Petticoat Junction: Season 06 (1968)

Although Bea Benaderet is still billed as the star of the first few episodes of Petticoat Junction's sixth season, it was purely a gesture of kindness and sentiment on the part of producer Paul Henning. Everyone in the cast knew that Benaderet was mortally ill with cancer, but this tragic information was largely withheld from the public under the actress' death on October 13, 1968. Her last series "appearance" -- which consists of a telephone voice-over -- occurs in the episode "The Valley Has a Baby," in which Benaderet's character Kate Bradley offers best wishes to her daughter Betty Jo (Linda Kaye Henning) and son-in-law Steve Elliott (Mike Minor) when their first child, Kathy Jo Elliott, is born (the infant is played this season by unbilled twin babies Barbara and Heather Whiter).
With Benaderet's departure, Edgar Buchanan is elevated to top billing in the role of lazy Uncle Joe Carson, now forced by circumstances to take over ownership of Hooterville's Shady Rest Hotel. In hopes of replicating the warm rapport between Benaderet and Buchanan, the producers introduce a new, strong-willed female character, Dr. Janet Davis (June Lockhart), in the episode "The Lady Doctor." Not unexpectedly, Janet has a tough time winning over the chauvinist males of Hooterville -- especially Uncle Joe -- but the three Bradley daughters take to Janet as if she were their surrogate mother (which, in a sense, she is!). Although Bea Benaderet's death unavoidably casts a pall over Petticoat Junction's sixth season, there are a number of very worthwhile episodes. Irene Ryan crosses over from The Beverly Hillbillies in her familiar Granny role in two chucklesome outings, "The Valley Has a Baby" and "A Cake From Granny" (which also features another Hillbillies regular, Nancy Kulp as Jane Hathaway). Veteran film favorites Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen appear as themselves in an amusing episode wherein the two actors attend Hooterville's long-overdue premiere of their silent starring feature film Wings. And in "Billie Jo and the Big Big Star," guest star Rich Little delivers dead-on impressions of Petticoat Junction regulars Edgar Buchanan and Byron Foulger (introduced this season in the role of timorous train conductor Wendell Gibbs). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi