Way back when that first aired, around 1962, I wrote (back then one wrote long letters to absent friends) to my former high school physics lab partner/good friend that I was disgusted by this program. She wrote back agreeing. We had gone through our teenage years watching the Golden Age of television in the 1950's: Yes the technology was primitive by today's standards, but the quality of writing, directing and acting on these programs was light years better than today's standard pap. The Beverly Hillbillies marked the strip mining of American Culture. How appropriate that the nouveau riches of the Clampets came from oil, i.e., Black Gold/Texas Tea.
Jethro from The Beverly Hillbillies seems to be the perfect role model of who the networks wanted to cater to with his "sixth-grade-educated-brain." Jethro was just smart enough to be able to read, willing to accept any media fads pushed at him, and had plenty of disposable income at hand. The perfect American television viewer.
Here are a couple of excerpts from a great article discussing the marvelous quality of the Golden Age of Television (and don't forget the underlying element of tension/excitement because these shows were brjoadcast live).
http://www.museum.tv/eotv/goldenage.htm
"As crucial as these elements were, perhaps the most important reason leading to the success of this nascent television art form was the high caliber of talent on both sides of the video camera. Whereas many well-known actors from the stage and screen participated in live television dramas as the 1950s progressed, it was the obscure but professionally trained theater personnel from summer stock and university theater programs like Yale's Drama School who launched the innovative teletheater broadcasts that we now refer to as television's "golden age."
. . . . . . . .
"In 1949, 24 year-old Marlon Brando starred in "I'm No Hero," produced by the Actors' Studio. Other young actors, such as Susan Strasberg (1953), Paul Newman (1954), and Steve McQueen, made noteworthy appearances on the Goodyear Playhouse. Among some of the most prominent writers of "golden age" dramas were Rod Serling, Paddy Chayevsky, Gore Vidal, Reginald Rose and Tad Mosel. Rod Serling stands out for special consideration here because in addition to winning the 1955 Emmy for "Best Original Teleplay Writing" ("Patterns" on Kraft Television Theater), Serling also won two teleplay Emmys for Playhouse 90 (1956 & 1957), and two "Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama" Emmys for Twilight Zone (1959 and 1960) and for Chrysler Theater in 1963. Serling's six Emmys for four separate anthology programs over two networks unquestionably secures his position at the top of the golden age pantheon. For television, it was writers like Serling and Chayevsky who became the auteurs of its "golden-age." Gore Vidal sums up the opportunity that writing for television dramas represented in this way: "one can find better work oftener on the small grey screen than on Broadway." Chayevsky was more sanguine when he stated that television presented "the drama of introspection," and that "television, the scorned stepchild of drama, may well be the basic theater of our century."
. . . . . . .
"In addition to actors and writers, some of the most renowned Hollywood directors got their big breaks on television's anthology dramas. John Frankenheimer directed for the Kraft Television Theater, Robert Altman for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Yul Brynner and Sidney Lumet for Studio One, Sidney Pollack for The Chrysler Theater (1965 Emmy for "Directoral Achievement in Drama"and Delbert Mann for NBC Television Playhouse. These are but a few major directors who honed their kills during television's "golden age."
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