"There's something wrong with the carburator." "Yea, it needs a new tractor on it!"

I've said this before and I'll say it again: the television show Green Acres was ahead of it's time, and is still a genius display of pure insane comedy.

Any other day, that sentence would be enough for you jackals. There is nothing more I can add to it which would expound on the thought that Green Acres was the natural common ancestor of Arrested Development and just about every single show on Adult Swim. What I mean is, anything funny...

Green Acres is populated by a cadre of characters from Hooterville. The spin off from the wildly successful Petticoat Junction, Green Acres was eventually canceled when CBS took the axe to all of it's popular (and money making) rural comedies. Later some were heard to wonder why they would do such a thing, but then all was made clear when the same group of morons were found to have run Fox Studios today.

That's a "fox-makes-terrible-movies" joke...GET IT?!?!?!?!?!?

Green Acres follows the zany mis-adventures (I never get tired of typing that little cliche) of the Douglas', Oliver Wendell and Lisa. Lisa is fairly zany herself, and fits in perfectly in the quiet rural area. Oliver is a lawyer in the big apple, with the dream of becoming a successful gentleman farmer. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that he moves to Hooterville, becomes a farmer, has his air of a gentleman whittled away by the exasperatingly-crazy denizens of the area, and is never, ever successful.

Here is a quick rundown of these crazy assholes:

Mr. Haney is a con man and junk dealer who seems to trick Mr. Douglas about half the time. Mr. Haney sells everything, and nothing is worth selling. The Monroe Brothers, Alf (male) and Ralph (female) are the carpenters hired to build the Douglas' bedroom. I'll leave it to you to figure out if the room is ever finished. The Ziffle's, with their super smart pig, Arnold, live in the farm down the road. Arnold might actually be the longest lasting character in the cultural zeitgeist; did I mention he's a pig... Their hired hand, Eb. lives in the barn and does about as much as work as Mr. Haney does. And there are a couple of handfuls of other characters that cause Mr. Douglas' bloodpressure to climb dangerously high on a daily basis.

Green Acres employed several unorthodox methods, including breaking the fourth wall on occasion, and rapid fire back and forth dialog that had zero impact on the plot. It reminds me, of course, of my heroes: the Marx Brothers.

[I won't lie to you folks: I wrote the above at about 1230pm today. As I was crafting my feelings about the very wonderful Green Acres I was distracted by the offer of lunch with friends and our continuation of the restaurants "around the world" gimmick (where the restaurant has 100 beers and you just mark them off your list till you get a tshirt; tshirts are like crack cocaine.). The was followed by a quiet afternoon with a Chris Rock comedy special, and after that was a birthday celebration at another friend's house.

I tell you all that to tell you this: It's been from 1:15 to 10:15, and I've lost the Green Acres Spark. Not the undying love I have for the population of Hooterville, just the fleeting need to write about them...

So I wish you a fond farewell, and until we meet again, I leave you with a quote from Mr. Kimball: Tomatoes are the dumbest of all plants. Did you know their IQ is hardly above what a 6-year old child's is?]

Seriously, I say this a lot, but you will really kick yourself if you don't watch these clips from Green Acres...