I have been helping out with my sick brother-in-law for a while now. He lives in Florida, and is just not doing well. We have worked out a routine each day…at least for every morning. The day begins when I get to his house and wake him up. Then I make him a cup of coffee, and take it to the living room, and start his TV. I tune in to The Beverly Hillbillies. One station plays that show for about six hours every day. We watch three or four episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies, easing into the day. Morning laughter does make the day go better.
Sometimes it is just me watching, if Phil is having a tough time waking up, clearing his lungs and then breathing comfortably. His energy level is certainly not high early in the day. I enjoy these mornings, not only helping Phil but watching the Beverly Hillbillies. As a kid, I watched it in prime time when first on TV in the sixties. Have seen some episodes many times during the constant reruns through the years. Ones I never remember seeing, I am watching now. New or old, they are still funny in that nostalgic way.
So lately I have taken to searching out a few books about The Beverly Hillbillies for my library. I have had some good luck, and would like to display and explain few of them.
My first book is “The Beverly Hillbillies-The Saga of Wildcat Creek” by Doris Kearns Goodwin, published in 1963 by Whitman Publishers in Racine, Wisconsin.
The book tells a story about the Clampetts going back to their hometown because of plot to steal some money. It takes place only a few weeks after they moved to Beverly Hills. Their whole back story is told (Jed Clampett, Granny, daughter Elly May, and nephew Jethro Bodine), along with some new twists. The book was published through Whitman books by Filmway TV Productions. They wrote many books with stories based on popular TV shows to tie more sales. Mom took my brother and I to the Racine publishing shop to buy books, when growing up.
I found a book written by Donna Douglas who played Elly May. The book is “Miss Donna and Mulberry Acres Farm” by Donna Douglas, 2011.
The book talks about Miss Donna (as her Elly May persona) helping her friend and horse-Old Thunder win a race to save the farm. Miss Donna sure loved her critters. She was 30 years old when she started on The Beverly Hillbillies.
My next book is “Granny’s Beverly Hillbillies Cookbook” by Jim Clark and Ken Beck, published in 1994. Max Baer Jr who played Jethro wrote the forward to the book.
There are plenty of pictures from the show, along written clips and quotes. There is even an article about Beverly Hills having an actual Possum Day Parade because of having one in the show. There are also some interesting (both taste-wise and pun-wise) recipes.
I follow that book with one from Jed Clampett, “The Other Side of Oz” by Buddy Ebsen, published in 1993.
This was a very readable book of his life growing up and getting into show business. Buddy Ebsen was famous for dancing in theater before he got into movies, and then TV. There was interesting name-dropping, and how friendships paid off further down his career. Shirley Temple said that dancing with him was the most enjoyable of any in her movie making.
There were many other remarkable events in his life. One was that he was filming as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz for three weeks, and then got ill from the silver paint. It turned out that they experimented using actual aluminum dust. It coated his lungs and he was rushed to hospital when his lungs shut down. After two weeks in the hospital, and six more recuperating, Ebsen found out that he had been fired, and Jack Haley was hired to replace him. HIS makeup was a silver paste. Ebsen also noted that at least one clip of him as the Tin Man is still in the movie-the four characters singing “we’re off to see the Wizard” and dancing away from the camera.
Ebsen spent a nice part of the book talking about The Beverly Hillbillies. It became number one after only three weeks. It ran from 1962 to 1971. There were 106 episodes in black and white, and then 168 in color. There are plenty more facts of that show, along with other highlights of Ebsen’s career.
I have to include a book from Granny-Irene Ryan. In fact, the whole idea of writing about Beverly Hillbillies books began when a friend of my sent me an article about a book Ryan had written during the heyday of the show. He told me “I bet you don’t have this rare cookbook in your library.” I didn’t, but was up to the challenge. Most places wanted much more than I was willing to pay, so I kept looking locally, along with all over the internet.
I finally found this great cookbook at a reasonable price, bought it, and had it sent to my home: “Granny’s Hillbilly Cookbook” by Irene Ryan, published in 1966. I told my son to look out for this special book and send a picture once it arrived.
My son opened the book and “Welllll doggie. He took to it like a cold hog to warm mud.”
You see my son loves shooting varmints and such, along with stewing ’em up to eat. In fact he said after thumbing through Granny’s book, “Ima gonna cook up some possum innards in gopher gravy, along with munching some pickled crow gizzards. Just not sure if I want ’em falling off the bone tender, or with a little fight left in ’em. Couldn’t I just borrow this book for a while, Pa?”
What in tarnation? I reckon I’m gonna have to have a long talk with that boy.
Y’all come back now…
Librarytomes 