Petticoat Junction

- Season 3

(1965)

Kate takes over Sam's newspaper column, called 'Dear Minerva' to give anonymous advice.

Uncle Joe tricks Kate to take his place on serving as a jury. But when he discovers he has won the raffle and the ticket is in Kate's suitcase, he rushes to Pixley to retrieve it.

The Dog inherits $200 while Betty Jo and Bobbie Jo are putting a canine play to raise money for a kids' playground.

Bobbie Jo finds a scarab ring, which brings her good luck and soon the entire family starts to believe in its magical powers since they all get what they wish for.

Uncle Joe becomes a contractor when he persuades Mrs. Douglas to hire him.

Bobbie Jo is nominated for a membership in the only sorority in town. But in order to be accepted she has to get a date with the school's star athlete, Stonewall Jackson, whose only interested in sports.

A handsome, young Dr. Bailey opens an office at the hotel but Kate is concerned there won't be any patients for him since everyone goes to Dr. Stuart.

The kids want to get their idol King Ring a Ding to perform at the benefit despite Kate's protests. Little do they know, is that their idol is in fact Herbie Willis, who used to live in Hooterville and owes his musical career to Kate.

Uncle Joe becomes Herman Crawley's trainer and manager for the boxing match against Kid Dynamite.

Betty Jo accompanies Mrs. Douglas on her one week trip to New York. When Betty Jo returns her family has to swallow the big change in her - she has turned into a snooty snob.

Mr. Bedloe arrives unexpectedly with a sad story about loosing his job and introducing his replacement - a kind and considerate man named Goodfellow.

Kate reunites with an old flame - Ralph Denton, who arrives at the hotel for a few days. But resurrecting their romance is out of the question since he's accompanied by his spinster sister Mabel.

Uncle Joe gets the post office from Sam and settles it at the hotel's reception desk. Kate is having trouble persuading both Uncle Joe to give back the office to Sam and Sam to accept it back.

The business has been slow and when Mr. Reynolds checks in, pays in cash and reserves the entire hotel solely for himself, uncle Joe concludes he's on the run from the authorities.

Bobbie Jo wins a contest with first prize being served by a traditional English butler for a week. Kate finds it hard to give up the everyday chores.

The Bradleys have to track down a letter that was sent by one of their guests Mr. Norton, who deeply regrets sending it in the first place.

Betty Jo is horrified when she catches Gladys' bouquet at her wedding since every person, who has caught a bouquet has gotten married shortly thereafter. When Kate has a talk with her, she completely misinterprets her mother's words.

Billie Jo moves out and rents a room in Pixley. Kate is concerned when Bobbie Jo and Betty Jo start to spend far too much in their older sister's place.

Betty Jo starts posing for a college student when she meets a guy named Chuck.

Bobbie Jo takes pity on the only boy in the economic class, the athletic Walter Thorp.

Betty Jo's piglet and Bobbie Jo's voice are sure winners at the fair, but the piglet is a deadbeat when Bobbie's not singing. Can she be in two places at one time?

An accident at the county courthouse has blown off the roof of the building. Uncle Joe uses some sly tactics to try and get the jury of the current case sequestered at the Shady Rest rather than the much closer Pixley Hotel. He manages to do so. Joe doesn't mind the extra work and inconvenience to Kate and the girls. Those inconveniences include figuring out sleeping assignments for the shortage of rooms, lack of food due to an extra hungry jury, the jurors' personal lives invading the hotel, and certain parts of the hotel being off limits during the jury's ...

Kate receives a letter from a Mr. Donald Dobble stating that he and his friend and business colleague would like a reservation for two rooms. Mr. Dobble's friend, Mr. David Benton, arrives, and says that Mr. Dobble is with him, but Kate sees no one but Mr. Benton. Despite Mr. Benton seeming crazy to Kate since he sees and talks to an "invisible" man, Kate checks them in to the two reserved rooms. Her stance is that Mr. Benton is probably overworked and needs some much needed rest and relaxation. But as time goes on, Kate is wondering if she is the one going crazy for ...

Kate and the girls are excited at the prospect of a convention taking place at the hotel, with its associated revenue windfall. For the business, they are in competition with the Pixley Hotel, which may have an elevator and telephones, but doesn't have Kate's home cooking. To be on the safe side, Kate decides to do a face lift of the hotel's rooms before the convention organizer's inspection, with Uncle Joe to do much of the work. Kate also receives notice of a property tax increase of $6, the amount about which Kate is relieved but Uncle Joe is livid, although he ...

The Shady Rest is busting at the seams with guests, while the Pixley Hotel is virtually empty except for those that couldn't make their way into the Shady Rest for lack of rooms. As such, the Pixley Hotel's owner, Murdock Sneep, feigning that his establishment is also full, proposes to Kate that they merge their businesses. Kate kindly declines as she knows how empty the Pixley Hotel is. As such, Sneep vows to ruin Kate. He starts with an aggressive local advertising campaign, which doesn't bother Kate. But when Sneep starts to advertise on Shady Rest property, Kate ...

With the hotel empty and bills piling up, Kate needs an influx of revenue, which means someone, namely Uncle Joe, has to find a paying job. Although Uncle Joe pounds the pavement, he does whatever he can to dissuade anyone from hiring him. On Uncle Joe's rounds with Dog, Dog, in an empty lot for sale in Pixley, digs up a tin can full of money. Initially, Uncle Joe plans on not telling Kate about the money, but rather spend it on himself so that he can live in luxury in the big city, but Dog guilts him into doing the right thing. So Uncle Joe secretly pays off all ...

Uncle Joe is excited by a letter from Jeff and Nancy Anderson, who honeymooned at the hotel and are planning on returning soon for their tenth wedding anniversary. It gives Uncle Joe the idea to market the hotel as a second honeymoon haven for past honeymooning guests. The girls, who think it's a good idea, build upon it by suggesting they hold a gala reunion. They'll send out invitations with stamped return envelopes, so that all the invitees have to do is fill in the dates they will be staying on their RSVP. The plan doesn't work as every single couple to who they ...

Life at the hotel is not going the way Kate would hope. The arrival of the store catalog seems to be the big event for the girls, but they can't buy anything since the bank turned down Kate's loan request. Kate realizes that she has never been able to make a go of the hotel, but she can't imagine the girls or Uncle Joe ever wanting to move away. Mr. Carter Deming, a writer and the only current guest at the hotel, overhears Kate's musings, and as he gets ten times more work done at the hotel than he does in his own home in New York, he offers to buy the hotel from Kate...

Because the cheap refrigerator that Uncle Joe bought for $9 isn't working, Kate sends him into Pixley to get some ice for the icebox. However, Floyd and Charley are having a feud over who is boss of the Cannonball and a resulting feud over a missing apple, and as such they are not speaking to each other which also means they aren't operating the Cannonball. If Kate doesn't get some ice, all her food will spoil. So she does whatever she can to patch things up between the two, who have been best friends all their lives. Despite bringing in the analytical mind of Mr. ...

Kate is cleaning out the storage closet, and wants all the family members to go through their belongings of the items in the closet. Although no one is around when Kate starts the job, she manages to find Uncle Joe (who wants to start an antiques business with his junk), Billie Jo and Bobbie Jo, but Betty Jo, who should have have been on the afternoon Cannonball run from school, isn't around. Kate receives news from Floyd and Charlie that last they saw Betty Jo that morning, she, all made up and with suitcase in hand, looked like she was about to run away to elope. ...

Kate's widowed friend Vera Wilson is looking more elegant than usual, on account that she has been dating Ronnie Beckman, a bookkeeper who moved to the valley five years ago. Their relationship is going very slowly as Ronnie has never been married and seems to be a confirmed bachelor as he has lived on his own for virtually all his life. So when Kate runs into Ronnie, she tries to encourage him to take his relationship with Vera a little more seriously and a little more quickly. To help him along, she allows Ronnie to stay at the hotel to see how happy real family ...

Night after night, everyone at the hotel, even Dog, has an engagement out on the town, that is except for Kate, who seems content to be alone and knit in peace. However, Uncle Joe, and by association the girls, become concerned for Kate, thinking she needs to get out herself. So the girls take it upon themselves to try and find her an eligible bachelor. Before they can do that, they feel they have to demonstrate that they're grown up now, since they believe Kate's reluctance to date is because of her need to take care of them. In their overall scheme, the girls first ...

Uncle Joe is excited by a new capital works project for the valley, namely the damming of Bleeker Creek which will create a new lake in the area. Uncle Joe wants to exploit the benefits of the lake, such as market the hotel as the place to stay for tourists using the lake for recreational purposes, and corner the market in the provision of whatever specialized products and services for those tourists. However, Kate points out to Uncle Joe that there is one flaw in his plans: the location of the new lake does not mean that the hotel will be lake front property, but ...

What Betty Jo wants more than anything is to be able to buy her friend Willie's motorized bicycle. Kate allows her to do so only if she is able to come up with the money, which may not be that easy for Betty Jo. After placing a job wanted ad in the World Guardian (which she could only pay for by dusting Sam's store in exchange), Betty Jo does get a babysitting offer only on the condition that Kate is around to supervise, to which Kate reluctantly agrees. With Kate doing much of the work, Betty Jo makes it through the babysitting job. The result is that many other ...