Green Acres

- Season 5

(1969)

Lisa's mother surprises her and "Whatshisname" (Oliver) with a three week visit. She just became a countess--the title came with an estate she bought--but Eb tells everyone she's the Queen of Sicily. In her royal honor, the locals hold a Ceremonial Day complete with a solid gold wooden key to the city. The highlight is a 21-gun-salute using just one cannon and three balls.

Two weeks of boredom is finally enough for Lisa's mother. To Oliver's relief, the woman who still doesn't know his name is packed and ready to go. His celebration is brief once greedy Mr. Haney and Joe Carson learn she's filthy rich. The pair of money-hungry Romeos descend on the Douglas house to vie for her attention (and fortune) before being tossed out for fighting.

The descendant of Herman, a pig that predicted the weather with his tail, stands to inherit the $20,000,000 Birnbacher estate. Fred Ziffel is convinced it's Arnold who has possesses same talent. Everyone in Hooterville pressures Oliver to take Arnold to Chicago and claim his inheritance. Oliver, however, isn't interested in accepting the embarrassing job of professional "pig lawyer."

"Famous pig lawyer" Oliver Douglas arrives in Chicago with Lisa and Eb to prove Arnold's the rightful heir to a $20,000,000 Birnbach pork fortune. While Arnold is given the royal treatment by the hotel staff, the Douglases are brushed aside as persona non grata and shoved into a room the size of a closet. At the lawyers' meeting to claim the money, Arnold's tail makes the ridiculous prediction of snow in July. The red carpet is suddenly rolled up and they're all given the bum's rush out of the hotel.

When the Douglases, Eb, and potentially wealthy Arnold return from Chicago, the pig goes on a gift-giving spree. Mr. Kimball gets a wristwatch, Lisa, an expensive bracelet, and Oliver, a shrunken head. With Arnold the target of every salesman in the valley, he hides out at the Douglas farm. Soon they've tracked him down and it's Oliver who has to fight off the pushy peddlers. Before being pulled off the telephone pole by a salesman, Oliver takes a call from Birnbacher's lawyer informing him the will is being contested by the late eccentric's sister-in-law.

Oliver's steamed over Hooterville's dirt road, especially after learning the money to pave it was appropriated thirty years earlier. Never content to leave well enough alone, he descends on the state capitol demanding that something be done. The state finally agrees to start the project, but will have to tear down the Ziffel's house in the process. Oliver makes no headway on saving their home until Lisa drops the name of Mr. Haney's cousin, powerful hot dog vendor "Big Joe" Haney. Thinking all problems are solved, Oliver is shocked to hear the locals are planning to ...

Lisa the fortune-teller predicts that a mysterious stranger will soon enter Oliver's life. That stranger is Tadpole Talbot, Eb's childhood buddy who's now a singing sensation. Tadpole hires Eb to go on the road with him and plug his music, but it's not nearly as glamorous he'd imagined. Eb's brief music music career ends in an explosion when he plugs Tadpole's AC guitar into a DC outlet. Lisa sends her "son" money so he can come back home.

Alarmed by the dropping population of Hooterville, Oliver calls a town meeting to find ways to keep the young people from moving away. Lisa urges him not to become involved because his "goo dooding" always backfires, but he forges ahead anyway. Soon, he's involuntarily volunteered his barn to be the valley's new youth center.

Oliver tries to pick up a special delivery letter that arrived for him at the Hooterville post office. He and Lisa end up traveling all over the valley because Postmaster Drucker mistakenly gave it to Hank Kimball, who gave it to Fred Ziffel, who gave it to his son Arnold. Arnold dropped it in the mail, sending the Douglases to the Pixley post office where two sets of identical twins are working at the windows.

Oliver speaks about a law career at Hooterville High and makes a great impression on one student, Kathy, a teenage girl who develops a crush on every speaker who visits. Lisa's irritated when the smitten girl starts showing up at their house fawning over her "groovy" husband and calling her old. Oliver also has to contend with her jilted boyfriend who's angry that he broke them up.

While under the influence of medication, county agent Hank Kimball proposes to lady carpenter, Ralph Monroe. The two go through the wedding ceremony, only to find out that Justice of the Peace Sam Drucker's license has expired and they aren't really married.

With minimal help from Eb, a stressed Oliver begins planting his corn crop. Lisa tries to be a useful farm wife, serving dreadful lemonade which Oliver pours out dumps out in the field. The next morning at that spot, he finds a giant cornstalk that reaches up into the clouds. At the top of the stalk there's a Jolly Green Giant who bellows "Ho, Ho, Ho" and drops down creamed corn, both in the can and by the bucketful.

Sam Drucker stocks hardly any "cosmeteticals" in his store, so Lisa offers to put together a display for his business. When 395 cartons of Lady Love cosmetics are delivered, she forces Drucker out onto his front porch and turns the who building into a "beauty saloon." Oliver tells her she must move her business somewhere else, so she sets up shop in their living room, tossing all of their furniture into the front yard.

The discovery of a Wish Book from 1898 leads Haney to tell the story of Calvin and Tessie Whittaker, who once owned the Douglases' house. When a magic lantern is mistakenly delivered by the catalog company, Calvin opens a Wall Picture Theater in Pixley, thrilling audiences with a slide of Abraham Lincoln standing on his head. Eventually he goes to Hollywood to pitch his ideas, but aren't interested. They even scoff at his idea to put a mouse named Dickey into films. They love Tessie, however, and she becomes a silent film star.

Oliver's old friend, reporter Mort Warner, comes to Hooterville to relax and soothe his rattled nerves. He's ready to flee in less than one day. Mort is frightened by Lisa's syrupy coffee, hosed down with oil by Oliver's rickety tractor, and has his bed invaded by a TV-watching pig. Fred Ziffel peers at him naked in the outdoor shower, Mr. Haney gouges him with his phony Auto Club, the sheriff arrests him for stealing the Douglas' car, and quail-hunting Hank Kimball fills his behind with buckshot.

Old timbers collapse, trapping Oliver and Lisa in an old root cellar they've discovered under their house. Calling for help through the kitchen sink drain, the two await rescue by Eb, who hits his head and forgets about them. The addled-brained Kimball tries to pull them up through the pipe using a plumber's helper. Their hopes ride on Arnold Ziffel and a game of charades he plays with Sam Drucker.

Oliver travels to New York to wrap up a case for his old law firm. While he's gone, Lisa and Eb take in a puppy left on the doorstep. When Lisa interrupts his meeting to tell him about "Little Freddie," she fails to mention the baby is a dog. Thinking she's found a human child, he tries to talk her into contacting the sheriff. She refuses, so Oliver abandons his case and races back home to Hooterville.

Oliver clears the room with a long-winded speech to the Bar Association advocating the hiring of ex-convicts. He regrets his words when he's forced into hiring Willie Dunhill, a man who's spent so many years in prison he can't adjust to life on the outside. When Willie's not reminiscing about his old criminals buddies in stir, he's calling Oliver "warden." Lisa picks up on his prison slang and starts talking like a B-movie gangster.

The rickety truck Haney delivers is not the modern one Oliver made a down payment on. He gives the con man until six PM to return his $200 down payment or face jail time for fraud and possible larceny. Oliver also has cow troubles as Colby's bovine keeps coming over and stomping on his already puny crops. He attempts to scare Irene away by firing a shotgun into the air; instead, it frightens advertising men who think they're being shot at. As they speed away, a life-sized fiberglass cow flies off their roof. Lisa and Eb find it and assume Oliver is a cold-blooded "cow...

In just his first day as School Board President, Oliver starts a grammar school protest. The kids are upset that their mascot, Arnold, has been thrown out for popping his teacher with a pea shooter. Fred Ziffel asks Oliver to represent his "son" on the grounds that he suffered discrimination, but all Oliver can do is badger the school's determined principal. The pig's ticket back into the education system comes when he wins the student art contest with his painting "Nude at a Filling Station."

Oliver's tax refund check motivates the farmers of Hooterville to request their refunds, too. Not understanding that you have to actually pay taxes first, they write in and state their losses for the last ten years. Thanks to a bad ball bearing in the government computer, the locals receive more than $500,000. By the time the IRS shows up to reclaim its money, the Hootervillians have invested their new wealth in Mr. Haney's monkey racing track. To avoid bad press, the government reluctantly becomes a silent partner in the enterprise where small simians chase after a ...

Oliver wants to have a simple, romantic Sunday picnic with Lisa. His afternoon for two turns into an irritating crowd when everyone invites themselves and tags along. Joining the couple are Eb, his girlfriend Linda and her accordion, her parents, Sam Drucker, his date and her sousaphone, Hank Kimball, Linda's Grandpa and some old lady he hit on at the gas station. That night, Oliver and Lisa take refuge in the barn when the crowd shows up at their house to drink their champagne, eat their caviar, and celebrate Grandpa's engagement.

Eleven-year-old Dinky Watson's wild story about his recent trip to the moon enthralls Eb and Lisa. Oliver believes none of it, especially after the kid sells Lisa a "moon rock" for $14. But once the rock stars beeping under the moonlight (and whenever Arnold oinks at it), Oliver suspects he's the subject of a practical joke. Oliver has his doctor X-ray it, but comes up with nothing. Fearing he's cracking up, he ships it off to NASA for their scientists to examine.

Lisa's skittish Uncle Fedor uses the Douglas' home to hide out--mostly under the bed and sofa. He claims he's on the run from the Secret Police who want him for a valuable formula he's smuggling out of Hungary. When a man with a scar shows up in Hooterville asking questions, his wild tale starts to seem believable. Skeptical Oliver contends the whole story is phony and Fedor's just a relative who's come to mooch off of them for a while.

Eb advertises himself as a wealthy landowner in a magazine personal ad. As he begins communicating with a young woman with a Park Avenue address, the lies about his worth and adventures become progressively exaggerated. When Celia does the unthinkable and comes for a visit, Eb keeps up the charade. He hires Haney to act as his chauffeur and passes off the Douglases as poor sharecroppers who work for him. Oliver forces him to tell her the truth, but Celia has to leave anyway; her father has sent a limo to bring her back to New York.

Oliver is irritated to be sharing his birthday with Arnold Ziffel, partially because the pig is getting so much attention. Even after Haney pitches him on a selection of ridiculous gifts, he refuses to buy Arnold a present. This proves embarrassing when the Ziffel "boy" gives him an electric snout warmer. Even though he requested no celebration, Oliver's convinced that Lisa is throwing a surprise party, so he puts on his tux and goes all around Hooterville looking for it. He gets a surprise, but it's not a party.