I just got off of the IMDb message board for Green Acres where there is an ongoing debate about which state Hooterville is supposed to be located in. All kinds of hints were apparently spun out during the show --- from Sam Drucker mentioning that the state capital was Springfield to the number of connecting flights from Hooterville to Chicago to pointing to series creator Paul Hennings' Ozark roots and the presumed locale of Petticoat Junction. Some think then that Hooterville must be somewhere in the Illinois or Missouri sticks. Others back their way through what they suppose to be the origins of the Beverly Hillbillies and think it must be somewhere in Tennessee and even a few others point out that some of the place names used on the show can be found in central California -- which would explain the 81 degree Christmas temperatures experienced one year in Hooterville. Some of the posters on the board who harbor more sensitive, philosophical tendencies are eager to persuade that Hooterville isn't in any state in the U.S.-but is only a state of mind. One especially keen minded poster even carries this metaphysical exercise to the extreme by pointing out that Hooterville exists only on a Hollywood sound stage and no where else. I just can't buy that though.
I spent a lot of time as a kid in the late sixties and early seventies in Southern Illinois and Missouri. Everything I see on Green Acres whether placed there by the producers by accident or by design -- from the opening credits aerial shots -- to the Douglas homeplace with its rusting farm machinery in the yard remind me of that part of the country.
Rod Serling once introduced an episode of the Twilight Zone (The Last Rites Of Jeff Myrtlebank) by describing the setting as "the Midwest...... the southern most part of the Midwest." It's a very intelligent distinction to be made. Once you cross I-70 in Southern Illinois you have crossed a border of sorts. You are still in the Midwest to be sure, but in this region the accents stretch out just a bit. When you hear Tom Lester's (Eb) Missisippi accent or Pat Buttram's (Mr Haney)twangy patter on the show you are hearing a voice not that far off from what you would find in any small town off the road in Southern Illinois or Missouri. But it's still the Midwest and not the "real" South. Make no mistake about that.
Green Acres, as I remember it, was a big hit among my Southern Illinois relatives back in the late sixties. They loved the show--but the question is why? My Uncle Richard and Aunt Rosalie were not great connoisseurs of absurdist, self referential humour. If you pointed out to them that this was one of the first shows on TV to "break down the 4th wall" they would have slapped themselves silly trying to figure out what you were talking about. They loved this show simply because the it bore some resemblance to the world that they lived in. Nothing else on TV then or even up till now offers such a view of that part of rural America.
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