The Beverly Hillbillies (TV Series) The Clampetts Strike Oil (1962) User Reviews

See how it all began...

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 3 June 2018]

I recently discovered that YouTube has many old pilot episodes--from both shows that went on to become a regular series as well as for shows that never came to be. In the case of "The Beverly Hillbillies" (here called "The Hillbillies of Beverly Hills"), it was very interesting see how the show evolved.

In this pilot, there is plenty of music--though none of it is the familiar music later used in the show. It's filled with flashback scenes and tells the story of how oil executives discovered oil on the Clampett property and how the family then came to move to California. Oddly, once the credits are complete at the end, there is several more minutes of the show.

Apart from the distracting audience (or perhaps it was a laugh track), the pilot was clever and entertaining. Well worth seeing...particularly if you love the show.

Great first episode

[LukeCoolHand · 9/10 · 14 February 2022]

This was a very funny 1st episode for the Beverly Hillbillies. I laughed almost all the way through. Evidently growing up I never saw this episode but really never liked the series much. It seems they used all the funny stuff on the first 2 episodes - the series went downhill really fast. Guess you can only make so many jokes about cement ponds and phantom door bells. By the 3rd episode the jokes got lame and few and far between. However this 1st episode was hilarious - I really enjoyed it.

The Clampetts Strike Oil

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 5 March 2024]

I caught the Beverly Hillbillies back in the early 1980s. By which times these episodes were already 20 years old.

The premise is a fish out of water comedy. Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen) is a country bumpkin, a simple honest to goodness farmer. His daughter Elly May is a tomboy even though Granny Clampett tells her son that Elly May has filled out and should be at home doing domestic work and looking for a husband.

Only some men from the petroleum company tell Jed that his land has oil. Texas tea and lots of it. Jed is offered 25 to 100 of some new kind of dollar. It is his cousin Pearl who figures that Jed is being offered millions of dollars for the oil on his land.

Now loaded and accompanied by nephew Jethro they head for Beverly Hills to their new mansion.

Only with the gates surrounding their new home. The Clampetts view their house as a prison. While they are mistaken for outlaws by Jed's new greedy banker Milburn Drysdale.

The first episode is very much the set up. Ironically the iconic theme song is not used here. The song explains the plot of the pilot in a few seconds.

It establishes what kind of family the Clampetts are and that life in California is not going to be easy for them. Even though they are wealthy.