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Oliver Douglas: Green Acres is the place to be!
Farm livin' is the life for me!
Land spreadin' out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just gimme that countryside!


Lisa Douglas: New York is where I'd rather stay!
I get allergic smelling hay!
I just adore a penthouse view
Dahling, I love you but give me Park Avenue!


Oliver: The chores!
Lisa: The stores!
Oliver: Fresh air!
Lisa: Times Square!
Oliver: You are my wife...
Lisa: Goodbye, city life!
Together: Green Acres, we are there!
— The show's Expository Theme Tune, written by Vic Mizzy

Green Acres is a Sitcom created by Jay Sommers, produced by Filmways and originally broadcast on CBS from 1965 to 1971.

Oliver Wendell Douglas (Eddie Albert), a successful New York lawyer, and his elegant socialite wife Lisa (Eva Gabor) move to the little country town of Hooterville and buy a little farm that is not in good condition. Oliver intends to set himself up in a simple country life as a farmer, but neither the reality of country life nor the insanity of the locals allows it. Lisa hates the country, but is much better than her husband at dealing with the locals: her idea of haggling with Mr. Haney, the door-to-door salesman, is to lower her price when he lowers his—and it works for her... Hooterville also has a resident genius: Arnold the pig.

A spinoff of the more staid Petticoat Junction, the show was initially a by-the-books sitcom, in which Oliver was portrayed as an obsessive eccentric, while Lisa, despite being rather spoiled and having a poor grasp of English, was meant to be the more levelheaded one. However, the series quickly took on a decidedly absurdist tone; Lisa turned into a Gracie Allen-style Cloudcuckoolander, and Oliver became the Only Sane Man. The insane townspeople continue to see Oliver as an outsider while rapidly embracing Lisa as one of their own. Oliver, clinging tenaciously to logic, splutters and despairs as he sees his dream life in Hooterville slipping rapidly out of his fingers.


Some of the causes of Oliver's perpetual headache are:
  • Eb Dawson (Tom Lester), the gold-bricking farmhand, who calls Lisa and Oliver "Mom" and "Dad," either as flattery or out of genuine confusion. To worsen matters, Lisa often forgets that Eb is not actually their son, but she is still more sympathetic, showing Like a Son to Me treatment towards him now and then.
  • Mr. Haney (Pat Buttram), who sold them the faulty farm, and never gives up on trying to sell Oliver more dilapidated junk. Oliver thinks he's on to Haney, but he's surprisingly vulnerable to Haney's sales pitches.
  • Hank Kimball (Alvy Moore), the absent-minded county Agricultural Agent in charge of keeping all the local farms in good stead, and victim to short-term memory loss to the point that he forgets what he's talking about in mid-sentence as a matter of course.
  • Fred and Doris Ziffel (Hank Patterson and Barbara Pepper/Fran Ryan), friendly neighbors whose pet pig Arnold is treated by everyone as a real person — specifically, their son. Eventually, Arnold becomes a fairly major character on the show. Everyone can communicate freely with him, except Oliver, who is at a loss as to why these people think they can talk to a pig. note 
  • Alf and Ralph Monroe (Sid Melton and Mary Grace Canfield), a brother-and-sister carpenter team who are contracted to fix Oliver's derelict farmhouse. Although the Monroes show up at intervals to (supposedly) work, the house remains in a state of half-construction for the duration of the series.
  • Eunice Douglas (Eleanor Audley), Oliver's snobbish mother who disapproves of Hooterville and wants nothing more than for her son and daughter-in-law to return to their more "civilized" life in New York.

There's also Mr. Drucker (Frank Cady) down at the general store, who acknowledges the ridiculousness of Hooterville while at the same time whole-heartedly participating in it. He's the only character who even approaches being logical by Oliver's standards co-serving as the other Only Sane Man, often leading Oliver to start sentences with "Mr. Drucker, you're a reasonable man...". In keeping with the apparent rules of the series, Mr. Drucker's behavior on Petticoat Junction tends more toward the normal end of the spectrum.


Tropes:

  • Accidental Misnaming: In the episode "The Candidate", Oliver attempts to air his grievances against state district representative Ben Hanks regarding the quality of the road (Hooterville only has the one). Hanks repeatedly gets his name wrong — calling him something different every time — and when Oliver pledges to run against him in the next election, his name is similarly misprinted in all the headlines.
  • Accidental Pervert: In one episode from the last season, the Green Acres farm becomes something of a summer camp, where a number of little boys, and one girl (see Cousin Oliver) stay with the Douglases; one day, Lori stays home alone with Lisa because Oliver had taken the boys skinny dipping at the lake... in fact, when they get home, and Oliver sneezes from possibly catching cold, one of the boys remarks maybe he shouldn't have taken off all his clothes. Imagine what would happen today if a camp counselor swam with your kids, all naked.
  • Acronyms Are Easy as Aybeecee: Lisa refers to the car transmission as the "prenedel", thinking that the abbreviations for the gear settings (P, R, N, D, and L) are one word.
  • Adam Westing: Lyle Talbot, former matinee idol turned B-movie actor, portrays "State Senator Lyle Talbot", a former matinee idol turned B-movie actor turned politician, parodying both himself and then California governor Ronald Reagan. He later portrays the unnamed state's governor who hosts marathons of his own films on a local TV station.
  • The Alleged Car: Oliver's Hoyt-Clagwell tractor, which is always breaking down.
  • The Alleged Expert:
    • Hank Kimball is the county Agricultural Agent, but never provides any useful support to any of the local farmers.
    • The Monroe brothers are supposedly the best contractors in Hooterville, but make an absolute mess of remodeling the Douglas's home. To be fair, all they'd ever built before were chicken coops.
  • The Alleged House: The Old Haney Place, which former big city lawyer Oliver Douglas buys so he can become a farmer, is a run-down old farmhouse with no inside phone (Oliver has to climb a telephone pole to make a call). Renovations take up much of the show's run and are never fully finished; the master bedroom closet, for example, doubles as a back door.
  • All Just a Dream: "A Square is Not Round" and "Oliver and the Cornstalk", although the latter isn't a dream for the whole episode, just some of the second half.
  • American Gothic Couple: Oliver and Lisa strike the classic Grant Wood farm couple pose (complete with pitchfork) at the end of the Title Sequence.
  • Amoral Attorney: When Oliver goes back to being a lawyer in Return to Green Acres, he learns that the firm is now full of amoral attorneys. Oliver is supposed to represent an evil landlord and another attorney is involved in a lawsuit against Mother Teresa.
  • And Starring: During the end credits, Petticoat Junction actors are listed under the title "..And guest starring our friends from Petticoat Junction".
  • Animal Lover: Lisa tends to treat animals with as much respect as humans (such as addressing the chickens by name).
  • Animal Goes to School: Childless couple Fred and Doris Ziffel adopt a pig, call him Arnold, and give him their last name. He turns out to be so smart, they send him to school with the local kids. He is an excellent student and even wins an art contest.
  • The Artifact: The theme song, in which Lisa says she wants to go back to New York and hates farm living, even though that premise was mostly abandoned by the second season.
  • As Himself:
    • Lyle Talbot appears as State Senator Lyle Talbot in the episode "The Road".
    • John Charles Daily appears in the pilot episode.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
    • For all the headaches Lisa causes Oliver — ranging from never learning to cook anything other than "hotscakes", or letting her own ditziness cause him even more problems than he already has — he keeps the romance between them budding any chance he gets... and Lisa just barely has to prod him into kissing her.
    • Fred and Doris Ziffel constantly bicker with one another just like a typical old married couple (especially when it comes to their different approaches to raising Arnold), though they too have occasional moments where Fred will get lovey-dovey with Doris, such as waltzing with or kissing her (and ''dipping'' her at the same time)!
  • Bad "Bad Acting": When the townsfolk put on the play of The Beverly Hillbillies, they're depicted as horrible actors to an absurdly extreme degree.
  • Bad to the Last Drop: Whenever Lisa makes coffee, it always comes out as some kind of black sludge.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: While on a two-week vacation in New York City in "Oliver's Jaded Past", Oliver is tempted by all the girls he used to know into falling back into his old party-all-night lifestyle. Lisa makes Oliver give up an invitation to rejoin his old NY law firm and for the first time refers to Hooterville as their 'home.'
  • Been There, Shaped History: At the end of the episode "Double Drick", we're informed via voiceover that Oliver inadvertently caused the 1965 Northeast blackout trying to get electricity into his home.
  • Big Town Boredom: Oliver finds life as a New York lawyer unfulfilling and yearns for a simpler life in the country farming the soil. Unfortunately, life in Hooterville is anything but simple for him.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Eva Gabor speaks actual Hungarian on occasion. It doesn't always match up with the captions sometimes provided. In "The Road", Lisa is misquoted as saying "Doggone road!". What she's actually saying is "Things like this never happened in Hungary!".
  • Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Mr. Wheeler, father of Eb's sixth-season fiancée Darlene, who thinks Oliver is an alcoholic and a radical fanatic, and even makes Eb and Darlene sit apart so they don't get involved in any pre-marital hijinks.
  • Brainy Pig: A Chester White pig adopted by the childless Fred and Doris Ziffel, Arnold Ziffel displays human intelligence and is treated as an upstanding citizen of Hooterville. He understands English and watches the CBS Evening News to keep up with the issues, attends the local grade school (and is an outstanding student), and can beat anyone in town at checkers. Arnold is also artistically talented: he is working on a novel, he plays the piano, and he is an accomplished abstract painter, whose piece titled "Nude at a Filling Station" wins first prize out of two thousand entries in a student art contest.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall:
    • The show shares a universe with Petticoat Junction, which shares a universe with The Beverly Hillbillies. However one episode (appropriately titled "The Beverly Hillbillies") has the Hootervillian Playhouse use a Beverly Hillbillies TV script as a play, and makes jokes about creator Paul Henning and star Buddy Ebsen. Another episode casually mentions that The Beverly Hillbillies is one of the most popular shows in Hooterville.
    • Lisa (and occasionally other townspeople) see and react to the opening "Written by" and "Directed by" credits on occasion.
    • In one episode, Eb starts humming the Green Acres theme song and then mouths Eva Gabor's "Dahling, I love you, but give me Park Avenue."
    • The townspeople invariably ask Oliver how he gets a fife to play "Yankee Doodle" in the background whenever he makes one of his soapbox speeches.
    • During the two-part episode "A Star Named Arnold Is Born," Arnold has a conversation with a horse actor in Hollywood, and captions are used to translate. The captions continue to show up, initially translating the dialogue when the scene cuts back to the humans, which everyone notices. This prompts Lisa to look toward the camera and say "We don't need those words anymore," and the captions then disappear.
  • Call to Agriculture: Oliver moves to Hooterville because he's always wanted to be a farmer.
  • Censorship by Spelling: Lisa tells yet another story of how she met Oliver met in "A Royal Love Story", this time to entertain a visiting eight-year-old girl. She attempts to use censorship spelling at one point, but it doesn't quite work:
    Lisa: *(talking about briefly working as a model for an artist)* Then I had to quit because he wanted me to pose in the N-O-O-D.
    Eb: What's that?
    Lori note : "Nude."
  • Chain of Deals: In "Water, Water Everywhere", whenever somebody digs a new well, they take the water from someone else's well.
  • Character Filibuster: Played for Laughs with Oliver's constant speeches on the importance of the American farmer, accompanied by fife music that everyone but Oliver hears and comments on.
  • Christmas Episode: "An Old-Fashioned Christmas" from Season Two; Oliver wants to cut down his own Christmas tree, but has to obtain a permit to do so — perplexing the other townsfolk who have gotten accustomed to having artificial trees.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: At the start of the series, Lisa has a pet yorkie named Mignon whom she dotes over throughout the first season. The dog pretty much disappears afterwards except for an occasional cameo or mention in the second season.
  • The City vs. the Country: Played with. Oliver is tired of city life and moves to Hooterville to live the idyllic (he thinks) life of a farmer. He finds, however, that Hooterville operates by its own peculiar set of rules, and is often frustrated by its colorful denizens. His socialite wife Lisa is always begging him to return to the city, but, ironically, she is the one who fits in, as she is as loopy as the Hootervillians.
  • Clip Show: "The Day of Decision" is about Lisa deciding whether to stay in Hooterville at the end of Oliver's six-month trial period, and it is interspersed with clips from the previous episodes at that point.
  • Cloud Cuckooland:
    • Hooterville, although characters carried over from Petticoat Junction are mostly excluded from this. (The jury's still out on Mr. Drucker.) Oliver finds their eccentric behavior perplexing.
    • Hungary, or at least Hungary according to Lisa Douglas. Those unfamiliar with Hungarian history and culture (and even those who are familiar with Hungary) might be surprised to learn that the country's most popular sports are Monkey Racing and Goulash Betting. Hungary also has a special citation for military heroes who happen to be ducks, such as Drobny, Lisa's pet from back home.
  • Community-Threatening Construction: The basic plot of the 1990 TV movie Return to Green Acres involves a greedy corporate land developer wanting to tear down Hooterville and turn the area into a thriving metropolis. Mr. Haney takes a level in badass by being in on the plot, and talks the residents into moving out. However, when the plot is revealed, the residents of Hooterville try to band together to stop this from happening.
  • Company Cross References: In the episode "The Birthday Gift", Mr. Haney shows up at the Douglas' house to give Lisa a special horse as a birthday present, in spite of the horse's objections. Not only can the horse talk, he also keeps complaining about the circumstances while claiming that he was "Mr. Fred". Both Green Acres and Mister Ed were made by Filmways.
  • Con Artist: Mr. Haney is a prominent example. He invariably shows up at Oliver's farm trying to sell him worthless junk or absurd things, always at ridiculously inflated prices. He also managed to unload said farm (which is in terrible shape and has poor quality growing land) onto the Douglases. Haney has also been known to flimflam other Hooterville residents, but Oliver is his primary target.
  • Constantly Lactating Cow: Played straight for most of the series, but subverted in at least two episodes. In Season One's "Lisa Has a Calf", the Douglas's cow Eleanor has a calf, justifying the fact that she was able to be milked thus far in the series. In Season Four's "A Husband for Eleanor," she stops giving milk and the plot revolves around finding a bull to breed her with.
  • Contrived Coincidence: Applies to Mr. Haney any time he visits the Douglas farm. Whenever Oliver needs something to help him with his farming, Mr. Haney turns up and happens to have exactly what he requires on his truck, though at ridiculous prices and/or in slipshod shape. In fact, Oliver lampshades this a couple of times, once telling Haney that he knew he was going to get around to him soon — and another time, we have this exchange:
    Oliver: Mr. Haney, how is it you always happen to have what I need on your truck?
    Mr. Haney: Well... how is it you always happen to need what I have on my truck?
  • Courtroom Episode:
    • "The Rains Came" from Season One, in which Mr. Haney sues Oliver for not paying for his rainmaking services, while Oliver countersues on the grounds that Haney didn't deliver.
    • "Getting Even With Haney" from Season Two, in which the Ziffels ask Oliver to represent them in their lawsuit against Haney for selling them a makeshift washing machine (with a boat motor inside the drum).
  • Cousin Oliver: Adorable little Lori lodges with the Douglases for a handful of episodes during the final season. Thankfully, she doesn't stick around long, and numerous episodes remain between her departure and the end of the series.
  • Credits Gag:
    • Characters often notice and comment on the opening credits.
      Fred Ziffel: Hold it! Ain't nobody gonna pay no attention to what's going on as long as they got them names up there.
    • The opening credits occasionally include gag entries, like "carpentry by ALF & RALPH MONROE" ("Never Start Talking Unless Your Voice Comes Out").
      Oliver Douglas: They're not supposed to get credit.
  • Criminal Doppelgänger: The episode "Oliver's Double" features a criminal who looks just like Oliver. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Crossover: Characters from this show and Petticoat Junction occasionally appeared on each other's programs. And one 1968 episode of The Beverly Hillbillies had the Clampetts traveling to Hooterville, leading to characters from all three shows intermingling. At one point, Mr. Drysdale becomes physically ill at the idea that Elly Mae is at all interested in Eb.
  • Curse Cut Short: Oliver often says "What the... " But that's as far as he gets.
  • Cut Short: Thanks to The Rural Purge, the show ultimately ended up without a series finale. The last episode to air was "The Ex-Secretary," which was a backdoor pilot about Oliver's former secretary trying to fix a timepiece. note 
  • Deep South: Both Eb and Mr. Haney have noticeable Southern accents. Although never explicitly stated, it is often implied that Hooterville is in a Southern state. In reality, Tom Lester, who played Eb, was from Mississippi, and Pat Buttram, who played Mr. Haney, was from Alabama.
  • Derailed for Details: Mr. Kimball's manner of speech normally sees him tied up in verbal knots, although in his case it's more like "Derailed to Correct Something He Misremembered as the Exact Opposite of What Actually Happened."
  • Detachable Doorknob: A common Running Gag on the show involves the doorknobs on the front door of the Douglases' house often coming off whenever someone uses them. This can create quite a shock for guests, especially those who are unaware of exactly where Oliver and Lisa are living.
  • Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: "The Day of Decision" starts with Eb humming the show's theme song, and he even lip-synchs one of Lisa's lines.
  • "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor both sing on the Vic Mizzy-composed theme song.
  • Do You Want to Haggle?: In one episode, Mr. Haney asks Lisa to haggle down the price of an item. She misunderstands the concept, and instead of starting at a low price and moving up, Lisa starts low and goes lower until Haney agrees.
  • Draft Dodging: In the episode "I Didn't Raise My Pig to Be a Soldier", Arnold receives a draft notice while the Douglases are pig-sitting him for the Ziffels. Hilarity Ensues when Oliver has to convince the draft board, the army, and the FBI that Arnold is a pig. Just when he gets them to understand, Ralph Monroe is drafted, and Oliver has to convince them that she is a woman.
  • Drive-In Theater: Oliver and Lisa attend one, only to be confronted by two Make-Out Kids in the car next to them.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • The first season had far more crossover from Petticoat Junction than later ones. The citizens of Hooterville, prominently including Kate and Uncle Joe from Petticoat Junction, are seen welcoming Oliver and Lisa to town and helping them adjust (in fact, Uncle Joe flirts with Oliver's mother!). However, by the second season the show branches off on its own, with the Petticoat Junction crossovers and references becoming few and far between (though occasional examples do occur, such as the episode "Eb Discovers the Birds and the Bees"). By this time, Drucker's General Store becomes the only evidence that the two shows share the same universe, and Mr. Drucker himself ends up being the only regular crossover character.
    • The show was generally a lot more down-to-earth in the first season than it would later become, with its more surreal aspects rarely occurring until the second season. This is especially noticeable with Lisa; in the first season, she was much more level-headed, spending much of the season trying to go back to New York while Oliver tries to settle into farm life. In the second season, she became a full-blown Cloud Cuckoolander, taking to the craziness of Hooterville far better than Oliver does.
    • The show had more direct continuity in the first season, while the Douglases were getting settled onto the farm. After Season One, aside from a few minor story arcs, continuity becomes so unimportant that most of the episodes can be watched out of order.
    • Lisa originally called her "hotscakes" "pancakes".
    • The closing credits theme was played at a slower tempo in the first couple of episodes.
    • The Filmways logo almost always concluded with Lisa saying, "This has been a Filmways presentation, dahling.", but it was executed a little different early in the first season. In the first episode, she didn't use the phrase at all; the logo was silent. In couple of other episodes, she does say the phrase, but without "dahling" at the end. The standard variant was first used in the third episode.
  • Easy Amnesia: Lisa gets hit on the head in the episode "Who's Lisa," subsequently thinking that Oliver is her butler, believing that she has a boyfriend named Mr. Fredericks, and demonstrating gourmet cooking skills. Yet through the whole thing, she knows who Mr. Kimball is and treats him absolutely normally.
  • Eccentric Townsfolk: Nearly everyone in Hooterville is a Cloud Cuckoolander, with Oliver (and occasionally Mr. Drucker) being the Only Sane Man.
  • Even the Subtitler Is Stumped: One infamous moment involving the subtitler trying to translate for Lisa's Hungarian, a Japanese chauffeur's native tongue, and even a dog's barking... with Lisa actually correcting the mistakes, furthermore pointing out that the audience isn't interested in what the dog has to say.
  • Exactly What I Meant to Say: In "It's Human To Be Humane", Lisa asks Oliver if he wants to play "Scribble," "Cabbage," or "Monotony," which Oliver just assumes to be some of her malapropisms. Later in the episode, Mr. Drucker tries selling him those same games, implying that they actually exist.
  • Expository Theme Tune: And one of the catchiest at that. The song explains how and why Oliver and Lisa ended up in Hooterville.
  • Extended Greetings: Hank Kimball can't just say "Good morning." He also has to think about whether it actually is a good morning, and that frequently leads into him going off on a tangent.
  • Fish out of Water: The Douglases. Lisa adapts better, which is ironic since she's the one who wants to go back to New York at first.
  • Foreigner for a Day: After the state senator raises taxes to an astronomical amount in "King Oliver I," Hooterville secedes from the state and becomes an independent kingdom, blowing up a bridge that connects them to the rest of the state and naming Oliver as their king.
  • Forgetful Jones: Describes absent-minded county agricultural agent Hank Kimball, who pauses mid-sentence, forgets what he was about to say, wavers in mid-speech, and then recalls what he was going to say.
  • Format-Specific Joke: When Oliver throws a supposed picture of the aliens that Eb saw into the stove at the end of "The Saucer Season," the stove turns green after they all leave the room. Following this, a caption appears saying "For those who have black-and-white sets, the stove has just turned green". Of course the caption is unhelpful to anyone watching the show on a color set.
  • Formula-Breaking Episode: "Oliver Buys a Farm" and "The Case of the Hooterville Refund Fraud" are both set up as stories told by guest announcers. The former is notable because it's the very first episode.
  • Friend to All Living Things: Lisa, who is on friendly terms with the cows and chickens.
  • From New York to Nowhere: The premise behind the whole series; the Douglases move from New York City to a small town that most people outside of the area don't even know exists.
  • Funny Foreigner: Hungarian-born Lisa, played by Hungarian-born Eva Gabor. She often comically mangles the English language, and her version of Hungary bears minimal (if any) resemblance to real life there.
  • Fun with Subtitles:
    • Lampshaded with Lisa's great-great-grandmother Lastvogel and Cornelius in "The Vulgar Ring":
      Lastvogel [subtitled Hungarian]: Hello dere... Who was you?
      Cornelius: Well, how do you do? Where did you come from? [Honan yötél te?]
      Lastvogel [subtitled Hungarian]: From over there.
      Cornelius: What did you say? [Mit mondtál?]
      Lastvogel: Over there in the woods.
      Cornelius: Oh, you understand English.
      Lastvogel: No, I was reading your Hungarian subtitles.
    • Lisa and Eb both respond to the subtitles in "Lisa's Mudder Comes for a Visit".
  • Gag Haircut: Eb at the end of "Uncle Ollie" briefly adopts Oliver's hip nephew's hairstyle.
  • Gender-Blender Name: Ralph Monroe is a woman. Because who ever heard of a female carpenter?
  • Gilligan Cut: Used occasionally throughout the series, such as the episode, "The Rains Came":
    Mr. Haney: (In court) It was the 78th day of the drought, and Mr. Douglas was in a desperate mood... in fact, he had a hari-kari knife in his hand!
    *Cut*
    Oliver: (Holding a dagger) This is not a hari-kari knife, I'm just using this to cut up the dead weeds.
    Also
    Mr. Haney: As the days passed, things got worse... creeks dried up, and the riverbeds didn't have a trickle of water in 'em. The reservoir was empty, and just as I predicted, Mr. Douglas came to me, begging on his knees...
    *Cut to Mr. Haney standing before Oliver, who is on his knees, fixing his tractor*
    Mr. Haney: Of your knees, Mr. Douglas, you don't have to beg.
    Oliver: I'm not begging, I'm trying to fix this tractor.
  • Grand Dame: Oliver's wealthy and snobbish mother Eunice is a most imposing dowager who heartily disapproves of her son's move to the country.
  • G-Rated Sex: Lisa is, more often than not, the subject of this throughout the series, usually to both emphasize and satirize her own glamor. One time, while in the shower, a couple of businessman stop long enough to ogle her legs. In another occurrence, when Lisa briefly returns to high school, Oliver is informed that the science lab blew up because a boy who was supposed to be mixing chemicals was too busy staring at Lisa's legs as she fixed a run in her stocking. Then again, it's not uncommon for any of the Hooterville men to be distracted by Lisa. In fact, some things that Lisa does are accompanied by faux striptease music to make it seem more sexy, though it's almost always Played for Laughs.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Fair-haired Lisa is very kind, sweet, and empathetic to everyone, up to and including animals and alarm clocks.
  • Hired Help as Family: Eb Dawson begins to refer to the Douglases as his parents not long after they hire him as a farmhand. Lisa also seems to think of him as their son, and, although he insists Eb isn't their son, Oliver is willing to do things like send him to college.
  • Hollywood Natives: In the episode, "The Rains Came", Mr. Haney attempts to make it rain over a drought-ridden Hooterville. To do so, he employs a rain-dancing Indian who speaks broken English, refers to Lisa as "Pret-ty squaw", and greets people with the word "How!"
  • Home Sweet Home: The reunion movie turns this into An Aesop on two different accounts:
    • Eb's oldest son hates living in Hooterville because it's a dull town where nothing exciting happens, insisting that his parents move somewhere else — especially when the residents are talked into selling their homes. However, when it's revealed that it was all a scam to drive the citizens of Hooterville away so the town can be demolished for a new city, the news starts sinking in. Eb's son realizes that Hooterville is home and gets his buddies together to protest the demolition.
    • Lisa apparently still misses New York and has taken up painting the New York landscape, though her artwork has all the charm of a kindergartener's finger painting and nobody wants to buy her canvases. When Oliver and Lisa return to New York, they see how much big city life has changed (for the worse), with neither of them fitting in with city life — for example, Lisa can no longer relate to her old urban social circle. After returning to Hooterville, Lisa surprises Oliver with an absolutely beautiful painting she did of Green Acres, and she realizes that while she thought she missed New York, she was happier in Hooterville all along.
  • Honest John's Dealership: Mr. Haney invariably charges high prices for his services ("They're twenty-five cents, or three for a dollar") and offers slipshod merchandise for sale.
  • Hong Kong Dub: The title of the episode "Never Start Talking Unless Your Voice Comes Out" refers to a running gag in that episode, where Eb's voice is heard about a second after his mouth moves, then about a second before his mouth moves, and so on.
  • Housepet Pig: The Ziffels have a pet pig named Arnold, who is more like an adopted child. Among other things, he watches tv, plays checkers, visits the townsfolk and even attends school.
  • How We Got Here:
    • In the episode "A Pig in a Poke," Oliver has to explain why Arnold the Pig is in attendance at Oliver's alumni dinner.
    • The pilot episode has guest star John Charles Daly explaining how Oliver bought his farm and how he managed to get Lisa to move there with him.
  • I See Dead People: In one episode, Oliver encountered a crotchety little old man who mysteriously disappeared when Lisa showed up. Later on, Oliver learns that the man had been dead for twenty years. While the fact that Oliver never knew about the little man before yet was able to describe him perfectly hints that he had seen a ghost, everyone believes that he had cracked up and was seeing things.
  • Identity Amnesia: Occurs in the episode "Who’s Lisa." After being hit on the head by a hammer, Lisa suffers a concussion and becomes convinced Oliver is her butler, turns into an amazing cook, and thinks her fiancé will be showing up at any moment.
  • Improbably Cool Car: Oliver's annually replaced Lincoln Continental convertible plays with this trope — he can afford the car, but it certainly doesn't fit his newly chosen lifestyle.
  • In-Scene Title Text: At times, the opening credits appear printed on objects like newspapers or eggs. Often, the characters are aware of their presence and comment on it.
  • Instant Mass: Just Add Water!:
    • In the episode "A Kind Word for the President", Dee Dee's dehydrofacated Mason-Dixon chicken dinner can be prepared just by adding hot water. Oliver didn't believe that the dinner would be good at first (then again, Lisa isn't good at the cooking), but he was flabbergasted when a full meal resulted, featuring a chicken leg, mashed potatoes, corn on a cob, cornbread and an apple pie!
    • "The Milk Maker" has Lisa prepare a chocolate cake using Bibbers' Instant Cake Mix. She takes the instructions literally by placing all the wet ingredients inside the box, shaking it and putting it all in the oven. Surprisingly, Oliver says that the cake tasted good!
  • Interspecies Romance: Arnold the Pig and Cynthia Haney, a basset hound (or as Lisa says, '"basket hound").
  • Kafka Komedy: A frequent plotline involves Oliver doing something to improve life for the citizens of Hooterville, only to have it backfire on him spectacularly. Sometimes this occurs due to the incompetence of the Hootervillians, sometimes it's just because the laws of the universe demand it. Regardless, Oliver never learns to stop doing this. Green Acres has been compared to Kafka many times.
  • Karma Houdini: In "The Confrontation," the boy with the pea shooter who shoots at the teacher in class and puts the weapon in Arnold's mouth (causing the pig's expulsion) never does get his comeuppance despite a room full of witnesses.
  • Known by the Postal Address: Actual street addresses don't really exist in Hooterville but most everyone outside of Mr. Douglas and Eb refer to the titular farm as "The Old Haney Place," including county officials Mr. Douglas interacts with. This also makes reference to Oliver's outsider status amongst the denizens of Hooterville.
  • The Lad-ette: Played with as far as Ralph is concerned. Although she is deep down very much a lady, there's an unwritten rule that she has to be regarded as man. Her name is Ralph and she and Alf are referred to as "brothers" —- all because they're both carpenters, and women apparently can't be carpenters.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Not only did they hang the lampshade on this show, they destroyed the lampshade. And the lamp too.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: Early in the series, Oliver convinces Lisa to come to the farm by giving her a trial period of six months, after which they can return to New York if she still doesn't like Hooterville. The show ended up running for six years, so it's not hard to figure out what Lisa decided to do when the trial period ended.
  • Laugh Track: No classic sitcom from The '60s would be complete without one, and this is no exception.
  • The Law Firm of Pun, Pun, and Wordplay: As established in the pilot episode, Oliver originally served as an associate for the Law Offices of Felton, O'Connell, Clay, Blakely, Harmon, Dillon, and Paster.
  • Lethal Chef: Lisa is a horrendous cook, and it's one of the few things that Oliver and the kooky townsfolk agree on.
  • Limited Wardrobe: With the obvious exceptions of Oliver and Lisa, the rest of the cast wears the exact same outfits for all six seasons!
    • Eb wears a green army cap and trousers, with a pale blue buttoned shirt, covered with a checkered coat with different shades of brown.
    • Mr. Drucker wears a long-sleeved pale blue buttoned shirt, black sleeve covers, and a white apron.
    • Mr. Haney wears a straw hat, a white buttoned shirt with a brown vest and slacks.
    • Mr. Ziffel wears an old brown hat, a red and green plaid shirt, and denim overalls, while Mrs. Ziffel usually wears the same spring green colored outfit (though on very rare occasions, is seen wearing something different).
    • Mr. Kimball wears a khaki-colored hat, khaki slacks, and a tan coat.
    • Alf and Ralph wear blue work shirts, as well as white hats and overalls.
      • Although Oliver had many different vests, the citizens of Hooterville seem to believe they have figured out what each vest indicates he is doing. For example, "Oh, he's wearin' his plowin' vest".
      • Even in the 1990 TV reunion movie, Return to Green Acres, the characters are STILL seen wearing their same outfits from the series.
  • Line-of-Sight Alias: In one episode, a runaway kid ends up in the Douglas' farm. One of the several false names he makes up for himself is "Paul Frankcan,"which he got from looking at a can of "Paul's Canned Franks" on the Douglas's cupboard.
  • Live-Action Cartoon: Possibly the Trope Codifier. The series routine makes use of slapstick humor as well as featuring outlandish situations and gags that would otherwise be implausible in the real world (characters being knocked through solid walls or falling off telephone poles without even getting hurt, for example). The character also have such a Limited Wardrobe that they wear the same outfits for all six seasons (save for Oliver and Lisa).
  • Loophole Abuse: In the episode “Exodus to Bleedwell,” the town revives its economy by building planes for the US military… useless antique airplanes because their contract didn't have a due date, allowing them to make aircraft designed for WW1. The government gets Oliver back by using the same loophole in his military discharge. Everything falls through when it turns out that the town isn't even competent enough to turn out a single antique plane.
  • Love Redeems: In Return to Green Acres, Brad Armstrong helps his real estate developer father take over Hooterville, but changes sides when he falls in love with Daisy Ziffel.
  • Massive Numbered Siblings:
    • Between the time the series ends and the reunion movie takes place, Eb has gotten married and had a bunch of kids, his oldest being a teen who wishes to move out of a dull town like Hooterville. His wife meanwhile becomes pregnant with another baby during the course of the movie.
    • Gus and Etta, the couple Oliver is reading a book about in Season Two's "The Good Old Days", ends up having twenty-two children.
  • Medium Awareness:
    • Lisa notices the drum-and-fife music that plays whenever Oliver makes an impromptu speech (as does everyone else), and even the opening credits at one point.
    • Another example involves Lisa entering with the line, "Well, Oliver — here it is a week later!":
      Oliver: A week later than what?
      Lisa: Well, when Mrs. Ziffel came over here to do her washing!
      Oliver: I know it's a week later. You don't have to march in here and announce that.
      Lisa: Well, that's how they always do it in the movies. It's either somebody comes in carrying a sign which says, "Here it is a week later," or a calendar falls apart for a week, or somebody comes out and says, 'That week sure went by fast.' ... They do another thing in the movies, where the screen kind of swims" — (which it proceeds to do when Oliver looks at her) "And that shows that you're dreaming — but in this kind of situation we only do the one week later thing."
  • Misplaced Retribution: In a flashback, Oliver tried growing a garden in his penthouse in New York. His mother, who doesn’t approve, decides to throw the plants down the balcony, nearly hitting a police officer who is walking by. Oliver and Lisa are the ones who end up in jail.
  • Misspelling Out Loud:
    • Uncle Joe Carson spells "baby" as "B-A-B-I-E" twice in "Lisa Has A Calf".
    • Uncle Joe misspells a word again in the next episode, "The Wedding Anniversary":
      Uncle Joe: How do you spell "candles"?
      Oliver: C-A-N-D-L-E-S.
      Uncle Joe: (looking at him skeptically) You sure?
      Oliver: Of course I'm sure.
      Uncle Joe: Maybe I better look it up in the dictionary.
      Oliver: Look, spell it any way you like.
      Uncle Joe: (writing) C-A-N-D-E-L-L-S.
    • Lisa in "A Royal Love Story" spells "Nude" as "N-O-O-D".
  • Movie-Making Mess: One episode has everyone in Hooterville make a movie for a famous director who they think was visiting. The movie they produce turns out to be so bad that the director's boss has him burn the film.
  • The Name Is Bond, James Bond: This is the way Oliver usually introduces himself.
    Oliver: Douglas. Oliver Wendell Douglas.
    Uncle Joe: "Douglas Oliver Wendell Douglas?" You got enough name for two fellers.
  • Multi-Part Episode: "A Star Named Arnold Is Born", where Oliver and Lisa chaperone Arnold while he gets a screen test in Hollywood, is a two-part episode.
  • Named After Somebody Famous: Oliver Wendell Douglas is named after famous lawyer Oliver Wendell Holmes.
  • Narrator: What's My Line? host John Charles Daily serves as the narrator in the pilot.
  • Nature Lover: Oliver, who has a lifelong love for agriculture. When he lives in New York, he tries growing crops on the balcony of his penthouse.
  • New Job as the Plot Demands: Mr. Haney tries to sell Oliver something different in every episode.
  • Noodle Incident: In the episode "What Happened in Scranton?", Lisa gets Oliver's mother to get her hairdresser to open a beauty salon in Hooterville. Oliver's mother manages to blackmail the hairdresser into going simply by saying "Scranton". As the title suggests, it's never explained what happened to the hairdresser while he was at Scranton.
  • Not Listening to Me, Are You?: In "Jealousy, English Style", Lisa tries to talk to Oliver, but he's too busy reading a book on farm reports preparing for his upcoming trip to the symposium. Lisa tells him she's going to have a baby and he needs to boil some water, which Oliver does without questioning her. Lisa then continues the charade by telling Oliver she already had the baby and makes him heat up some milk, and only then does Oliver realize what she's doing.
  • One-Word Title: The episodes "Neighborliness", "Culture", and "Trapped".
  • Only Sane Man:
    • Oliver, though all the other characters think they're sane and that he's the crazy one. And by Hooterville logic, they may be right.
    • Mr. Drucker, however, is arguably the only other sane person in Hooterville.
  • Only Shop in Town: Drucker's General Store is the only store in the Hooterville Valley, not just in this show but in Petticoat Junction too.
  • Out of Focus:
    • A number of episodes from Season Three spotlight Oliver's battle with the Hooterville Telephone Company, his eventual takeover (more like hand over), his and Lisa's struggles to keep it going, and later still, Oliver's off-site presiding over the company.
    • Beginning in Season Three, less and less focus is put into Oliver's efforts to fix up his farm. Many episodes focus on the bizarre day-to-day life in Hooterville; a number of episodes are also about Lisa receiving visits from her Hungarian family, such as her countess mother and a duck.
  • Paranormal Episode:
    • The episode "The Ballad Of Molly Turgiss" deals with Oliver trying to get the denizens of Hooterville to tell him about the legend of the eponymous ghost woman. Every time Molly's name is mentioned, strange things happen, such as things getting thrown through the air, pickle barrels falling apart, Mr. Haney's truck starting up on its own, etc. In the end, Molly promises not to do those things anymore after Lisa has a talk with her and makes her beautiful, though she does manage to break the promise for a few seconds by smashing Oliver's guitar over his head because she doesn’t like the song that he wrote about her.
    • Another episode, "The Saucer Season," involves Eb apparently having interacted with some aliens. He subsequently becomes a celebrity because of it, much to Oliver's chagrin. However, when an air force lieutenant tries interviewing Eb about his encounter, Eb's attempts to tell the lieutenant about what he saw are censored by having him say "Bleep" repeatedly, keeping the facts in the dark.
  • Poorly Disguised Pilot:
    • “The Ex-Secretary” (the final episode) begins with Oliver contacting his former secretary (who is just as ditzy and absent-minded as Lisa) in New York to get contact information for his old jeweler to have his watch repaired. The rest of the episode focuses on the secretary as well as her family and friends.
    • The penultimate episode, “Hawaiian Honeymoon,” is a pilot focusing on the Hawaiian resort where Oliver and Lisa spend their second honeymoon.
  • Property Line: In "How to Get from Hooterville to Pixley Without Moving", when Oliver asks the Monroe brothers why the bedroom isn't finished, they admit they never got the permit. When Oliver tries to get the paperwork, he discovers that only his barn is in Hooterville, while his house is in Pixley. As soon as word gets out, the citizens of Hooterville turn on Mr. Douglas, cutting off Hooterville services since his house is located in Pixley. Later on, when he gets the borders re-surveyed, the new results aren't any better.
  • Put on a Bus:
    • After the first season, most of the Petticoat Junction cast (including Kate Bradley) disappeared from the show altogether, with the exception of occasional mentions throughout the rest of the series. Mr. Drucker remained a regular on both shows, while Fred Ziffel (who debuted on Petticoat) settled in on Acres.
    • Eb disappears briefly during the third season when he elopes with his then-sweetheart (even sending his bartending cousin to fill in for him in one episode), though towards the end of the season, The Bus Came Back, and the wedding was called off.
  • Retcon: Almost everything about the characters (except their wardrobes) changes from season to season, even episode to episode.
    • In “Alf and Ralph Break Up,” Ralph works for the Douglases as a maid. It turns out she's a decent housekeeper and a marvelous cook, providing Oliver with the first great meal he's eaten in a long time; in a later episode, Ralph is a terrible cook, even worse than Lisa.
    • Oliver and Lisa's stories about how they met are never the same... the only consistency with their stories is that their first meeting took place during WW2.
    • In the pilot episode, Fred Ziffel is a pig farmer, and Arnold just happens to be one of his pigs, but throughout the rest of the series, Arnold is the only pig he has.
    • Mr. Kimball altogether. In his debut episode, he was depicted as a mild-mannered county agent and a somewhat competent businessman. All of that changes as of his second appearance, where he becomes a scatter-brained and otherwise absent-minded county agent, always frustrating Oliver with his incompetence and short-term memory.
    • Probably justifiable in some way, but in one early episode, Oliver knows that Lisa is up to something when she gives him a glass of milk because he doesn't like milk (she had spiked it to put him to sleep). In a much later episode, a high schooler who has a Precocious Crush on him, is thrilled to see that he loves milk because she does too.
  • Reunion Show: The 1990 Made-for-TV Movie Return to Green Acres, which reunited most of the original cast.
  • Roofless Renovation: The Douglas' home is never completed, despite (or rather, because of) the Monroe brothers' best efforts.
  • Rousing Speech: Oliver is fond of giving them, although the others are not so much roused as bemused. His orations are always accompanied by patriotic fife music, which the others often comment on; this confuses Oliver, who doesn't hear it.
  • Running Gag: Several, including the telephone pole telephone, the closet door falling, the front doorknob coming off, characters seeing the "Written by" and "Directed by" credits, Arnold doing un-piglike things, Haney turning up almost instantly upon Oliver expressing a need for something, Lisa's 'hotscakes' and general non-existent housekeeping skills, and Lisa mispronouncing words only to have a Hooterville character mispronounce them the same way moments later. In fact, it got to a point where series director Richard Baer began complaining to creator/writer Jay Sommers about repeated use of the same gags.
  • Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Inverted with eager would-be farmer Oliver and classy no-nonsense Lisa.
  • The Scottish Trope: Every time someone mentions Molly Turgiss' name in "The Ballad of Molly Turgiss", unlucky things happen. It takes help and beauty treatments from Lisa to get Molly to stop putting curses on anyone who mentions her name.
  • Second Episode Introduction: Notably Mr. Haney and Eb, mainly because the pilot episode was a How We Got Here mockumentary about Oliver's love of farming and his eventual purchase of The Old Haney Place (which he later named Green Acres).
  • Sibling Team: The Monroe Brothers note  Alf and Ralph, who are carpenters.
  • Side Bet: When Oliver finds a farmer who's been dead for several years, the other farmers reveal they've been betting on when he'll crack.
  • The Simple Life is Simple: Subverted. Oliver thinks farming will be easy for him, but he's in way over his head.
  • Sleeping Single: Oliver and Lisa initially sleep in separate beds when they arrive in Hooterville. However, they were only temporarily using Mr. Haney's old cots, and eventually Lisa brings their lavish king-sized bed over from New York.
  • Spin-Off: Of Petticoat Junction, with several characters from that show appearing in the first season.
  • Spoiled Sweet: Lisa is spoiled and certainly misses her old New York lifestyle, but she's no snob. She genuinely cares about everyone she meets in Hooterville, and does her best to be a helpful, contributing member of the community wherever she can — even if she's not particularly good at it, as seen in her attempts at cooking. In the end, she fits in with their neighbors far better than Oliver does, due in part to the fact that her ability to share in and empathize with their Cloud Cuckoolander perspective frequently prompts her to stand up for them when Oliver is being obstinate.
  • Status Quo Is God: Once status quo is established, at least.
  • Steam Never Dies: The wood-burning Hooterville Cannonball makes a few appearances, along with Engineer Charlie Pratt and Conductor Floyd Smoot.
  • Strange Minds Think Alike: As eccentric as Hooterville’s residents are, their take on the world around them is very similar.
  • Sustained Misunderstanding: The episode "Never Look a Gift Tractor in the Mouth" is built on this trope, as well as Contrived Coincidence. Lisa buys Oliver a fancy new tractor (complete with air conditioning and stereo speakers) for his birthday, but to avoid spoiling the surprise, she has it delivered to the Ziffels. As it turns out, it's also Fred's birthday, and he and Doris conclude that the tractor was Lisa's birthday present to him and are both so thrilled with it, Lisa can't bear to tell Fred it wasn't for him. Later still, Doris comes to the conclusion that Fred and Lisa are having an affair, assuming that there's no other reason she would give him such a fancy tractor. Oliver eventually learns the truth and tries to straighten things out, but like Lisa, sees how happy Fred is with the new tractor and can't bring himself to take it from him.
  • Take a Number: When Oliver goes to get his electrical service taken care of, he draws a high number (22), while the by-the-book clerk is still in the single digits, and insists on systematically calling every intervening number, even though Oliver is the only customer in the room.
  • Take That!: Played for Laughs: When the farm is set up for electricity for the first time, Oliver goes to plug in his generator, causing a comical explosion that a narrator explains is what was really responsible for the 1965 northeast blackout.
  • Theme Naming: In one episode only, Mr. Haney's first name is Charlton, because his nephew's name is Heston.
  • Through a Face Full of Fur: In one episode, Arnold the pig blushes with the help of special effects.
  • Title Drop:
    • The earliest episodes of the series sometimes contain a specific line of dialogue that serves as the title of the episode ("My Husband, the Rooster Renter", "You Can't Plug a 2 with a 6", among others).
    • When Oliver first shows the farmhouse to Lisa in the pilot episode, he says, "There she is...Green Acres".
  • Title In: One episode has an Establishing Shot of the New York City skyline, and captions appear on the screen:
    Can you guess what city this is?
    If you guessed New York, you're right!
  • Took a Level in Badass: Mr. Haney, of all people. In the reunion movie, he's actually a villain, and in on the plot to destroy all of Hooterville to make way for a new industrial city, and all for, what else, the money.
  • Tuckerization: In-universe, Oliver's parents named him after the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes, because they wanted him to be a lawyer.
  • Uncanny Family Resemblance: Eddie Albert plays his father in a flashback in the first episode.
  • Unconventional Food Usage: Lisa's "hotscakes" are inedible, but have been successfully used for everything from a replacement head gasket for Oliver's truck to shingles for Mr. Ziffel's barn roof.
  • The Unfavorite: Oliver's mother Eunice treats her son poorly to an absurd degree. She dotes on her daughter-in-law Lisa and interacts with her as if she were her own natural daughter. Invariably, Eunice takes Lisa’s side when she has an argument with Oliver, and schemes ways to bring her back to New York and leave Oliver behind in Hooterville. When Oliver tells her "You're my mother", her usual response is "Don't spread it around", or "Not so loud, people will hear you". In fact, in one episode where everyone thought Lisa was pregnant, Eunice nearly comes apart at the thought of Lisa having a baby in a rinky-dink town like Hooterville, going so far as to disown Oliver for doing this to her.
  • Unishment: In response to a snarky comment Oliver makes about Lisa's cooking:
    Lisa: Just for that, no more hotcakes!
    Oliver: You do love me!
  • Vacation Episode: In "Hawaii Honeymoon", the series' penultimate episode, Oliver and Lisa spend a second honeymoon in a Hawaiian resort.
  • Verbal Tic: Mr. Kimball always forgetting what he's talking about. Well, he doesn't forget, it just kinda slips his mind. Well, it doesn't really slip his mind, it's more like... no, I guess he does forget... but, whatever it was they were talking about, he probably couldn't help anyway. Well, he could, if he knew what they were talking about.
  • Warm Milk Helps You Sleep: Played with in "Horse? What Horse?" where Lisa believes Oliver has lost his mind because he keeps seeing a polka-dot horse that quickly disappears when he tries to show it to her. Because of this, Lisa decides to sedate him by dropping a sleeping pill in a glass of milk. She keeps getting the two different glasses (one each for him and her) mixed up, though — and Hilarity Ensues when she's the one who gets knocked out. Oliver figures out what she’s trying to do, and avoids getting drugged because he doesn't like milk.
  • Wham Line: From the very first episode:
    Oliver: I'm going to [buy a farm], and soon.
    Lisa: Oliver, how soon?
    Oliver: Well...
    Lisa: (more serious) Oliver, how soon?
    Oliver: (Beat) Yesterday!
  • What's a Henway?: This exchange between Oliver and Lisa in "The Vulgar Ring":
    Lisa: Did you find it?
    Oliver: No, I haven't got the trap off.
    Lisa: What's a "trapoff"?
    Oliver: Not a "trapoff", it's just a trap that's part of the drain. Hand me the wrench.
    Lisa: There.
    Oliver: That's not a wrench, that's a screwdriver.
    Lisa: Well, what's the difference?
    Oliver: You use a screwdriver to screw screws, you need a wrench to take the bolts off.
    Lisa: What's a "boltsoff"?
    Oliver: Lisa, please.
    Lisa: But I—
    Oliver: Look, I didn't drop my ring down the drain!
    Lisa: Why are you throwing that up to me?
    Oliver: Because you did!
    Lisa: Well, why are you yelling at me? All I did was ask you what's a "boltsoff".
    Oliver: There's no such thing!
    Lisa: Well, why did you ask me to hand it to you?
    Oliver: Lisa, will you find something to do, and let me get this drain off?
    Lisa: What's a "drainoff"?
    Oliver: It's part of the sink that's attached to the "trapoff"! [groans as he gets up]
    ...
    Oliver: Shut the water off!
    Lisa: Which one is the "wateroff"?
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?:
    • It’s never revealed where Hooterville is located in the series, and the clues to where it might be often contradict each other. Even funnier is the fact that in-universe, people who don't live in Hooterville (or Crabwell Corners, or Pixley) have either never heard of Hooterville before or assume it's a made-up town.
    • In the reunion movie, the ZIP code for Drucker's General Store suggests Hooterville is somewhere in Kentucky. Otherwise, an old book about TV Land (before the actual channel was launched) seems to place Hooterville somewhere in the Ozarks region.
    • In the episode "King Oliver I", the seceding town of Hooterville attempts to join with Nevada.
  • Who's on First?: In Part 1 of "A Star Named Arnold Is Born", Arnold stars in a local production titled "Who?" A classic Abbott and Costello style dialogue exchange occurs when Oliver attempts to buy tickets from Mr. Drucker:
    Mr. Drucker: Here are your two tickets for the theater, they're 75¢ apiece.
    Lisa: Oliver, pay him the 75¢ apiece.
    Oliver: For what?
    Mr. Drucker: No, they're for "Who?".
    Oliver: What?
    Lisa: No, who.
    Mr. Drucker: The name of the play is "Who?".
    Oliver: Just "Who"?
    Mr. Drucker: The full name of the play is "Who Killed Jock Robin?", but we have such a small marquee on the playhouse, that all we have room for is "Who". Last year, we did "What Price Glory?", and all we had room for was "What?" It's a mystery, and it was written by one of our local authors, Huntley Huldane. And guess who's the star of it? Columbo.
    Oliver: Columbo?
    Mr. Drucker: Newt Kiley's police dog.
    Oliver: A dog star?
    Mr. Drucker: Oh, he's a great actor.
    Lisa: You'll see for yourself. We'll be there, Mr. Drucker.
  • Written Sound Effect: In "Double Drick", when the Douglas' generator blows up, the sounds show up as text such as "CRACKLE!", "ZAM!" and "(DOUBLE) DRICK!" It happens again at the end, when Oliver plugs in the new electrical system and causes a blackout.
  • Zany Scheme: During the final season, Eb came up with several of these to raise money for his fiancée Darlene Wheeler, including subletting his two acres of land as a dump, an overnight trailer camp, and a honeymoon suite. The ideas of hosting the wedding at a car wash and in a department store window are also rejected.

"This has been a Filmways presentation, dahling".

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