, uniting all three Henning shows in one universe.

Which Clampett does Eb fall for during the crossover episodes?

She was reluctant. The subplot ran across 'The Thanksgiving Story' and 'The Courtship of Homer Noodleman'.

How many episodes of Green Acres were made?

Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor appeared in every one. Tom Lester made 148.

Green Acres was cancelled in 1971 despite good ratings as part of what CBS clear-out?

Sponsors wanted urban shows. Pat Buttram said CBS 'cancelled everything with a tree, including Lassie'.

Where did Green Acres rank among 96 shows in its final 1970-71 season?

It won its timeslot, which made the cancellation all the more sudden. There was no proper finale.

What were the final two episodes of the series, instead of a finale?

One was set in a Hawaiian hotel and would have been called Pam; the other centred on Oliver's old secretary Carol Rush.

Which two-part episode was ranked number 59 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time in 1997?

Arnold's Hollywood adventure. It was the show's only entry on the list.

In the 1990 reunion movie Return to Green Acres, what is Mr. Haney's latest product?

Oliver and Lisa have moved back to New York and are miserable, and the town needs saving from a developer played by Henry Gibson.

Which singing cowboy did Pat Buttram serve as comic sidekick in more than 40 films?

Smiley Burnette, who guest-starred as engineer Charley Pratt, had been Autry's earlier sidekick.

For which 1953 film did Eddie Albert receive his first Oscar nomination?

He played the photographer friend of Gregory Peck's reporter. His second nomination came for The Heartbreak Kid in 1972.

Which Disney cat did Eva Gabor voice in 1970's The Aristocats?

Pat Buttram voiced Napoleon the hound in the same film. Gabor went on to voice Miss Bianca in The Rescuers.

What was Alvy Moore's real-life licence plate, a nod to his most famous role?

He was a Marine at Iwo Jima before acting, and Tom Lester was with him when he died in 1997.

Which production company made Green Acres as a sister show to Petticoat Junction?

Filmways' successor, Orion Television, distributed the 1990 reunion movie.

Who created Green Acres and its 1950 radio forerunner?

Sommers wrote, produced and directed the radio series and later wrote or produced about a third of the TV episodes.

Who composed the Green Acres theme?

Mizzy also wrote the finger-snapping theme for The Addams Family.

In later seasons, Oliver's Lincoln Continental was replaced by which make of car?

Either way, the sleek convertible clashed with the decrepit vintage vehicles around Hooterville.

According to Lisa, her only real talent is impersonating whom?

The gag played on the fact that the real-life Gabor sisters were often mistaken for each other.

Which Bradley sister from Petticoat Junction never appeared on Green Acres?

Betty Jo turned up as Eb's date, with Bobbie Jo in the same episode.

Which Missouri town supplied the original pig who played Arnold Ziffel?

Fred Ziffel, Arnold's 'father', was said to have been born during the Grover Cleveland administration.

The penultimate episode, set in Hawaii, was a backdoor pilot for a series with what proposed title?

It centred on hotel owner Bob Carter and his daughter Pam, played by Pamela Franklin.

Which singer was first attached to play Lisa Douglas in a 1997 film adaptation that never got made?

Midler dropped out by December 1997 and Ben Stiller's Red Hour Productions came aboard instead.