The Odd Reason Hit Series Green Acres Was Cancelled

The sixties were a golden age for sitcoms in which the "com" came from the quirkiest of "sits." After all, this was the decade of "The Munsters," "Mr. Ed," "Bewitched," "Batman" (the totally campy Adam West version), and "The Addams Family" (without which Netflix's "Wednesday" series wouldn't exist, kids). Then there was "Green Acres," a fish-out-of-water comedy about Oliver Douglas, a New York lawyer who buys a farm in the country, much to the alarm of his sophisticated wife, Lisa. As the theme song went, per Genius, "Dahling, I love you, but give me Park Avenue." The Douglases gradually learned to live without their city comforts and did their best to get along with the eccentric residents of Hooterville: Swindler salesman Mr. Haney; simple farmhand Eb Dawson; the incompetent town carpenters, the Monroes; and the Ziffels, who treated their pig Arnold as their son.

"Green Acres" entertained audiences for six years and had numerous crossovers with "The Beverly Hillbillies," which followed a mountaineer family living in ritzy California. Then, in 1971, both shows were abruptly canceled by CBS, and other networks followed suit with other series in countrified settings: "Hee Haw," "Petticoat Junction," and "The Andy Griffith Show." These multiple terminations came to be known within the industry as "the rural purge." As Pat Buttram, who played Mr. Haney, once pointed out, "It was the year CBS canceled everything with a tree — including 'Lassie,'" (via Wide Open Country). Network executives had their eye trained on the bottom line. Despite the popularity of "Green Acres" and its kin, their viewership skewed older, and advertisers were looking to appeal to a younger generation. The time was ripe for sophisticated shows with urban settings, like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," along with more daring comedies like "All in the Family."

After "Green Acres" came to an end, the cast of the classic sitcom moved on to various other projects. Hungarian-born Eva Gabor, who played Lisa Douglas, went on to a number of guest appearances on shows like "The Love Boat" and "Hotel," alongside voicing the animated Disney characters Duchess in "The Aristocats" and Bianca in "The Rescuers" and "The Rescuers Down Under." Eddie Albert, who co-starred as Oliver Wendell Douglas, also enjoyed a lengthy career, which included a three-year run in the beloved detective series "Switch." Andy Griffith, another victim of the so-called "rural purge," lamented the shock decision in a 1972 interview. 

"I guess [the network executives] believe that small-town USA is dying and disappearing from our country," he opined (via YouTube). "And they believe that television audiences are too sophisticated [...] to buy or even enjoy entertainment such as 'Petticoat Junction' or 'Beverly Hillbillies' or our show." He was only partly right. Though "Green Acres" was never revived, the cornfed variety show "Hee Haw" returned to the air and ran until 1997. The 1970s brought us "Little House on the Prairie" and "The Waltons," two family dramas that broke the stereotype of rural clans. 

More recently, pseudo-reality shows such as "Duck Dynasty," "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo," and "Moonshiners" mined the redneck world for entertainment again. The closest thing we currently have to Hooterville is "Farmer Wants a Wife," the dating show in which four men who work the fields try to find love among a group of urban women. In a few cases, the ladies have actually been willing to say "goodbye, city life," as Lisa did. Hopefully, they didn't end up with a pig in their kitchen.