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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 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 ''[[Petticoat Junction (TV)|Petticoat Junction]]'', the show was initially a by-the-books sitcom, in which Douglas was portrayed as an obsessive eccentric and Lisa, apart from being rather spoiled and having a poor grasp of English, was meant to be normal. Very quickly, though, the show took on a decidedly absurdist tone, Lisa turned into a Gracie Allen-style [[Cloudcuckoolander]], and Oliver became the [[Only Sane Man]]. The insane townspeople still see Oliver as a nutcase, though, while rapidly embracing Lisa as one of their own. Oliver, clinging tenaciously to logic, sputters and despairs as he sees his dream life in Hooterville slipping increasingly out of his control.
 
== Some of the causes of Oliver's perpetual headache are: ==
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* Alf and Ralph Monroe (Sid Melton and Mary Grace Canfield), brother and sister carpenter team who are contracted to fix Oliver's derelict farmhouse. Although the Monroes show up at intervals to supposedly do work, the house remains in a state of half-construction for the duration of the series.
 
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, 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 (TV)|Petticoat Junction]]'' tends more toward the normal end of the spectrum.
----
=== Tropes: ===
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* [[The Artifact]]: 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.
* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]: Occasionally done by Lisa to Oliver's bewilderment.
** Shares a universe with ''[[Petticoat Junction (TV)|Petticoat Junction]],'' which shares a universe with ''[[The Beverly Hillbillies]]''. Yet one episode has the Hootervillian Playhouse use a ''BH'' 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.
** Lisa (and occasionally other townspeople) seeing and reacting to the opening "Written by" and "Directed by" credits.
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** 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 [[Character Filibuster|soapbox speeches]].
* [[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.
* [[Cloudcuckooland]]: Although characters carried over from ''[[Petticoat Junction (TV)|Petticoat Junction]]'' are mostly excluded from this. The jury's still out on Mr. Drucker.
* [[Con Artist]]: Mr. Haney is a prominent example.
* [[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.
* [[Criminal Doppelganger]]: An episode featured a criminal who looked just like Oliver and the ensuing mix-up.
* [[Crossover]]: Characters from this show and ''[[Petticoat Junction (TV)|Petticoat Junction]]'' occasionally gravitated to the other. And one 1968 episode of ''[[The Beverly Hillbillies]]'' 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.
* [[Drive-In Theater]]: Oliver and Lisa attend one, only to be confronted by two [[Make-Out Kids]] in the car next to them.
* [[Easy Amnesia]]: 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.
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'''Oliver:''' I know it's a week later. You don't have to march in here and announce that.<br />
'''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 [[Exploding Calendar|calendar falls apart for a week]], or [[Mr. Exposition|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." }}
* [[Narrator]]: ''[[What's My Line?]]'' host John Daily in the pilot.
* [[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, could arguably be the only other sane person in Hooterville, for the most part.
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* [[Running Gag]]: The telephone pole telephone, the closet door falling, 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.
* [[Roofless Renovation]]
* [[Screwed Byby the Network]]: Another victim of the 1971 Rural Purge.
* [[Spin-Off]]
* [[Status Quo Is God]]: once status quo is established, that is
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* [[Through a Face Full of Fur]]: In one episode Arnold the pig blushes, with the help of special lighting.
* [[Where the Hell Is Springfield?]]
* [[Write Who You Know]]: Pat Buttram based his performance of Mr. Haney on Colonel Tom Parker, [[Elvis Presley (Music)|Elvis Presley]]'s manager, who he had met several years before when Parker worked as a carnival barker.
 
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