In the spring of 1961, while crawling through Los Angeles traffic, writer Paul Henning caught sight of a battered truck overloaded with furniture and family members rolling down Sunset Boulevard. It wasn’t a movie set—it was real, and it made him laugh. What if a rural family, completely out of their element, landed in one of the wealthiest zip codes in America? That spark became the idea behind The Beverly Hillbillies, which premiered on CBS on September 26, 1962. More than 30 million people tuned in, and just like that, a TV phenomenon was born.

At the cen­ter of the show was Jed Clam­pett, a good-heart­ed moun­tain man who strikes oil and moves his fam­i­ly from the Ozarks to Bev­er­ly Hills. Played by Bud­dy Ebsen, Jed brought qui­et wis­dom and a sense of calm to the chaos. Along for the ride were his ani­mal-lov­ing daugh­ter Elly May (Don­na Dou­glas), his no-non­sense Granny (Irene Ryan), and his well-mean­ing, big-dream­ing nephew Jethro (Max Baer Jr.), whose career aspi­ra­tions changed almost as often as the episodes did.

What set The Bev­er­ly Hill­bil­lies apart wasn’t just the cul­ture clash—it was the integri­ty of its char­ac­ters. The Clam­petts didn’t try to change; they sim­ply brought their way of life to a world that didn’t under­stand it. They approached every sit­u­a­tion with sin­cer­i­ty, nev­er mock­ing or chas­ing sta­tus. The humor came from their hon­esty, not from look­ing down on them.

CBS had doubts that view­ers would relate to a show about hill­bil­lies in a man­sion, but the num­bers proved oth­er­wise. It became the high­est-rat­ed pro­gram in the coun­try, with its first two sea­sons top­ping the charts. The open­ing theme, “The Bal­lad of Jed Clam­pett,” sung by blue­grass leg­ends Lester Flatt and Earl Scrug­gs, became an instant clas­sic and even hit the coun­try music charts.

Ebsen, a vet­er­an per­former who had nar­row­ly missed play­ing the Tin Man in The Wiz­ard of Oz due to a reac­tion to the make­up, found his most last­ing role in Jed. His calm demeanor gave the show its heart. Don­na Dou­glas, with her warm smile and love for ani­mals, mir­rored Elly May in real life, often attend­ing events with baby ani­mals in tow. Irene Ryan, as Granny, stole scenes with her fierce ener­gy and per­fect com­ic deliv­ery, cre­at­ing one of TV’s most mem­o­rable grand­moth­ers.

Max Baer Jr. brought lov­able clue­less­ness to Jethro, ful­ly embrac­ing the role despite being noth­ing like the char­ac­ter off-screen. After the series end­ed, he strug­gled with being type­cast, but even­tu­al­ly rein­vent­ed him­self as a pro­duc­er and entre­pre­neur.

The show’s ten­sion often came from banker Mil­burn Drys­dale (Ray­mond Bai­ley), who con­stant­ly tried to mold the Clam­petts into high soci­ety to keep their for­tune close. His uptight sec­re­tary, Miss Jane Hath­away (Nan­cy Kulp), often helped—though her gen­uine affec­tion for the fam­i­ly added com­plex­i­ty to her prim demeanor. Their clash­es with the Clam­petts cre­at­ed a steady stream of com­ic mis­un­der­stand­ings.

Though wild­ly pop­u­lar, the show was fre­quent­ly crit­i­cized by intel­lec­tu­als as sim­plis­tic or low­brow. In the ear­ly 1970s, CBS began phas­ing out rur­al come­dies in what became known as the “rur­al purge,” and The Bev­er­ly Hill­bil­lies aired its final episode on March 23, 1971.

Time took its toll on the cast. Irene Ryan passed in 1973 after a stroke and brain tumor. Bud­dy Ebsen lived into his 90s, work­ing almost to the end of his life, and passed in 2003. Don­na Dou­glas died in 2015, remem­bered fond­ly by fans for her grace and kind­ness.

A 1993 film ver­sion intro­duced the Clam­petts to a new gen­er­a­tion, star­ring Jim Var­ney, Eri­ka Ele­ni­ak, Diedrich Bad­er, and Cloris Leach­man. While it offered a fresh take, it couldn’t ful­ly cap­ture the charm of the orig­i­nal series.

That truck Hen­ning saw in 1961 didn’t just inspire a TV show—it became a sym­bol. The Clam­petts remind­ed view­ers that wealth doesn’t change who you are, and some­times, the most down-to-earth peo­ple have the most to teach. Even in Bev­er­ly Hills, they stayed true to their roots—and nev­er need­ed to be any­thing else.