Posts Tagged ‘junction’

It’s been said by people with credit scores much higher than mine, that “the devil is in the details.” But I see things differently, because for me, “the humor is in the details” and that’s what prompts this overly elaborate think-piece highlighting the late June Lockhart’s impact on Petticoat Junction. And if you’re like me (highly unlikely), a more winning premise for an essay never existed. So here goes…

Dateline: My kitchen, sitting near the air fryer, nibbling on yogurt-covered craisins while typing this on my iPhone.

 

Well, why wasn’t I there on Day One with a gushing elegy on the passing of Lost in Space TV mom and later Petticoat Junction surrogate mother June Lockhart? All I can say in my defense is this: the fault, dear reader, lies not in myself, but in my stars.

 

First of all (and just so you know, there will be no “second of all”), I’d like to thank my reading public for bringing this weighty and grave matter to my full attention. Without your siren call this essay would not exist and literary posterity would be forever diminished. June Lockhart’s passing begs the question; would Petticoat Junction have survived the untimely death in Sept. 1968 of Shady Rest innkeeper Kate Bradley (played by veteran TV actress Bea Benaderet, the real life mother of actor Jack Bannon of Lou Grant fame who was married to Ellen Travolta {John’s sister} – you may now exhale)? 

I say emphatically NO! If not for Ms. Lockhart’s matronly sangfroid and prim but appealing countenance, there would’ve been no seasons 6 or 7 of Petticoat Junction. I say again for emphasis: no seasons 6 or 7! Let that sink in.

Imagine a world where we never got to see the Clampett’s arrive in Hooterville on the Cannonball Express for their universally acclaimed 2-part visit. Imagine being denied the pleasure of witnessing Uncle Joe’s cantankerous reactions to the vicissitudes of life. Maybe Uncle Joe didn’t know what a vicissitude was, but he sure knew how to be cantankerous when they were in the vicinity. Suffice to say, a future without seasons 6 and 7 of Petticoat Junction would’ve been a hellish TVscape of missed opportunities.

 

 

.

I say this and more.
With Bea Benaderet’s illness and subsequent absence from the show, June’s guiding presence as Dr. Janet Craig was essential to the success of the Shady Rest Hotel and presaged a whole other vector in boondock hospitality. This hayseed sensibility was fostered by the genius of Beverly Hillbillies creator Paul Henning – whose cross pollinated hit TV shows (The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and Petticoat Junction) presented an idyllically bucolic matrix of homespun humor and backwoods civility.

 

 

 

.

In Petticoat Junction, Ms. Lockhart was surrogate mother to sisters Betty Jo, Bobbie Jo, and Billie Jo, but not to Uncle Joe. And she never advertised the fact that in comparison to dearly departed Kate Bradley’s character, Ms. Lockhart’s character (Dr. Janet Craig) not only had a pulse, but also a much higher credit score. And what a resumé she amassed, including playing Timmy’s TV mom in Lassie.

Inarguably Ms. Lockhart’s unique blend of urban sophistication and small-town urbanity saved the show from being overtaken in the ratings by Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters. Her capable and friendly demeanor presented a mighty coat rack on which Petticoat Junction characters could hang their well-worn coonskin caps.

Petticoat Junction also fended off ratings challenges by That Girl (a pre-Mary Tyler Moore independent-girl sitcom starring Danny Thomas’s darling daughter and future Phil Donahue wife Marlo – who, by the way, could also turn the world on with her smile). Had Ms. Lockhart not graced that set, it would have doomed Petticoat Junction to an early demise and forced CBS into reruns of Rat Patrol which by then was in color (good) and becoming anachronistic as anti-war sentiment grew (bad).

So, we all owe a great debt of gratitude to June. But not only June. We must also extend our appreciation to July and August as well.

Ms. Lockhart (not to be confused with Calista Flockhart) lent class and intellectual heft to this corn-pone rural comedy thereby elevating its everyman conventionality to something more refined and aspirational. In other words, she did everything Uncle Joe did, except she did it backwards and in heels. So did J Edgar Hoover for that matter, but that’s more a story for NBC’s Dateline.

Perhaps my grandiloquent response to June Lockhart’s passing is just the moonshine talking. I mean right now, I don’t know where I end, and the drywall begins. Although I think it’s some place over by the butler’s pantry. And the weird thing is, we don’t even have a butler.

Second of all (I know I promised no “second of all” but consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, and a man in my position {still at the kitchen table with my yogurt-covered craisins} cannot afford to look redickilous), there’s a time for thinking inside the box, and this isn’t it. My mind didn’t get small, the world did. So, tell Mr. Henning. Yes, tell him I’m ready for my closeup.

In any event, I admit I was lax in not acknowledging the passing of June Lockhart sooner. I took my eye off the ball and fell down on the job. But you (my public) saved me (saved all of us really) from not only an act of omission on my part, but also a chance to celebrate JL’s 100 years. One hundred years of a life well-lived.

So let us all – each and every one of us in Whoville (where I imagine Pete Townshend also resides) – take a moment to…. ♫Ride the little train that is going down the track to the Junction…Petticoat Junction♫