The Beverly Hillbillies
American sitcom (1962-1971)
The Beverly Hillbillies is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It featured an ensemble cast including Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor backwoods family from the Ozark Mountains who move to posh Beverly Hills, California, after striking oil on their land.
The show was produced by Filmways in association with CBS Productions and was created by Paul Henning. It was followed by two other Henning-inspired series on CBS: Petticoat Junction and its spin-off Green Acres, which reversed the rags-to-riches, country-to-city model of The Beverly Hillbillies.
The Beverly Hillbillies ranked among the top 20 most-watched programs on American television for eight of its nine seasons, ranking as the number-one series of the year during its first two seasons, with 16 episodes that still remain among the 100 most-watched television episodes in American history. It accumulated seven Primetime Emmy nominations during its run. It continues to be aired in syndicated reruns and its ongoing popularity spawned a media franchise, including a 1993 film adaptation by 20th Century Fox.
Premise
The series starts with Jed Clampett, a poor, widowed hillbilly who lives with his daughter and mother-in-law near an oil-rich swamp in the Ozark Mountains.
The opening sequence shows Jed discovering oil while shooting at a rabbit, although the first episode shows the oil being discovered by a surveyor for the OK Oil Company.
The public source identifies “The Beverly Hillbillies” as american sitcom (1962-1971). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Beverly, Hillbillies and American.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “The Beverly Hillbillies”, the useful work is to connect “american sitcom (1962-1971)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q941737. The Library of Congress control number is n88081728. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1962, 1971 and 1993.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Beverly Hillbillies”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Beverly Hillbillies primary sources, The Beverly Hillbillies archive and Beverly research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Beverly Hillbillies”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Beverly Hillbillies” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.