September 26, 1962: “The Beverly Hillbillies” Premieres

September 26, 1962: The Beverly Hillbillies premieres on CBS. It's a fish-out-of-water show.

Buddy Ebsen plays Jed Clampett, a poor, widowed hillbilly, who lives with his daughter, Elly May, played by Donna Douglas; and his mother-in-law, Daisy May Moses, a.k.a. "Granny," played by Irene Ryan, near an oil-rich swamp in Silver Dollar City in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri.

The opening sequence shows Jed discovering oil while shooting at a rabbit, although the first episode shows the oil being discovered by a surveyor for the OK Oil Company. The company pays Jed many millions of dollars for the right to drill on his land. Jed's cousin, Pearl Bodine, played by Bea Benaderet, prods him to move to California now that he is wealthy, and pressures him into taking her son Jethro along. Jethro is a big boy, and not very bright, and may have been an analogue to Dan Blocker's Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza. He is played by Max Baer Jr., son of a former Heavyweight Champion of the World.

The family moves into a mansion in upscale Beverly Hills, California, next door to Jed's banker, Milburn Drysdale, and his wife, Margaret, who is appalled by the hillbilly Clampetts. Milburn is played by Raymond Bailey, Margaret by Harriet MacGibbon. Nancy Kulp played Jane Hathaway, the Drysdales' secretary.

The Clampetts bring an unsophisticated, simple, moral lifestyle to the wealthy and sometimes superficial community. Double entendres and cultural misconceptions are the core of the sitcom's humor. Plots often involve Drysdale's outlandish efforts to keep the Clampetts' money in his bank, and his wife's efforts to rid the neighborhood of "those hillbillies." The family's periodic attempts to return to the mountains are often the result of Granny feeling slighted by the "city folk."

Sharon Tate, later to fall victim to Charles Manson's "Family," appeared in 15 episodes, as a secretary at the Drysdales' bank.

The show lasted 9 seasons, until CBS' 1971 "Rural Purge" that also canceled Mayberry, R.F.D., Green Acres and Petticoat Junction, and paved the way for All In the Family and M*A*S*H, and urban cop shows like Barnaby Jones (which, like this one, starred Buddy Ebsen), Kojak and Cannon.

Benaderet died in 1968, after a battle with cancer, and Pearl was written out of the series. Ryan died in 1973, Bailey in 1980, MacGibbon in 1987, Kulp in 1991, Ebsen in 2003, Douglas in 2015. As of September 26, 2022, Max Baer Jr. is still alive.

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September 26, 1962 was a Wednesday. Actress Melissa Sue Anderson was born. And these baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 9-5 at Yankee Stadium. Ralph Terry won his 23rd game, but, since the Cy Young Award was then 1 award for 2 Leagues, it was given to Don Drysdale instead. Mickey Mantle went 2-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. Roger Maris and Yogi Berra did not play.

* The New York Mets lost to the Milwaukee Braves, 6-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Denny Lemaster outpitches Roger Craig, who falls to 10-24. Hank Aaron hit his 298th career home run, having hit his 297th against the Mets the night before.

* The Baltimore Orioles and the Kansas City Athletics split a doubleheader at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, making up a game that was rained out the day before. The O's won the opener, 3-0. Dave McNally pitched a 2-hit shutout. The A's won the nightcap, 6-2. Over the 2 games, Brooks Robinson went 3-for-8.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Boston Red Sox, 9-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-3 with a walk and 2 RBIs.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 1-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Rookie Willie Stargell doubled Bill Mazeroski home with the game's only run in the top of the 11th inning. Roberto Clemente did not play. Frank Robinson went 0-for-4.

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Detroit Tigers beat the Los Angeles Angels, 8-5 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 2-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-5 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks went 1-for-5.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Houston Colt .45s, 13-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Frank Howard hit a home run. The Colts became the Houston Astros in 1965.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Willie Mays went 0-for-3 with a walk, but Orlando Cepeda and Tom Haller hit home runs. Stan Musial hit a 3-run pinch-hit home run off Billy Pierce.

* And the Cleveland Indians and the Minnesota Twins were not scheduled.

March 23, 1971: CBS' Rural Purge

The Clampetts of The Beverly Hillbillies

March 23, 1971: The last episode of The Beverly Hillbillies airs on CBS. It was followed on March 29 by the last episode of Mayberry R.F.D., and on April 27 by the last episode of Green Acres.

A month earlier, on February 23, Hee Haw, the country-music-themed variety show, aired its last episode on CBS. It was saved by a syndication package, on which it ran until 1993. The other shows mentioned weren't so lucky: They fell victim to what became known as "The Rural Purge."

The Beverly Hillbillies was one of the most-watched shows of the early 1960s. In fact, aside from The Beatles' appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, it was the most-watched show on television in 1964. But times had changed.

Indeed, at a time when "Middle America" seemed to be reasserting itself -- the backlash against the Vietnam War and civil rights abuses had begun to receive its own backlash -- CBS was getting more innovative. Two months earlier, it had debuted All In the Family, skewering the perceptions of stereotypes and breaking taboos about what could be shown or discussed on TV. Four months before that, "The Tiffany Network" debuted The Mary Tyler Moore Show, with a 30-year-old never-married "career woman" as its main character. In a year and a half, it would debut M*A*S*H, the 1st "dramedy," although that term wouldn't come for another generation.

And yet, just 3 days before the premiere of M*A*S*H, CBS premiered The Waltons, set in rural Virginia during the Great Depression of the 1930s. It became very popular -- or maybe it just picked up all the viewers that the previous rural shows had.

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March 23, 1971 was a Tuesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. Only 1 game was played in the NBA: The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 114-112 at the Cleveland Arena.

There were 2 games in the American Basketball Association. The New York Nets lost to the Memphis Pros, 117-110 at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis. And the Utah Stars beat their arch-rivals, the Denver Rockets, 124-117 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. The Stars would go on to win the ABA Championship that season. But they would not survive the mini-merger with the NBA in 1976. The Rockets would, although, anticipating this, and knowing that the NBA already had the Houston Rockets, changed their name to the Denver Nuggets.

There were 3 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 7-2 at Madison Square Garden. 

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Los Angeles Kings, 3-1 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Vancouver Canucks beat the St. Louis Blues, 4-1 at the Pacific Coliseum in Denver.