Petticoat Junction: A Night at the Hooterville Hilton - Season 1, Episode 13 (1963)

DVD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001E6JC30/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=d...

http://thefilmarchive.org/

A brochure describing the incomparable Shady Rest Hotel of the future is prematurely mailed to a Hooterville travel columnist.

Homer Bedloe, played by actor Charles Lane, was vice president of the C. & F.W. Railroad. Bedloe was a mean-spirited railroad executive who visited the Shady Rest Hotel periodically attempting to find justification for ending the train service of the Hooterville Cannonball, but never succeeding. In the series pilot, it was established that the branch line had become separated from the main part of the railroad several years earlier, but that nobody had ever bothered to do anything about it, so the crew just kept operating the Cannonball on the remaining section of track.

The show benefitted greatly in its first four seasons from the very strong lead-in of The Red Skelton Show, which immediately preceded it on Tuesday nights. In its first season it even exceeded Skelton's ratings, finishing at #4 overall for the season. The rest of its time on Tuesday nights, it remained in the Nielsen top 25.

In 1967, the show suffered its first loss when Smiley Burnette, as engineer Charley Pratt, died of leukemia. Rufe Davis' Floyd Smoot took over both jobs as engineer and conductor for a while and then was replaced the following year by Wendell Gibbs, played by Byron Foulger. During the show's last season (1969--1970), Foulger became too ill to continue and Davis returned for the episode "Last Train To Pixley". Ironically, Foulger died on the same day the final episode of Petticoat Junction aired: April 4, 1970.

Illness kept Bea Benaderet away for the last portion of the 1967--68 season. She missed two episodes (ep. 159, 160), was back for one (ep. 161), then missed eight more after that before she finally returned for the last episode of the season (ep. 170). Storylines had her away on a trip, as everyone's hopes were that the actress would recover. Paul Henning brought in Rosemary DeCamp in several episodes as Kate's sister Helen. Bea returned for the 1968--69 season but her return proved short-lived as she only made three appearances (ep. 171, 172, 173) before becoming ill again. In the fourth episode when Betty Jo gives birth to Kathy Jo, Bea provided only her voice. She's heard at the beginning when Betty Jo and Steve read the letter Kate has sent them and when Wendell answers the phone at Drucker's store (she's on the other end). Bea's stand-in (actress Edna Laird) then plays Kate "full back" to the camera, with Bea again providing only her voice. She's heard when Kate is on the hand car helping Wendell and at the end when Kate is at Betty Jo's bedside. The episode aired 13 days after Benaderet's death (October 13, 1968) from lung cancer. Choosing not to recast the Kate role, or to sign Rosemary DeCamp on full-time (she was also playing Ann Marie's mother on That Girl), the producers introduced the new character of hotel resident Dr. Janet Craig, played by June Lockhart, as a counsel of sorts for the girls.

Though still beloved by fans, the central premise of a country family was lost without a motherly figure. The long absence of Kate was only mentioned in passing during the final season's premiere episode: In episode 197, the Bradley sisters, and baby Kathy-Jo, return from dipping in the water tower. Steve has paternal qualms about his daughter's safety, to which Billie Jo/Bobbie Jo reply wistfully, "Mom taught us to swim in that very same water tower.". And in another episode, one of the rooms is referred to as the "Kate Bradley Memorial Suite". The decline in ratings, which began when the show moved to Saturday night, continued.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petticoat_Junction

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[travis7310]

*Replacement music.

[travis7310]

Wow, the replacement is so ridiculous, but, believe it or not, I've heard worse.

[uselessjoe]

The oldest daughter, real name Gisela, this was her only yr, they took her off because she was Nat King Cole's lover; of course, she later spent like 20 yrs on Hee Haw