History Series / GreenAcres

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: CrossOver above explains this. The first season was more of a extension of ''Series/PetticoatJunction'', considering the citizens of Hooterville, including Kate and Uncle Joe, welcoming Oliver and Lisa to town, and helping them adjust (in fact, throughout the first season, Uncle Joe kept trying to flirt with Oliver's mother). However, by the second season, the show further branched off on its own, and many of the ''Series/PetticoatJunction'' crossovers and references had become few and far between with some rare examples (such as the episode "Eb Discovers the Birds and the Bees"). In fact, Drucker's General Store became the only evidence that the two shows shared the same universe, and Mr. Drucker himself ended up being the only crossover character.
** Somewhat related to the above, the show was generally a lot more down-to-earth in the first season than it would later become. The show would only gain its more surreal aspects in the second season. It's most noticable with Lisa; in the first season, she was much more level-headed, and spent much of the season trying to go back to New York while Oliver tried to settle into the farm life. In the second season, she became a full-blown CloudCuckoolander, and got along with the standards of Hooterville far better than Oliver did.
** The show had more direct continuity in the first season, while the Douglases get settled onto the farm. After Season 1, aside from a few minor story arcs, continuity became so unimportant that most of the episodes could be watched out of order.

** The [[VanityPlate Filmways logo]] almost always concluded with Lisa saying, "This has been a Filmways presentation, [[VerbalTic dahling.]]", but it was 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.
* EasyAmnesia: Lisa gets hit on the head in one episode, believes Oliver is her butler, that she has a boyfriend named Mr. Fredericks, and demonstrates excellent cooking skills. Yet through the whole thing, she knows who Mr. Kimball is and treats him absolutely normally.
* EccentricTownsfolk: Nearly everyone in Hooterville is a CloudCuckoolander, with Oliver, and occasionally Mr. Drucker, as the OnlySaneMan.
* EvenTheSubtitlerIsStumped: 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 [[BreakingTheFourthWall actually correcting the mistakes, and even pointing out the audience isn't interested in what the dog has to say]].

* ExpositoryThemeTune: And one of the catchiest at that. Notice how it gets around Eva Gabor's lack of singing talent.

** Hooterville, although characters carried over from ''Series/PetticoatJunction'' are mostly excluded from this. (The jury's still out on Mr. Drucker.) Oliver finds their behavior perplexing.

* ConArtist: Mr. Haney is a prominent example. He invariably shows up at Oliver's farm, trying to sell him worthless junk or absurd things, often 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.
* ConstantlyLactatingCow: Seemingly played straight for most of the series, but subverted in at least two episodes. In season 1's "Lisa Has a Calf", the Douglas' cow, Eleanor, has a calf, [[JustifiedTrope justifying]] the fact that she had been able to be milked thus far in the series. In season 4's "A Husband for Eleanor" she stops giving milk, and the plot revolves around finding a bull to breed her with.
* ContrivedCoincidence: Mr. Haney again. He actually personifies this trope - whenever Oliver needs something to help him with his farming, Mr. Haney happens to have exactly what he needs on his truck, though at ridiculous prices. 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:

* CriminalDoppelganger: An episode featured a criminal who looked just like Oliver and the ensuing mix-up.
* {{Crossover}}: Characters from this show and ''Series/PetticoatJunction'' occasionally gravitated to the other. And one 1968 episode of ''Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies'' had the Clampetts traveling to Hooterville, leading to characters from all three shows intermingling. Once to the point where Mr. Drysdale was physically ill at Elly Mae even being ''interested'' in Eb.
** Several holiday episodes had characters on other shows, even for a short time. One Thanksgiving show at the Clampetts had Oliver and Lisa only on at the dinner table.
* CurseCutShort: Oliver Wendell Douglas often says "What the . . . ." But that's as far as he gets.
* CutShort: Thanks to UsefulNotes/TheRuralPurge, the show ultimately ended up without a series finale. The last episode to air was "The Ex-Secretary," which was [[PoorlyDisguisedPilot backdoor pilot]] about Oliver's former secretary trying to fix a timepiece. [[note]] It's worth nothing that the last episode to be produced was actually "King Oliver I," where Hooterville becomes its own nation after being hit with a tax burden.[[/note]]

* DerailedForDetails: Mr. Kimball's manner of speaking, although in his case it's more like "Derailed to Correct Something He Misremembered as the Exact Opposite of What Actually Happened."

* AdamWesting: Lyle Talbot, former matinee idol turned B-movie actor, portrayed "State Senator Lyle Talbot", a former matinee idol turned B-movie actor turned politician, parodying both himself and then California governor UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan. He later portrayed the [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield unnamed state's]] governor who would host marathons of his own films on a local TV station.

* TheAllegedExpert: The Monroe brothers are supposedly the best contractors in Hooterville, but make an absolute mess of remodeling the Douglases' home. To be fair, all they'd ever built before was chicken coops.
* TheAllegedHouse: The Old Haney Place, which former big city lawyer Oliver Douglas buys so he can become a farmer. 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.

* AmericanGothicCouple: Oliver and Lisa at the end of the TitleSequence.
* AndStarring: During the end credits, ''Series/PetticoatJunction'' actors would be listed under the title "..And guest starring our friends from ''Series/PetticoatJunction''".

* TheArtifact: The theme song, which has Lisa wanting to go back to New York and hating farm living, even though that premise was mostly abandoned by the second season.

** Lyle Talbot as State Senator Lyle Talbot in the episode "The Road".
** John Charles Daily in the pilot episode.

** 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 - any chance he gets, he keeps the romance between them budding... and Lisa just barely has to prod him into kissing her.
** Fred and Doris Ziffel constantly bicker with one another just like your 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 [[SuperStrength ''dipping'' her at the same time]])!
* BadBadActing: When they put on the play of ''Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies'', the townsfolk are shown as horrible actors to an absurdly extreme degree.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: Occasionally done by Lisa to Oliver's bewilderment.
** Shares a universe with ''Series/PetticoatJunction,'' which shares a universe with ''Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies''. 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.

** Very commonly the townspeople would ask Oliver how he got that fife to play "Yankee Doodle" in the background when he made one of his [[CharacterFilibuster soapbox speeches]].

* CensorshipBySpelling: Lisa is telling [[MultipleChoicePast yet another]] story of how she met Oliver in "A Royal Love Story", this time to entertain a visiting eight-year-old girl. She attempts to use this at one point, but it doesn't quite work:

* ChristmasEpisode: "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, weirding out the other townsfolk, who have become desensitized to artificial trees.
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Lisa had a pet yorkie named Mignon, whom she doted over throughout the first season, but afterwards, she pretty much disappeared, with the exception of an occasional apparence or mention in the second season.

* ClipShow: "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 intersped with clips from the previous episodes at that point.

** Hooterville, although characters carried over from ''Series/PetticoatJunction'' are mostly excluded from this. The jury's still out on Mr. Drucker.
** Hungary, leastways 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 most popular sports in the country are Monkey Racing and Goulash Betting. Hungary also has a special reward for military heroes who happen to be ducks like Drobny, Lisa's pet from back home.
* CommunityThreateningConstruction: 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 [[TookALevelInBadass 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.
* ConArtist: Mr. Haney is a prominent example.

* AndStarring[=/=]FakeGuestStar: During the end credits, ''Series/PetticoatJunction'' actors would be listed under the title "..And guest starring our friends from ''Series/PetticoatJunction''".

* AsHimself: Lyle Talbot as State Senator Lyle Talbot in the episode "The Road".

* BadBadActing: When they put on the play of ''Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies''.

* BrainyPig: Arnold Ziffel is possibly the TropeCodifier. A Chester White pig adopted by the childless Fred and Doris Ziffel, Arnold 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.

** Shares a universe with ''Series/PetticoatJunction,'' which shares a universe with ''Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies''. Yet one episode 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 mentioned that ''Beverly Hillbillies'' was one of the most popular shows in Hooterville.
*** Maybe the townspeople just consider the sitcom as based on the lives of the (for them) real Clampetts.
** Lisa (and occasionally other townspeople) seeing and reacting to the opening "Written by" and "Directed by" credits.

** During the two-part episode where Arthur goes to Hollywood, [[TranslationConvention captions are used to translate a conversation between Arthur and a horse actor]]. The captions continue to show up to translate the dialogue at first when the scene cuts back to the humans, which everyone notices, prompting Lisa to look toward the camera and say "Oh, we don't need the words anymore". The captions then disappear.

-->-- the show's ExpositoryThemeTune, written by Vic Mizzy

* ExtendedGreetings: Hank Kimball can't just say "Good morning." He'll also have to think about whether it actually is a good morning, and that frequently leads into him going on a tangent.

Oliver Wendell Douglas (Creator/EddieAlbert), 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 [[TheSimpleLifeIsSimple the reality of country life]] nor the insanity of the locals allows it. Lisa hates the country, but is better 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 very staid ''Series/PetticoatJunction,'' 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 normal. However, the show quickly took on a decidedly absurdist tone; Lisa turned into a Gracie Allen-style CloudCuckoolander, and Oliver became the OnlySaneMan. 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.

-->-- The theme song, written by Vic Mizzy

[[caption-width-right:350:Clockwise from top left: Hank Kimball, Eb Dawson, Mr. Haney, Eunice, Oliver, Lisa.]]

[[quoteright:330:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Green_Acres_6150.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:330:From top left: Mr. Kimball, Eb, Mr. Haney. Second Row: Lisa, Oliver, Oliver's Mother.]]

'''Together:''' ''Green Acres we are there!''

'''Oliver:''' ''You are my wife-''\\

'''Oliver:''' ''You are my wife''\\
'''Lisa:''' ''Goodbye, city life''\\

-> '''Lisa Douglas:''' ''New York is where I rather stay!\\

--> '''Oliver Douglas:''' ''Green Acres is the place to be!\\

--> '''Lisa Douglas:''' ''New York is where I rather stay!\\

--> '''Oliver:''' ''The chores!''\\

* AlohaHawaii: In "Hawaii Honeymoon", the series' penultimate episode, [[PoorlyDisguisedPilot Oliver and Lisa spend another honeymoon in a Hawaiian resort]].

* ChristmasEpisode: "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, weirding out the other townsfolk, who have become desensitized to AluminumChristmasTrees.

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 [[TheSimpleLifeIsSimple the reality of country life]] nor the insanity of the locals allows it. Lisa hates the country, but is better 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.

* 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 LikeASonToMe 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.

* LiveActionCartoon: Possibly the TropeCodifier. The series routine made use of incredibly slapstick and 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), not to mention that each character had such Limited Wardrobe that they literally wore the exact same outfits for all six seasons (save for Oliver and Lisa), that it could very well be the poster child for a live-action cartoon.

* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Oliver Wendell Douglas, named after Oliver Wendell Holmes.

* NatureLover: Oliver. When he lived in New York, he tried growing crops on the balcony of his penthouse.

* NotListeningToMeAreYou: 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, abd only then does Oliver realize what she's doing.

* OnlyShopInTown: Drucker's Grocery Store is this to Petticoat Junction, not just in this show but in ''Series/PetticoatJunction'' too.

* ThemeTuneCameo: "The Day of Decision" starts with Eb humming the show's theme song, and he even lyp-synchs one of Lisa's lines.

* HowWeGotHere: In one episode Oliver must explain why Arnold the Pig is in attendence at Oliver's alumni dinner.
* IdentityAmnesia: In “Who’s Lisa“ Lisa, after being hit on the head by a hammer, suffers a concussion and becomes convinced Oliver is her butler, she is waiting for her fiancé, and becomes an amazing cook.
* ImprobablyCoolCar: Oliver's [[ProductPlacement annually-replaced]] Lincoln Continental convertible's a borderline case - he can afford it but it certainly doesn't fit his newly-chosen lifestyle.

* InterspeciesRomance: Arnold the Pig and Cynthia Haney, a bassett hound (or as Lisa says, '"basket hound").

* TheLadette: Played with as far as Ralph is concerned. Although she, deep down, is very much a lady, there's an unwritten rule that she has to be regarded as man, from the fact her name is Ralph, she and Alf are refered to as "brothers", and all of this because they're both carpenters, and women apparently can't be carpenters.

** Mr. Haney wears a straw hat, a white buttoned-shirt with a brown vest and slacks.

** In the reunion movie, the zipcode for Drucker's General Store suggests Hooterville is somewhere in Kentucky. Otherwise, an old book about TV Land (before the actual channel was launched) seemed to place Hooterville somewhere in Ozark region.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: 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 CousinOliver above) 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. Now, imagine a camp counselor swimming with your kids, all naked.