Hooterville

Hooterville was a fictional rural town that was the setting of the American television sitcoms Petticoat Junction and Green Acres.

Related Topics:
Fiction - Rural - American - Television - Sitcoms - Petticoat Junction - Green Acres

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Hooterville had at least 60 citizens, such as Newt Kiley who farmed over 80 acres (320,000 m²); Ben Miller, the apple farmer; Mr. Haney (first name disputed, Eustace or Charleton), the county con man; Hank Kimball, the idiotic county agent; Sam Drucker, the only shopkeeper in Hooterville; Sarah, the telephone operator; Fred Ziffel, a pig farm owner; Doris "Ruthie" Ziffel, Fred's fat and noisy wife (the couple also owned an intelligent pig named Arnold); Charley Pratt and Floyd Smoot, the engineer and conductor respectively on the local train, the Hooterville Cannonball; and Eb Dawson, the handyman for the Douglases on Green Acres. "Hot time in the old town tonight" was the only song that the Hooterville Volunteer Fire Department Marching Band could play--at half speed.

Related Topics:
Farm - Apple - Mr. Haney - Hank Kimball - County agent - Sam Drucker - Telephone operator - Fred Ziffel - Pig - Arnold - Train - Hooterville Cannonball

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Petticoat Junction (1963–70) was set in the Shady Rest Hotel, the only hotel in town (and apparently the sole business aside from Drucker's). The Shady Rest Hotel was run by widowed Kate Bradley (played by Bea Benaderet) and her lazy, overweight brother "Uncle Joe" Carson (Edgar Buchanan). Kate had three daughters, "boy crazy" Billie Jo, "book worm" Bobbie Jo, and "tomboy" Betty Jo. In addition to his storekeeping duties, Drucker was also the town's postmaster and publisher of the local weekly newspaper, the Hooterville World-Guardian. Drucker also operated a bank, which seemed to consist largely of a cash box located under the counter in his store.

Related Topics:
Hotel - Bea Benaderet - Edgar Buchanan - Postmaster - Newspaper - Bank

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Green Acres (1965–71) was about a wealthy New York City couple, lawyer Oliver Wendell Douglas (Eddie Albert) and his diamond-clad wife, Lisa (Eva Gabor), who give up their Park Avenue penthouse for a run-down farm, the "Haney" place, just down the road from the Shady Rest. Hooterville in Green Acres was a much more wacky, surreal place than the one in Petticoat Junction, though the shows shared characters, as the humor in Green Acres was often far broader. In the shows' later years, the major overlap between the two was Sam Drucker and his combination general store, post office, and newspaper office.

Related Topics:
New York City - Oliver Wendell Douglas - Eddie Albert - Lisa - Eva Gabor - Park Avenue - General store - Post office

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The location of Hooterville was never explicitly stated, but it was implied to be in or very near Illinois. In numerous episodes it was said that they were close to Chicago; in one Green Acres episode, Mr. Haney said Chicago was 300 miles (480 km) away. Another time it was said the state capital was called Springfield, which is also the name of the capital city of Illinois. Hooterville may also have been in the Ozarks (which is the location of Springfield, Missouri, Missouri's third-largest city, albeit not its capital). One of the working titles for Petticoat Junction had been Ozark Widow. The cast of another CBS show, The Beverly Hillbillies, had some connection with the characters in Petticoat Junction, which was strange, since the Beverly Hillbillies characters seemed to be from eastern Tennessee.

Related Topics:
Illinois - Chicago - Ozarks - Springfield, Missouri - Missouri - City - The Beverly Hillbillies - Tennessee

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A larger town nearby, seemingly the county seat, was called "Pixley".

Related Topics:
County seat - Pixley

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It would seem an obvious conclusion that the name "Hooterville" was inspired by the term "hooters" for women's breasts. One of the first images in the opening credits of Petticoat Junction is that of Kate's three daughters, skinny-dipping in the train's open-topped water tower, with their petticoats draped over the rim (filmed from ground level, of course). The image is reinforced by the theme song lyric, "Lots of curves, you bet / And even more when you get / To the Junction." However, following the standards of early 1960s television, this was about as sexy as it ever got. Any vague hint of sexuality was always played for laughs.

Related Topics:
Skinny-dipping - 1960s

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