The Sunday Star and Journal American TV Magazines featured the same photo on the same week.

The only difference between the two is the newspaper name in the upper right-hand corner.

New Corn-Fed Comedy Hit Is 'Hillbillies' Offshoot

by Frank Judge

Lightning has struck the television cornfields twice. When Paul Henning created "The Beverly Hillbillies" for CBS last year, the series turned out to be the most popular show in television. It knocked the competition, Perry Como, out of the weekly schedules.

This year the show retains the No. 1 rating and is giving its competition, ABC's "Ben Casey," a headache.

But when Henning came up with another rustic comedy, "Petticoat Junction," for CBS this fall, some experts said it would be a flop.

They shrugged off "The Beverly Hillbillies" as a fluke that can happen in any business.

The man who created that hit said little, if anything, in rebuttal.

He was too busy transforming Bea Benaderet from her "Beverly Hillbillies" role of Cousin Pearl into Kate Bradley, of "Petticoat Junction."

Repeats Success

When the national ratings came out, they showed clearly that Henning had done it again.

"Petticoat Junction," the only new show among the top 10, placed sixth, in front of such potent favorites as Danny Thomas, Red Skelton and "Petty Mason," among others.

It was done by working the same cornball magic that had proved so successful with "The Beverly Hillbillies."

The biggest difference between the two shows is the income bracket of the characters involved.

On "The Beverly Hillbillies," Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan and the other oil-rich transplanted hillbillies live it up in swanky settings.

Bea Benaderet, however, runs a whistle-stop hotel on "Petticoat Junction" that will never be taken over by Conrad Hilton.

Meanwhile, Henning, executive producer of "Petticoat Junction," writes for "The Beverly Hillbillies."

 

New Script Deal

He has provided it with scripts superior to those used on "Petticoat Junction." That problem apparently is fast being corrected now that the characterization for Bea Benaderet, her three television daughters and the rest has been fully developed.

The three "daughters" are pictured on the cover and the opposite page. They are Jeannine Riley, the blond; Pat Woodell, the brunet, and Linda Kaye, the redhead. Linda is Henning's daughter.

Three veteran actors also are starred in the series. Edgar Buchanan is Uncle Joe, Smiley Burnette is Charlie Pratt and Rufe Davis is Floyd Smoot.

A widow in "The Beverly Hillbillies," Bea Benaderet is a widow in "Petticoat Junction." There the relationship ends, Bea believes.

"My clothes aren't as old and battered, for one thing," she said.

"But there's a much bigger difference between the two characters. Kate Bradley, of 'Petticoat Junction', is far different from any of the characters I've played.

"Hers is a role that calls for a precise blending of humor and tenderness. The other women I played strictly for laughs."

 

Oddball Roles They have been a strange lot, Bea's women. She was Gertrude Gearshift on Jack Benny's radio show, Amber Lipscott for the "My Friend Irma" series, a maid for "Ozzie and Harriet," a housekeeper for "Peter Loves Mary." For eight years she was George Burns' and Gracie Allen's nosey neighbor, Blanche Morton, later the voice of Betty Rubble of "The Flintstones" and then Cousin Pearl, with the crazy curls, in "The Beverly Hillbillies." She still does Betty Rubble. "Petticoat Junction" has been a big break for the three girls of the show. Before it, none of them had anything approaching star billing. Bea herself is getting star billing for the first time in a career that began in 1936. "I went through more than one sleepless night before the show bowed in this fall," she said. "I worried about the responsibility of heading a series for the first time in my life." She can stop worrying. "Petticoat Junction," like "The Beverly Hillbillies" may be pure corn. But it's all golden bantam.

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