Green Acres
1965 · 6 seasons · 170 episodes · Comedy
Created by Paul Henning, Jay Sommers
“THE PLACE TO BE”
Green Acres is an American sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a rural 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. Receiving solid ratings during its six-year run, Green Acres was cancelled in 1971 as part of the "rural purge" by CBS. The sitcom has been in syndication and is available in DVD and VHS releases. In 1997, the two-part episode "A Star Named Arnold is Born" was ranked #59 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.
Why it's worth watching
Green Acres is a heartwarming and wholesome sitcom that celebrates the virtues of simplicity, kindness, and community. Its lighthearted humor and positive messages make it a delightful watch for all ages.
What it praises
The show upholds values such as honesty, compassion, and the importance of family and friendship, making it a valuable contribution to its genre.
For discernment
This is broad, good-natured absurdist comedy — a Manhattan lawyer dragging his glamorous wife to a collapsing farm where a pig gets more respect than the neighbors — and its humor is character-driven silliness rather than anything cruel or crude, with no sex, no profanity by design, and marriage played as an affectionately bickering but committed partnership. The honest flag a discerning viewer should not gloss over is that the IMDb guide notes an ethnic slur for Hispanics surfacing in some episodes, a period artifact that lands harder now than it did in 1965. Beyond that, the show's running joke is gentle mockery of rural people as dim and rural life as ridiculous, which is affectionate more than contemptuous but is worth noticing. There is little here that would coarsen the heart; the main caution is simply the dated slur, best skipped past or watched with awareness.
- LanguageThe IMDb guide notes an ethnic slur for Hispanics used in some episodes, a dated artifact of 1960s television.
- WorldviewRecurring humor treats country folk as simpletons and rural life as absurd, though the tone is affectionate rather than sneering.
Cast
Pat Buttram
Mr. Haney
Eddie Albert
Oliver Wendell Douglas
Eva Gabor
Lisa Douglas
Tom Lester
Eb Dawson
Alvy Moore
Hank Kimball
Frank Cady
Sam Drucker
Hank Patterson
Fred Ziffel
Kay E. Kuter
Newt Kiley
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