Petticoat Junction is an American television sitcom that originally aired on CBS from September 1963 to April 1970.[2]The series takes place at the Shady Rest Hotel, which was based on a real hotel in Eldon, Missouri, run by my wife's grandmother... that's where the hotel and the train and the whole setting came from, from Ruth's reminiscences of visiting her grandma.[3]
Show history
The idea for Petticoat Junction came from Paul Henning's wife, Ruth. Paul Henning said,
The Shady Rest was based on a real hotel in Eldon, Missouri, run by my wife's grandmother... that's where the hotel and the train and the whole setting came from, from Ruth's reminiscences of visiting her grandma.[3]
Ruth Henning told him stories of her childhood adventures at the Burris Hotel, which was owned by her grandparents in Eldon.[10] Once called the Rock Island Hotel, the Burris was located next to the now-derelict Rock Island Line railroad tracks. Ruth Henning's mother, Alice (Burris) Barth, also told her many stories about the hotel and about growing up in the small town of Eldon.[11] The stories of Ruth and her mother, Alice, became the basis of the show.
Linda Kaye Henning said that her father "wrote the series for Bea Benaderet."[12] Paul Henning thought the show would make an ideal starring vehicle for the veteran character actress. Since the 1930s, Benaderet had played second-banana roles on radio and television to such personalities as Jack Benny, Lucille Ball, and George Burns and Gracie Allen. She was an uncredited voice actress for many Warner Bros. cartoons, and provided the voice of Betty Rubble on The Flintstones. She also played the semiregular character Cousin Pearl Bodine on season one of The Beverly Hillbillies. Henning felt that Benaderet had more than paid her dues and had earned the right to headline her own series.
During preproduction, proposed titles for the show were Ozark Widow, Dern Tootin', and Whistle Stop.[13]
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