Wait—a ghost story on ‘Green Acres’?

“She said she’d come back someday and haunt anybody who ever mentioned her name…”

The 1960s sitcom Green Acres featured a New York lawyer who moves with his wife to a rural home that he loves—and she hates. The show focused on the collision of husband Oliver’s dreams of small-town life with wife Lisa’s sophisticated ways.

Although the show dealt primarily with normal life—granted, shown at a bizarre angle—one Halloween episode (season one, episode 26) embraced the supernatural and focused on a ghost haunting Hooterville. The episode, “The Ballad of Molly Turgiss,” finds Oliver wanting to write a folk song about local history. His field hand suggests the story of Molly Turgiss—however, every time you say her name, she breaks something in the room.

Turns out that in life, she was run out of town for the way she looked. Now, her unhappy spirit creates problems for anyone mentioning her name.

But Lisa has an answer—she will offer the ghost a makeover. Thus, Oliver can perform his folk song about the ghost in peace. (Well, for the most part.)

Watch the video below for a segment from the episode…

Lisa Talks to a Ghost! | Green Acres

Inspired by the 1950 radio comedy Granby’s Green Acres, the TV sitcom Green Acres had good ratings. However, the show was cancelled in 1971 because CBS decided to get rid of its popular rural shows in order to reach out to an audience living in cities—who would presumably spend more money on advertisers. (That’s also what happened to Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction.)

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