Oliver Wendell Douglas

Last updated
Oliver Wendell Douglas
Green Acres character
Oliver Wendell Douglas.jpeg
Created by Paul Henning
Portrayed by Eddie Albert
In-universe information
Occupation Attorney
Spouse Lisa Douglas

Oliver Wendell Douglas is the main character in the 1960s CBS sitcom, Green Acres . Portrayed by Hollywood veteran Eddie Albert, Oliver Wendell Douglas is a New York City attorney who acts out his long-harbored dream of moving to the Midwest where he trades in his job of practicing "big city" law to operate a country farm. In addition to appearing on Green Acres, the character also makes several cross-over appearances on the in-universe show, Petticoat Junction.

Contents

Character biography

Oliver Wendell Douglas is a New York City attorney who had long harbored a dream of moving to the Midwest and operating a farm rather than practicing "big city" law. His wife, Lisa, a glamorous Hungarian immigrant (played by Eva Gabor), has no desire to leave sophisticated New York City for a rural area. His mother, Eunice (Eleanor Audley), sides with Lisa against the couple leaving New York City for the country.

However, once they arrive at their newly purchased farm (which features a run-down, dilapidated farmhouse), it is not Oliver, but Lisa, who immediately fits into Hooterville and its collection of zany characters. Oliver is usually presented as the only sane character in an insane world. Oliver doesn't fit into a place where everyone takes for granted that a "talking" pig, Arnold Ziffel, is his owners' "son"; where one of the two housing contractor "brothers" is a woman; where the farmhand he hires, young Eb Dawson, refers to him and Lisa as his "parents"; and where local confidence man Mr. Haney, from whom he bought the farm, is always getting the upper hand. Of course, Oliver has quirks as well, such as driving his tractor wearing the same three-piece suits that he had formerly worn to practice law. He also addresses nearly everyone in Hooterville as Mr. or Mrs., even though the residents use a first-name basis with each other (although they reciprocate by referring to Oliver as "Mr. Douglas").

Oliver has a high opinion of farmers, and often makes speeches in which he refers to "crops shooting up out of the ground" (Lisa, in her Hungarian accent, repeats the sentiment as "crops shoosting out of the ground"). During these speeches on the idealistic nature of rural life, patriotic music (Yankee Doodle to be exact) often plays; other characters frequently search for the source of the music. Oliver is so enamored with farming that, in the pilot episode, during a flashback while on a bombing mission in a P-38, Oliver annoys his squadron commander with comments about how tomatoes are made into ketchup. An episode in which the Hooterville townsfolk try to convince Oliver to fly a broken down Curtiss JN-4 from World War I, reveals that Oliver was a Captain in USAF Reserves.

Despite Oliver's love of farming, he is totally incompetent as a farmer. His denial leads him to labor on in vain, year after year, when it is obvious to everyone else that he would be far more successful back in his New York law practice. Although he is a horrible farmer and once made only $16 dollars of profit for the entire year, the Douglases never seem to worry about money. For example, they never have trouble replacing the numerous dishes that Lisa would break. In one episode this causes the other residents to believe that Oliver is making and selling alcohol, and that he is involved with the mob.

The show features numerous running gags, such as Oliver "losing" in one way or another to the Hooterville yokels. In one episode Mr. Haney, Lisa, and Hank Kimball think they've discovered a "Milk-making" Machine. Oliver must tell them (tongue-in-cheek) that not only are the chemicals so expensive that milk prices would soar, but that one of the ingredients in this new milk also causes temporary baldness. Another episode shows Oliver as a "successful" lawyer when he manages to convince the US Army not to draft Arnold Ziffel, the Pig, into the Army. Another running gag in later seasons of the show involves Oliver frequently unable to finish a sentence, due to being interrupted by other characters.

Character creation

In the 1950 radio sitcom on which Green Acres was originally based, the character was a banker named John Granby and portrayed by Gale Gordon. [1] Granby, in turn, was based on Gordon's character on My Favorite Husband . In a notable difference between the radio and television versions, Granby had a teenage daughter, which the Douglases did not. [2] The character's basic premise of a white-collar city man with a passion for farming but no talent for it remained unchanged. [1]

The character's name was inspired by famed Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and possibly also by then-Supreme Court justice William Orville Douglas.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grampa Simpson</span> Recurring character in The Simpsons

Abraham Jebediah "Abe" Simpson II, better known as Grampa Simpson, is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He made his first appearance in the episode entitled "Grandpa and the Kids", a one-minute Simpsons short on The Tracey Ullman Show, before the debut of the television show in 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eva Gabor</span> Hungarian-American actress and socialite (1919–1995)

Eva Gabor was a Hungarian-American actress and socialite. She voiced Duchess and Miss Bianca in the animated Disney Classics, The Aristocats (1970), The Rescuers (1977), and The Rescuers Down Under (1990). She was popular in her role on the 1965–71 television sitcom Green Acres as Lisa Douglas, the wife of Eddie Albert's character Oliver Wendell Douglas. Gabor was an actress in film, on Broadway, and on television. She was also a businesswoman, marketing wigs, clothing, and beauty products. Her elder sisters, Zsa Zsa and Magda Gabor, were also actresses and socialites.

<i>Centennial</i> (miniseries) American TV series or program

Centennial is a 12-episode American television miniseries that aired on NBC from October 1978 to February 1979. The miniseries follows the fictional history of Centennial, Colorado, from 1795 to the 1970s. It was based on the 1974 novel of the same name by James A. Michener, was produced by John Wilder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gale Gordon</span> American actor (1906–1995)

Gale Gordon was an American character actor who was Lucille Ball's longtime television foil, particularly as cantankerously combustible, tightfisted bank executive Theodore J. Mooney, on Ball's second television sitcom The Lucy Show. Gordon also appeared in I Love Lucy and had starring roles in Ball's successful third series Here's Lucy and her short-lived fourth and final series Life with Lucy.

<i>Green Acres</i> American television sitcom

Green Acres is an American television sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a country farm. Produced by Filmways as a sister show to Petticoat Junction, the series was first broadcast on CBS, from September 15, 1965, to April 27, 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alvy Moore</span> American actor

Jack Alvin "Alvy" Moore was an American actor best known for his role as scatterbrained county agricultural agent Hank Kimball on the CBS television series Green Acres. His character would often make a statement, only to immediately negate the statement himself and then negate the corrected statement until his stream of statements was interrupted by a frustrated Oliver Wendell Douglas portrayed by Eddie Albert. One such statement was, "Good morning, Mr. Douglas! Well, it's not a good morning ... but it's not a bad morning either!" Moore appeared in 142 of the 170 total Green Acres episodes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Lester</span> American actor and evangelist (1938–2020)

Thomas William Lester was an American actor and evangelist. He was best known for his role as farmhand Eb Dawson on the television show Green Acres. He appeared in two feature animal films, Gordy and Benji.

<i>Petticoat Junction</i> American television series 1963-1970

Petticoat Junction is an American television sitcom that originally aired on CBS from September 1963 to April 1970. The series takes place at the Shady Rest Hotel, which is run by Kate Bradley; her three daughters Billie Jo, Bobbie Jo, and Betty Jo; and her uncle Joe Carson. The series is one of three interrelated shows about rural characters produced by Paul Henning. Petticoat Junction was created upon the success of Henning's previous rural/urban-themed sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–1971). The success of Petticoat Junction led to a spin-off, Green Acres (1965–1971). Petticoat Junction was produced by Filmways, Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eddie Albert</span> American actor (1906–2005)

Edward Albert Heimberger was an American actor and humanitarian. He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; the first nomination came in 1954 for his performance in Roman Holiday, and the second in 1973 for The Heartbreak Kid. Other well-known screen roles of his include Bing Edwards in the Brother Rat films, traveling salesman Ali Hakim in the musical Oklahoma!, and the sadistic prison warden in 1974's The Longest Yard. He starred as Oliver Wendell Douglas in the 1960s television sitcom Green Acres and as Frank MacBride in the 1970s crime drama Switch. He also had a recurring role as Carlton Travis on Falcon Crest, with Jane Wyman.

Hooterville is a fictional agricultural community that is the setting for the American situation comedies Petticoat Junction (1963–70) and Green Acres (1965–1971), two rural-oriented television series created or produced by Paul Henning for Filmways and CBS. Prior to the airing of Petticoat Junction, Hooterville is mentioned in an early episode in the first season of The Beverly Hillbillies, another Paul Henning sitcom. In this episode, Jethrine Bodine, Jethro Bodine's sister, has a budding romance with a slick traveling salesman, Jasper, who invites her to a dance in Hooterville. Hooterville is a town, a valley, and a county, and has been described as "a place simultaneously Southern and Midwestern, but in a vague sort of way". Little concrete or reliable information can be gleaned from the two shows about the place, as references in individual episodes are rife with inconsistencies, contradictions, geographic impossibilities and continuity errors. The writers of the two shows often changed the details about the Hooterville community at will for the purpose of cracking a joke, and they left certain details intentionally vague and unexplained.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arnold Ziffel</span> Fictional character

Arnold Ziffel was the porcine character featured in Green Acres, an American situation comedy that aired on CBS from 1965 to 1971. The show is about a fictional lawyer, Oliver Wendell Douglas, and his wife, Lisa – city-dwellers who move to Hooterville, a farming community populated by oddballs. Arnold is a pig of the Chester White breed, but is treated as the son of farmer Fred Ziffel and his wife, Doris, a childless couple. Everyone in Hooterville accepts this without question. Arnold's first TV appearance was in the second season of Petticoat Junction in the episode "A Matter of Communication".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hank Patterson</span> American actor and musician (1888–1975)

Elmer Calvin "Hank" Patterson was an American actor and musician. He is known foremost for playing two recurring characters on three television series - stableman Hank Miller on Gunsmoke and farmer Fred Ziffel on both Petticoat Junction and Green Acres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Douglas</span> 1960s CBS TV sitcom character

Lisa Douglas was the leading female character in the 1960s CBS situation comedy Green Acres, which ran for six years, from 1965 to 1971. The character was reprised in the 1990 film Return to Green Acres. CNN rated the character as being amongst "The most stylish TV housewives of all time".

<i>The Simpsons</i> opening sequence Opening sequence of the TV series The Simpsons

The Simpsonsopening sequence is the title sequence of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It is accompanied by "The Simpsons Theme". The first episode to use this introduction was the series' second episode "Bart the Genius".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cliff Norton</span> American actor

Clifford Charles Norton was an American character actor and radio announcer who appeared in various movies and television series over a career spanning four decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coleman Station Historic District</span> Historic district in New York, United States

The Coleman Station Historic District is located around the former New York Central Railroad Coleman's station in the Town of North East, New York, United States, a short distance south of the village of Millerton. It is a rural area including several large farms in the southeastern corner of the town. At almost three square miles (7.33 km2), it is the largest historic district entirely within Dutchess County and the second largest in the county.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Briarcliff Farms</span> Former farm in New York

Briarcliff Farms was a farm established in 1890 by Walter William Law in Briarcliff Manor, a village in Westchester County, New York. One of several enterprises established by Law at the turn of the 20th century, the farm was known for its milk, butter, and cream and also produced other dairy products, American Beauty roses, bottled water, and print media. At its height, the farm was one of the largest dairy operations in the Northeastern United States, operating about 8,000 acres (10 sq mi) with over 1,000 Jersey cattle. In 1907, the farm moved to Pine Plains in New York's Dutchess County, and it was purchased by New York banker Oakleigh Thorne in 1918, who developed it into an Aberdeen Angus cattle farm. After Thorne's death in 1948, the farm changed hands several times; in 1968 it became Stockbriar Farm, a beef feeding operation. Stockbriar sold the farmland to its current owners in 1979.

<i>Granbys Green Acres</i> American radio situation comedy series

Granby's Green Acres is a radio situation comedy from the United States. It was broadcast on CBS July 3, 1950 – August 21, 1950, as a summer replacement for Lux Radio Theatre.

"Teenage Mutant Milk-Caused Hurdles" is the eleventh episode of the twenty-seventh season of the American animated television series The Simpsons, and the 585th episode of the series overall. The episode was directed by Timothy Bailey and written by Joel H. Cohen. It aired in the United States on Fox on January 10, 2016.

<i>Clarksons Farm</i> British television documentary series with Jeremy Clarkson

Clarkson's Farm is a British television documentary series about Jeremy Clarkson and his farm in the Cotswolds. The first season was released by Amazon Prime Video on 11 June 2021. The series documents Clarkson's attempts at running a 1,000-acre (400 ha) farm in the Cotswolds, and it has received largely positive reviews. In July 2021, it was renewed for a second series which was released on 10 February 2023. The second series became the most-watched original series on Amazon in the UK in 2023. In October 2022, the programme was renewed for a third series.

References

  1. 1 2 Schulz, Clair (Spring 2009). "Forgotten Shows to Remember". Nostalgia Digest. 35 (2): 18–22.
  2. Dunning, John. (1976). Tune in Yesterday: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, 1925-1976. Prentice-Hall, Inc. ISBN   0-13-932616-2. P. 244.