Product Description

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 12/16/2008 Run time: 974 minutes Rating: Nr

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13530 in DVD
• Brand: PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2008-12-16
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 5
• Dimensions: .85 pounds
• Running time: 974 minutes

Amazon.com
Songwriter Paul Simon said it best: Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance. Especially when that train is the Hooterville Cannonball ("the train that’s loved by all"), whose heralding whistle sets this charming series’ classic theme song in motion. An instant hit in its first season, Petticoat Junction, like The Andy Griffith Show is the chance to spend quality time with "some decent folks." The series is set at the bucolic, but run-down, Shady Rest Hotel, remotely situated between Hooterville and Pixley (the Mt. Pilot to Hooterville’s Mayberry). The Shady Rest has seen better days. The last time there were three guests at one time, someone observes, was when "Mrs. Pritchard gave birth to twins in the lobby." Widow Kate Bradley (Bea Benaderet, the voice of Betty Rubble on The Flintstones) runs the place with her three beautiful daughters, flirtatious Billie Jo (Jeannine Riley), bookworm Bobbie Jo (Pat Woodall), and pigtailed tomboy Betty Jo (Linda Kaye). Kate’s finagling Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) complicates matters with ill-fated get rich schemes. Other colorful characters include Cannonball engineers Charlie (Smiley Burnette) and Floyd (Rufe Davis), more interested in life’s simple pleasures, like fishing, than running the train on time, and Sam Drucker (Frank Cady), the "self-described general store keeper, notary republic, and town wit." Throughout the first season, Kate and company thwart efforts by Homer Bedloe (Charles Lane), "the most ruthless man since Ivan the Terrible," to put the Shady Rest out of business and shut down the Cannonball, the antiquated steam train that time, and the C.F. & W Railroad forgot. Created by Paul Henning, Petticoat Junction is not as widely syndicated or popularly known as his other series, The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres, but it’s a pleasure to rediscover. One episode for the '60s time capsule, broadcast just a little over a month after the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, is "The Ladybugs" in which Beatlemania hits the valley, and Uncle Joe transforms the Bradley girls into a girl rock group. Dennis Hopper, of all people, appears as a beatnik in the episode, "Bobby Joe and the Beatnik." Vintage TV fans will have fun spotting Ken "Eddie Haskell" Osmond as a suitor for Billie Jo in "The Genghis Keane Story" (the same episode introduces future Green Acres scene stealer Hank Patterson as pit-toting farmer Fred Ziffel); Sheila James (Zelda on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis) as a fellow Ladybug, and Steve Franken (Chatsworth Osborne, Jr. on Gillis) as Homer Bedloe’s chip off the old block son, who has a change of heart after spending time at the Shady Rest in "Bedloe and Son." This set benefits from episode introductions and affectionate recollections by Kaye and Woodall. So, like the song says, forget about your cares, it is time to relax at the Junction. As Bedloe, Jr. proclaims, "A fella could get used to a life like this." --Donald Liebenson

Customer Reviews

Full length episodes, all original Curt Massey music.
I almost didn't purchase this set due to the negative comments before the release, but really wanted the 2nd half of the first season that wasn't on the other DVD set. After watching the first 8 episodes, I thought I'd let other skeptics know that these episodes are full length with Curt Massey's original music score. Also, in the episodes I've seen so far, there are no
product placements on the end credits. Don't worry, there isn't a black box
covering up that bar of soap; it's just not there. If you select special features on the main menu, you can select play all episodes with a brief intro by Linda Kaye Henning (Betty Jo) or Pat Woodell (Bobby Jo) or both of
them in some cases. Now let's not keep the Petticoat Junction fans waiting, please release the rest of the seasons in a timely manner!

No TVLand edits on this set
Contrary to the rumor, there are no TVLand edits on the Petticoat Junction Season 1. All the episodes are about 25 minutes and 30 seconds long. Not sure what's been changed musically since they never reran this show around my area. But they didn't snip out major moments like they did on Gomer Pyle.

Classic 1960s TV
"Petticoat Junction" was commissioned by CBS-TV in 1963, following the success of "The Beverly Hillbillies" in the previous year. Producer Paul Henning reproduced the formula of his hit, except instead of having hicks come to the big city and lock horns with smarmy city-slickers, in "Petticoat" the city-slickers came out to the country and got charmed or bamboozled by the locals. The comedy wasn't as broad as on "Hillbillies," and the show was greatly enhanced by an ensemble cast that included great character actors such as Edgar Buchanan, Frank Cady, Charles Lane and Roy Roberts. (Old-school country music fans might also appreciate the presence of cowboy singer Smiley Burnett in the role of train engineer Charley Pratt...) "Petticoat Junction," which ran seven seasons and lasted for years in syndication during the next decade, isn't what you'd call great art, but it was a fun, well-produced show, and you might be surprised by how well it stands up, several decades later. This first collection, with five discs worth of vintage episodes, will give you a glimpse of what television comedy was like, way back in the Kennedy era. It was a simpler time, and looking back at it can be a fine tonic. (Joe Sixpack, Slipcue film reviews)