db-beurylaw Amazing that no-one called the producers for this obvious sexual come on. I was six when the first advertisements for the show were shown and I immediately recognized the bait and switch. Everything about the show was suggestively sexual and it never delivered. In the opening we have three gorgeous girls swimming nude in a water tower. The water tower is used to service a 100-year-old steam locomotive. Why, in heaven's name would any intelligent woman get into a 100-year-old filthy, unfiltered water tower? And why be (apparently) nude with your sisters? Why because the producers are telling you this is a sexy show. The theme song invites you to ride the train that goes along the tracks to the junction. Petticoat Junction! The question I have is why would anyone want to do that? The Shady Rest is a run-down hotel in the middle of the sticks. Do you have to ride a train to get there? Isn't there a modern hotel off the interstate? Obviously, the hotel has no pool. Why else would the girls get in that rancid water tower. Maybe they had to bathe in the tower, because this hotel has no plumbing. Ewww. Then there is the hotel name. It's the Shady Rest. Shady as in "suspicious, suspect, questionable, disreputable, dishonest, illegal, dishonorable, unscrupulous or unethical." Oh sure, throw in the word "Rest" so the owners can claim innocence, but really would you board a 100-year-old train to go to a run-down dump hotel, that offers the opportunity to get out of direct sunlight? Then there are the other cast members. Edgar Buchanan, Bea Benadaret, Smiley Burnette and Rufe Davis. Benadaret was a classic whore house madam. She was there to collect the cash and keep the girls in line. The other old men would be chosen because they were no longer a threat to the girls and would not corrupt the "merchandise". They were sort of octogenarian Eunuchs. Even though I was six I saw through this bait and switch. The show itself was as asexual as possible. The plots were always about the has-been old comedians. After the suggestive opening, he girls were no where to be seen. This was in the age of strict censorship. Barbara Eden couldn't even show her navel in her Jeanie costume. If you were lured in to see an adult sexy program, you were taken for a ride on a 100 year-old train. As a comedy, the shows weren't funny. It was as bland as any show has ever been. I think people tuned in to see something happen. It never did.

SanteeFats I watched Petticoat Junction from its first airing, (yeah, I am that old). I enjoyed it then and am enjoying it even more as I watch the series on DVD. It is a time when shows not only did not but could not be extremely suggestive as they are nowadays. I am not a prude by any means but sometimes it is nice to just have good looking women who are funny and not running around in as skimpy a bikini as possible. The reason I did not give it a ten is because after Bea Benaderet, the mom,died during season 3 I believe the shows lost some of their zing. The interactions between mother-daughters and Uncle Joe (a champion loafer) were no longer there and they couldn't find a really good replacement. June Lockhart was okay but no Kate.

dataconflossmoor In 1970 when CBS took "Petticoat Junction" off the air, it was for purposes of deviating itself from the ossified reputation of a network perpetuating rural comedies...CBS was on the verge of embarking on sitcoms with social poignancy and ethnicity recognition!! (Shows like "All in the Family") As a child, I always fondly remember "Petticoat Junction" as a wholesome T.V. show....My identification with "Petticoat Junction" was particularly positive because it resembled my mother's family of three daughters, and, my mother was the youngest daughter who got married first (Just like the T.V. Show!!). This culminating with "My Three Sons" mirrored my personal family situation, as I was one of three sons in my family!! The Shady Rest Hotel was a quaint resemblance to my days up at my grandfather's summer home in Michigan...The innocence more than anything, encompassed a fondness for the fortunate unity that a happy family possesses!! I seem to remember one of the last episodes of "Petticoat Junction" where Billie Jo was advocating women's liberation!! This particular episode sort of explained why "Petticoat Junction" was taken off the airwaves!! Ignoring the tumultuousness of the 1960's totally, producers of "Petticoat Junction" were sort of conveying the message that they had a very uncomfortable disposition with social issues!!As time has passed, it makes you realize that comedy back then was very innocent, and, the need for change simply accommodated the future....One of my favorite movies is "Sex.Lies, and Videotape" this film is the antithesis of the television show "Petticoat Junction"...Here is the catch though!! The movie "Sex,Lies and Videotape" could have taken place in Hooterville!! The actual depiction of small-town America is not a paralleled panacea right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Realistically assessing Hooterville, it would most likely be a town which would be subject to an abyss of dreadfully high unemployment, and, it would get bludgeoned by one recession after another. You would have a scenario whereby Wal-Mart would be putting Sam Drucker's store out of business. Also, the divorce rate would most likely be commensurate with the national average too!!What I am saying is that, television needs to change with people!! The homey associations of family values pertinent to yesteryear, were indeed for the past!! Today's comedy is not just about sex, but also, they are about realistic proclivities which reflect the lifestyle patterns of today!! The illustration of human error is what a comedy is all about!! I loved "Petticoat Junction", I do not think I would want to watch it as a new television show today though!!...From the seventies there arose many television series which articulated the rage form of the American public.. Petticoat Junction's innocuous demeanor was an anachronism to this trend of agitation and ideological malcontent. Hence, the perception of moral infuriation, by the television audience, could not be quelled by hovering around the piano and singing! I feel it is imperative that television should mirror American's personal and social transitions! I liked "Petticoat Junction" back then because it reflected my happiness as a young boy with a loving family! A state of cop-aesthetic satisfaction is humorous in its own realization!! Realism and doubts, as depicted in television shows today, also have a comically identifiable twist to them....Shows like "Petticoat Junction" placated the ambitions of the perfect post World War II American family, and resonated themselves to a state of domestic idealism! Many shows today evoke a candid commentary which is very amenable to misery and social injustice! This appreciation in entertainment dichotomy makes me an utterly saturated recipient of the television industry!!

heckles Several people have stated, why don't they make shows like this anymore? After watching several episodes from a DVD purchased at a convenience store, I can say why: it's a dull show. Almost excruciatingly so. Perhaps an adequate time waster if one can't figure out something better to do and one doesn't care to watch what is on the other one or two networks, but that wouldn't cut it today when a show has to run against several dozen other choices, including the Internet. The only thing noticeable was the implication from the credits that the three daughters regularly skinny-dipped in the water tank. Hot stuff in 1963 to a nine year old boy, but now I think: that water's unfiltered and unchlorinated, you really want to expose yourselves to that? Other than that, they are allowed to be about as sexy as mannequins. And Hooterville seems to run on an economic system somewhat less efficient than that of the Soviet Union. Everything can be paid for with dinners at the Shady Rest, and no one seems to mind that the only transportation around is a Civil War-era locomotive. I guess they all piled into it on Saturday nights and rode it to the drive-in."Green Acres" a couple years later did the right thing with the rural milieu: use it for absurdist humor that didn't con city dwellers with the idea that there American small towns are gentle paradises. And "The Beverly Hillbillies" at least had Buddy Epsen. This one? It will be completely forgotten in another couple decades.