As part of Hollywood’s ambitious plan to remake everything that’s ever appeared on a TV screen, comic book, toy store shelf, or breakfast cereal aisle, Green Acres is following its fellow syndication mainstay Gilligan’s Island toward getting a big-screen adaptation. The beloved sitcom, which ran from 1965-1971, starred Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as New Yorkers who bought a farm in the fictional Midwestern burg of Hooterville, and had to deal with the ensuing culture shock. Albert played the straight man, who sincerely wanted to make a go of farming, while Gabor was the fish-out-of-water, who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) adjust her Park Avenue lifestyle to accommodate the barnyard. The show was beloved for its colorful cast of supporting characters—including Arnold, an absurdly intelligent pig whom Albert and Gabor’s neighbors treated as their son.
Producers are still shopping around for a writer and director for Green Acres, so there’s obviously no movement yet on the cast. But actors who believe that New York is where they’d rather stay may have an option, as original series director Richard L. Bare—who owns the rights to the series—is also shopping Acres as a Broadway show.
As it’s nearly inevitable that a Broadway adaptation would take the form of a musical, one can only hope that late-’80s college-radio favorites Elvis Hitler could reunite for their take on the show’s iconic theme song, “Green Haze.”
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