(This is a repost of a past email).
A still from the Green Acres/Beverly Hillbillies crossover episode.
Driving to work a few weeks ago with Tom with the radio on, I had the radio tuned to John Stanley and Sandy Aloisi as usual. I’m not as fond of the 2UE breakfast radio show since Mike Carlton left but still have it on, despite Tom’s protests about it being a FOP station, meaning an old person’s station. On that show each morning John Stanley nominates 3 separate items, listeners winning a prize if they are the first to telephone with the common link. This particular morning the 3 items were Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies and Mr Ed. The common link, something that I wouldn’t have worked our even with Googling, was that they all finished with the words “This has been a Filmways presentation.”
The point of my story is that I told Tom that these were great comedy shows and I began singing the Green Acres theme. The more he protested the louder I sang, moving on to The Beverly Hillbillies and then Mr Ed.
Memories came back of watching those shows after school. I winder did I ever do any homework? It seems that my time was filled by TV shows.
Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies were classics and would probably be a hit again, although lines such as “You are my wife! Goodbye city life” would need revising. It’s a shame some TV station does not have one evening per week devoted to the past classics.
In discussion this with Kate, my wife, she raised some other favourites: Get Smart, Hogan’s Heroes (would they make a comedy sitcom today set in a Nazi POW camp?) and F Troop. From there we moved on to the British classic oldies: Steptoe and Son, Open All Hours, All In The Family, When the Boat Comes In, Porridge, Benny Hill and Dad’s Army.
