Series Description

The Petticoat Junction TV show was a 30 minute comedy series on CBS about a widow and her three daughters who operated a hotel on the outskirts of a small rural town. The girls' feeble-minded Uncle Joe often came up with zany ideas that put the hotel in jeopardy. Sometimes the girls themselves would get into jams requiring their mom, her friends, and occasionally even Uncle Joe to find a way out for them. A "colorfull" cast of characters checked into the hotel and more visited from town on the train.

Petticoat Junction Cast

Bea Benaderet .... Kate Bradley
Edgar Buchanan .... Joseph P. "Uncle Joe" Carson
Jeannine Riley .... Billie Jo Bradley (1963-1965)
Gunilla Hutton .... Billie Jo Bradley (1965-1966)
Meredith MacRae .... Billie Jo Bradley (1966-1970)
Pat Woodell .... Bobbie Jo Bradley (1963-1965)
Lori Saunders .... Bobbie Jo Bradley (1965-1970)
Linda Henning .... Betty Jo Bradley Elliott
Smiley Burnette .... Charley Pratt
Frank Cady .... Sam Drucker
Rufe Davis .... Floyd Smoot
Charles Lane .... Homer Bedloe
Roy Roberts .... Norman Curtis
Kay E. Kuter .... Newt Kiley

Theme Song

Title: "Petticoat Junction"

By: "Paul Henning and Curt Massey"

Come ride the little train that is rolling down the tracks to the junction.
Petticoat Junction
Forget about your cares, it is time to relax at the junction.
Petticoat Junction

Lotsa curves, you bet. Even more when you get
To the junction, Petticoat Junction.

There's a little hotel called the Shady Rest at the junction.
Petticoat Junction
It is run by Kate, come and be her guest at the junction.
Petticoat Junction
And that's Uncle Joe, he's a movin' kind of slow at the junction,
Petticoat Junction.

Petticoat Junction Trivia

The location for most of the scenes on Petticoat Junction was the Shady Rest Hotel outside of a small farming town named Hooterville. Beginning in Petticoat Junction's third season, several of the regular characters on the series were used to "spin-off" a new series titled, "Green Acres". That series was about a farmer and his wife who had a farm that was also located outside of Hooterville. For three seasons, characters from both series regularly guest-starred on each other's shows!

The train that connected Petticoat Junction was an "antique" steam engine type called the Hooterville Cannonball. Many of the shots of the Cannonball on the show were really just a plastic shell of the exterior. A real train in Sonora, California was used as the model and when the train was actually moving, those were shots of the real train. The fake one only had one set of wheels that would have to be moved from the engine to the passenger and baggage cars depending on which one was in the scene!

The dog on Petticoat Junction was never called by his name. They simply called him "Dog". In real-life, the dog's name was "Higgins". You might remember him better from his final acting role as the star of the 1974 movie, "Benji". Ironically, that was also the final acting role for Edgar Buchanan who played Uncle Joe on Petticoat Junction!

The creator of Petticoat Junction, "Paul Henning", got the idea for the series from stories his wife told him about summer vacations she had spent at a small hotel situated near a train station in Eldon, Missouri.

Paul Henning interviewed more than 1,500 young women for the roles as Kate Bradley's three daughters! Bea Benaderet urged him to pick one actress in particular and he gladly took her advice since it was his real-life daughter, Linda Henning. Linda was the only one of the three original girls to stay with the series until it final episode. In fact, the only other Cast who remained for the entire run were Edgar Buchanan (Uncle Joe) and Frank Cady (Sam Drucker).

In November of 1967, the characters Betty Jo and Steve Elliot were married on Petticoat Junction. Ten months later, Linda Henning (who played Betty Jo) and Mike Minor (who played Steve Elliot) were married again, but this time in real-life!

Frank Cady appeared as Sam Drucker on "Petticoat Junction", "Green Acres", and "The Beverly Hillbillies" simultaneously! No other actor has ever done that on three sitcoms at the same time!

A petticoat is an undergarment that women wore in order to add fullness to a skirt. In the opening sequence of Petticoat Junction we saw the three girls' petticoats hanging over the side of the watertank that provided water for the Hooterville cannonball. They were hanging there because the girls were obviously bathing in the water tank. That's where the series got the first word in its title. The second word, "Junction" is presumed to refer to the fact that the Shady Rest Hotel was located at the junction of two rail lines, although only the one to Hooterville was ever mentioned on the show.