The Beverly Hillbillies

Jed Clampett (portrayed by Buddy Ebsen), has little formal education and is completely naïve about the world outside the area where he lives, but has a great deal of wisdom and common sense. His forebears are revealed in Series 1 Episode 25 that his family came to America before the Mayflower arrived. However he later denies this to keep Mrs. Drysdale happy. He is the widower of Granny's daughter, Rose Ellen (though Buddy Ebsen was only 5 years Irene Ryan's junior). He is the son of Luke Clampett and his wife, and has a sister called Myrtle. In episode 13 it is revealed that his grandfather was 98 when he married his grandmother who was 18. Jed is a good-natured man and the head of the family. In a very early episode Jed tells Elly May that she is the spitting image of her mother. The huge oil pool in the swamp he owned was the beginning of his rags-to-riches journey to Beverly Hills. He is usually the straight man to Granny and Jethro's antics. His catchphrase is, "Welllllll, doggies!"[3] Jed was one of the three characters to appear in all 274 episodes of the series.

Daisy May Moses (portrayed by Irene Ryan in all 274 episodes), called "Granny" by all, is Jed's mother-in-law, so is often called "Granny Clampett" in spite of her last name, and despite the fact that in the pilot episode Milburn Drysdale refers to her as Jed's mother. She is a descendant of the Moses clan who learnt her feuding when the Moses drove the Bodkins out of Napoleon, Tennessee. She has an abrasive personality and is quick to anger, but is often overruled by Jed. She is a devout Confederate and fancies herself a Baptist Christian ("dunked, not sprinkled") with forgiveness in her heart. A self-styled "M.D." ("mountain doctor"), Granny uses her "white lightning" brew as a form of anesthesia when commencing painful treatments such as leech bleeding and using pliers for teeth-pulling. Like the other Clampetts, she is known to take things literally, having thought Mrs. Drysdale had turned herself into a bird using black magic (astrology) and mistook an escaped kangaroo for a giant jackrabbit (but failed to convince anyone of its existence).

Paul Henning discarded the idea of making Granny Jed's mother, which would have changed the show's dynamics, making Granny the matriarch and Jed her subordinate.

Elly May (portrayed by Donna Douglas in all 274 episodes), the only child of Jed and Rose Ellen Clampett, is a mountain beauty with the body of a pin-up girl and the soul of a tomboy. In a very early episode Jed tells Elly May that she is the spitting image of her mother. She can throw a fastball and "wrassle" most men to a fall, and she can be as tender with her friends, animals, and family as she is tough with anyone she wrassles. She says once that animals can be better companions than people, but as she grows older, she allows that, "fellas kin be more fun than critters." In addition to the family dog, Duke (an old Bloodhound), a number of pets live on the Clampett estate thanks to animal-lover Elly. In the 1981 TV movie, Elly May is the head of a zoo.

Elly is a terrible cook. Family members cringe whenever, for plot reasons, Elly takes over the kitchen.

Max Baer Jr. as Jethro (1962)

Jethro (portrayed by Max Baer Jr. in 272 episodes) is the dim-witted son of Jed's cousin, Pearl Bodine (though he addresses Jed as "Uncle Jed", as Elly May addresses Pearl as "Aunt Pearl", a customary generational practice). Pearl's mother and Jed's father were siblings.[4] He drives the Clampett family to their new home in California and stays on with them to further his education. In the first series he is in the fifth grade, having spent three years in the fourth grade and two years in the first grade. He went to Oxford school and this is confused with Oxford University. The others boast of Jethro's education, in later series it is referred to as his "sixth-grade education"; Jethro himself often speaks enthusiastically of his abilities in "cipherin'" (1 and 1 is 2, 2 and 2 is 4), and "gazintas" (4 gazinta 8 2 times, 3 gazinta 12 4 times). However, he is ignorant about nearly every aspect of modern California life. In one episode, he decides to go to college. He enrolls late in the semester at a local secretarial school and "earns" his diploma by the end of the day because he is so disruptive. This was an ironic in-joke – in real life, Max Baer Jr. has a bachelor's degree in business administration, minoring in philosophy, from Santa Clara University.[5][6]

Many story lines involve Jethro's endless career search. He once deliberated over becoming a brain surgeon or a fry cook. His other ambitions included being a millwright, street car conductor, "double-naught" spy, telephone lineman, soda jerk, chauffeur, USAF general, sculptor, restaurant owner (with Granny's cooking), psychiatrist, and once as a bookkeeper for Milburn Drysdale's bank; an agent for "cousin" Bessie and "Cousin Roy" (see below); Hollywood producer (a studio flunky remarks Jethro has the "right qualifications" for being a producer: a sixth-grade education and an uncle who owns the studio; this in-joke gag as a movie producer was replayed in the 1981 movie). More often than not, his overall goal in these endeavors is to meet pretty girls. He only manages to gain (but is oblivious to) the affections of the plain Miss Jane Hathaway. Of all the Clampett clan, he is the most eager to embrace city life. A running gag is that Jethro is known as the "six-foot stomach" for his huge appetite; in one episode, he eats a jetliner's entire supply of steaks, and in another, Jethro tries to set himself up as a Hollywood agent for cousin "Bessie" the chimpanzee – with a fee of 10,000 bananas for Bessie and 1,000 for him. Jethro does not appear in the third- or second-to-last episodes, but Baer remains billed in the title credits.

With the January 2015 death of Donna Douglas, Baer is the only surviving main cast member.[7]

Mr. Drysdale (portrayed by Raymond Bailey in 247 episodes) is the Clampetts' banker, confidant, and next-door neighbor. He is obsessed with money, and to keep the Clampetts' $96,000,000 (in 1969; equivalent to $709,372,051 in 2021) in his Commerce Bank, Mr. Drysdale will do everything he can to cater to their every wish. He often forces others, especially his long-suffering secretary, to help fulfill their outlandish requests. He is a descendant of the Bodkins from Tennessee. It is revealed in the first series that Granny's clan, the Moses, feuded with the Bodkins and drove them from Napoleon, Tennessee.

Nancy Kulp (center) as Jane Hathaway, with Max Baer Jr. and Sharon Tate (in a dark wig)

Jane Hathaway (portrayed by Nancy Kulp in 246 episodes), whom the Clampetts address as "Miss Jane", is Drysdale's loyal, highly educated, and efficient secretary. Though she reluctantly carries out his wishes, she is genuinely fond of the family and tries to shield them from her boss's greed. Miss Hathaway frequently has to "rescue" Drysdale from his schemes, receiving little or no thanks for her efforts. The Clampetts consider her family; even Granny, the one most dead-set against living in California, likes her very much. Jane harbors something of a crush on Jethro for most of the series' run. In 1999, TV Guide ranked Jane Hathaway number 38 on its list titled "50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time".[8]

[16]

In 1981, Return of the Beverly Hillbillies television film, written and produced by series creator Henning, was aired on the CBS network. Irene Ryan had died in 1973, and Raymond Bailey had died in 1980. The script acknowledged Granny's passing, but featured Imogene Coca as Granny's mother. Max Baer decided against reprising the role that both started and stymied his career, so the character of Jethro Bodine was given to another actor, Ray Young.

The film's plot had Jed back in his old homestead in Bugtussle, having divided his massive fortune among Elly May and Jethro, both of whom stayed on the West Coast. Jane Hathaway had become a Department of Energy agent and was seeking Granny's "White Lightnin'" recipe to combat the energy crisis. Since Granny had gone on to "her re-ward", it was up to Granny's centenarian "Maw" (Imogene Coca) to divulge the secret brew's ingredients. Subplots included Jethro playing an egocentric, starlet-starved Hollywood producer, Jane and her boss (Werner Klemperer) having a romance, and Elly May owning a large petting zoo. The four main characters finally got together by the end of the story.

Having been filmed a mere decade after the final episode of the original series, viewer consensus was that the series' original spirit was lost to the film on many fronts, chief of which being the deaths of Ryan and Bailey and Baer's absence, which left only three of the six original cast members available to reprise their respective roles. Further subtracting from the familiarity was the fact that the legendary Clampett mansion (the Sumner Spaulding-designed Chartwell Mansion) – was unavailable for a location shoot as the owners' lease was too expensive. Henning himself admitted sheer embarrassment when the finished product aired, blaming his inability to rewrite the script due to the 1981 Writers Guild of America strike.[20]

In 1993, Ebsen, Douglas, and Baer reunited onscreen for the only time in the CBS-TV retrospective television special, The Legend of the Beverly Hillbillies, which ranked as the fourth-most watched television program of the week—a major surprise given the mediocre rating for the 1981 television film. It was a rare tribute from the "Tiffany network", which owed much of its success in the 1960s to the series, but has often seemed embarrassed by it in hindsight, often downplaying the show in retrospective television specials on the network's history and rarely inviting cast members to participate in such all-star broadcasts.

The Legend of The Beverly Hillbillies special ignored several plot twists of the television film, notably Jethro was now not a film director, but a leading Los Angeles physician. Critter-loving Elly May was still in California with her animals, but Jed was back home in the Hills, having lost his fortune, stolen by the now-imprisoned banker Drysdale. Nancy Kulp had died in 1991 and was little referred to beyond the multitude of film clips that dotted the special. The special was released on VHS tape by CBS/Fox Video in 1995 and as a bonus feature on the Official Third Season DVD Set in 2009.

A three-act stage play based on the pilot was written by David Rogers in 1968.[29]

The Deadly Hillbillies, an interactive murder mystery, was written by John R. Logue using the core cast of characters as inspiration. This Gypsy Productions Murder Mystery Parody features characters such as Jed Clumpett, Daisy May Mostes, and Jane Hatchaway.

Dell Comics adapted the series into a comic book series in 1962. The art work was provided by Henry Scarpelli.[30] The comic ran for 18 issues, ending in August 1967.[31]

In 1993, a film version of The Beverly Hillbillies was released starring Jim Varney as Jed Clampett and featuring Buddy Ebsen in a cameo as Barnaby Jones, the lead character in his long-running post-Hillbillies television series.

Based on The Beverly Hillbillies movie, a PC computer adventure game for operating system MS-DOS was developed by Synergistic Software, Inc. and published in 1993 by Capstone Software.