6 things you never knew about the Green Acres theme song!

This catchy tune helped lighten the mood of astronauts and was nailed in one take by a certain star.

We could argue all day over what the greatest TV theme song is. That is the beauty of classic television. But we will insist that Green Acres is part of the conversation. We're not alone in that thinking. Another TV legend has our back — but more on that later.

So let's take a deep dive into this sing-along theme song. Sure, it's hooky, but it's also important. See for yourself.

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1. It was the first theme song sung by leading actors.

 

From the Fresh Prince to Lee Majors crooning about "The Last Stuntman," it has become quite common for stars of a series to sing the theme song. The Brady Bunch and Archie Bunker did it. But Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor were the groundbreaking duo to do it first.

2. The untrained Eva Gabor nailed her part in the first take.

 

Deciding to have the actor sing was a stroke of genius. There was one hitch — Eva Gabor was not a singer. Composer Vic Mizzy had to coach Gabor through her inging. Mizzy said he gave this note to Eva, "What you have to do is sing it like you're a high class, Park Avenue woman… sing it like you're a debutante or something.” Not a singer, Gabor was nervous when it came time to lay it down, but with Mizzy's advice, she managed to nail it in the first take! Yep, you're hearing her first attempt each time!

3. The credit sequence was constructed before the song was written.

 

The way it typically works is that a composer writes a theme song and then the producers cut together an opening credits sequence to the ditty. Green Acres flipped the process. Vic Mizzy first envisioned the credits and explained how they should be shot. "I started writing the thing backwards, and I said to [series creator] Jay Summers, can you get a helicopter to zoom in and on the side of the barn, it says Green Acres?" Mizzy recalled. "And I’ll calibrate it electronically. And I said could you photograph the store, have her opening up packages, the chores, when he’s pitching hay. Fresh air, Times Square. It cost money for that. He had to do set-ups for that. But he loved it." Once Mizzy had all the visuals in his mind, right down to the pitchfork clanking on the ground, he got down to writing the music you just heard him play and sing.

 

4. The song was used by NASA to cheer up astronauts following the Challenger disaster.

 

Following the horrific tragedy of the Challenger, NASA pressed forward with its third Space Shuttle, the Discovery. Astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan, the first American to walk in space, was part of the Discovery team in the late Eighties. In her memoir, Handprints on the Hubble, she wrote, "The fun part of my job was choosing the wakeup music…. After the pain and sadness of that awful day in January 1986 when Challenger went down… [i]t was important to me… to lift everyone's spirits." Sullivan reached out to local radio guy named Mike Cahill, who wrote "funny space songs" set to popular songs. One of those comedic space songs was written to Vic Mizzy's Green Acres theme. The tune just makes people happy no matter what the situation — or where.

Image: Associated Press

5. Vic Mizzy also wrote the most popular anti-jaywalking song of all time.

 

Outside of the Green Acres theme, Vic Mizzy is best known for his snappy Addams Family theme. But the composer has a pop music career that spans decades, as he penned hits for Doris Day and the Andrews Sisters. But Sixties children of the New York area probably have his public service announcement stuck in their heads. Mizzy wrote "In the Middle, In the Middle, In the Middle," perhaps the catchiest anti-jaywalking tune in history. The quirky pop act They Might Be Giants covered it on their hit children's album.

6. The creator of the Simpsons thinks it's the greatest. Well, almost.

 

In a 2007 issue of Spin magazine, Simpsons creator Matt Groening reflected on his biggest influences and favorite pieces of media. "Outside of The Simpsons… I think the greatest TV theme song of all time has got to be The Jetsons," he admitted. "Vic Mizzy's Green Acres theme follows right behind." That's okay, Matt, we can live with that. The Jetsons are on MeTV, too.

Image: The Everett Collection

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86 Comments

DickTater 7 months ago
I have a question for someone that might have an answer to something that has bothered me for decades about the Green Acres opening theme. This might seem to contradict what has been written about Eva Gabor's singing part. I've always wondered why there are two versions. Though this article states that Miss Gabor got it down in one take, there in an alternate version where her intonation is slightly different than the other. Specifically the line, "I just adore the penthouse view"...I don't know in what order each were presented. Has anyone else noticed this difference and why it exists?
Curt 27 months ago
Somehow, until very recently, it never clicked that Eddie Albert sang the male part. It was obvious that Eva did the female part, but it never occurred to me that he sang the other half. It only dawned on me when I saw that he'd replaced Robert Preston as The Music Man on stage, because THAT took talent.
JamesDean59 27 months ago
Best theme song for me; Hawaii Five-O
And the special nano-second clip of the hula dancing, of course.
gproberts 39 months ago
I think Eddie Albert & Eva Gabor did a
marvelous job singing the theme song for Green Acres. One take. Wow!
JeffPaul76 44 months ago
''Composer Vic Mizzy had to coach Gabor through her inging?'' Inging? Really? You mean singing of course.
Mukusthebadd1 45 months ago
Why the brackets around a single letter in a word? And you at Metv need to fire your dork editor!
Oh, and it's SINGLE, not INGLE!
Bucky65 46 months ago
In reference to the Hawaii 5-0 song. I believe it was done by the Ventures and Max Weinberg and Peter Frampton at times played with them.
RedSamRackham Bucky65 29 months ago
https://youtu.be/wn06KJNbVEs
WhiteRook 46 months ago
For my money The Greatest American Hero is the best theme song hands down.
babyboomer56 WhiteRook 29 months ago
Believe it or not.
boogerdogger 46 months ago
When I was young, this show was a bit too 'corny' for me. Now, I LMAO watching on a regular basis.
The stories are still 'corny', but the writing and the delivery are classic. Especially Lisa's Old World expressions! Sadly though, most of the characters on this show bare a significant resemblance to my neighbors!!
Throttle8 46 months ago
And the Biggest movie that Mr. Oliver W. Douglas starred in with many other famous stars old and up coming was the WW2’s “The Longest Day”! ‘1962 “D-Day” Normandy Beach France 🇫🇷 Excellent movie!....”and a long one”!
RedSamRackham Throttle8 46 months ago
* He also did a great bizarre role as a colonel in Captain Newman MD ♣
Throttle8 RedSamRackham 46 months ago
Wow! That must’ve been before my time!
Wiseguy Throttle8 46 months ago
Too hard to type "Eddie Albert"?
Throttle8 Wiseguy 46 months ago
Here you go wise guy! “Eddie Albert”! Anything else you want to know “wise guy”???? 😱🤣😂😅👏
Throttle8 46 months ago
And “Frank Cady” aka Sam Drucker was also in “Rear Window”! The husband,wife with the dog that got let up & down in the basket that was supposedly killed by “Raymond Burr”! Then buried in the flower bed.
MarkSpeck Throttle8 27 months ago
Frank Cady appeared in a 1974 Hawaii Five-O episode, "Mother's Deadly Helper", in which he played a bleeding-heart judge who gets kidnapped by a psycho (Anthony Zerbe) who's killing criminals who get off on technicalities.
Throttle8 46 months ago
Speaking of the green achers has anyone who remembers Mr. Hanney “Pat Butraum” excuse me if I spelled his name wrong that he talks, sounds exactly like senator “John Kennedy”from Louisiana! 😂 LOL I swear they both sound alike! And Pat also made an appearance on the twilight zone this was of course a couple years before green achers was even heard of and on that skit senerio he had something to do with being on a farm and in a rain lightening storm from what I remember of course on a rerun over 20 some years ago mabe longer than that! Anyways a little more trivia!
FrankBusch Throttle8 46 months ago
Just today I saw an episode of Emergency from I think about 1974 and Pat Buttrum was in it. He played a hermit who lived in a cave and got stuck by avalanche and they had to rescue him.
Mike Throttle8 46 months ago
For the record:
Pat Buttram was never on Twilight Zone.
You're confusing him with Andy Devine, who got picked up by the flying saucer that time ...
MarkSpeck Mike 27 months ago
The previous poster may be thinking of Buttram's classic Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode "The Jar", which features a lot of characters that wouldn't be out of place in Green Acres.
MarkSpeck MarkSpeck 27 months ago
And now that I think of it, Buttram did a second episode of the Hitchcock Hour entitled "Lonely Place", where he and his wife (Teresa Wright) hire a drifter (Bruce Dern) to work on their farm, but he turns out to be a creep who wants to rape the wife.
JHP 46 months ago
My fav character - its photo finish

Hank Kimball (am living with the female version of him:))
And then there's Haney..so good:)
Throttle8 JHP 46 months ago
He was also in “War of the Worlds”! ‘1953
UTZAAKE 46 months ago
Green Acres theme song overplayed by organists in National Hockey League arenas.
dbalius 46 months ago
Ed White was the first American to walk in space during the Gemini missions. Kathryn Sullivan was the first American woman to do so. Astronaut White was one of the men who later died tragically in a ground-based test of Apollo 1.
Throttle8 dbalius 46 months ago
White, chaffe and grisim was an electrical / Oxegen fire in the capsule and unfortunately all 3 parished!
JeffPaul76 Throttle8 44 months ago
WOW!!! Your spelling is TERRIBLE!! You SHOULD take a remedial spelling course!
Throttle8 JeffPaul76 44 months ago
Mabe you should try to grow some hair! Have a nice day! 😉
justjeff Throttle8 32 months ago
He could always buy a toupee, but your spelling will still be as terrible as your reply...
Throttle8 46 months ago
I grew up a little kid watching the green achers citcom but don’t know if to many people also know that from time to time they the producers would intermix green achers with another favorite oldie “petticoat junction”! Usually with the Sam drucker general store scene! Anyways me TV just brings back a lotta childhood memories in front of the old analog TV set! Thanks Me TV! Sincerely M. Carlson.😉👍
The BH cast and GA cast also came together. One of the PJ Thanksgiving episodes, shows the Douglas' and the Clampetts sitting around with the Bradley's at the Bradley's table, praying, before breaking bread together.
Your right! Forgot about that one!
Wiseguy Throttle8 46 months ago
Although Frank Cady started as a special guest star from Petticoat Junction, the producers realized it would be cheaper just to have him listed as a regular so they did just that. Cady didn't like the loss of money that resulted but there was nothing he could do, he was now a regular on two series.
That one I don’t remember? I’m sure your right just never saw that one
You mean "the Douglases and the Clampetts sitting around with the Bradleys," all plurals, no apostrophes. And I believe the episode you're referring to was on the Beverly Hillbillies.
ncadams27 46 months ago
Near the end, when Oliver reaches out to Lisa he uses his left hand - but when you see Lisa in the next shot, he is reaching in with his right hand. Of course you could also argue that he was in Hooterville and she was in New York.
Throttle8 ncadams27 46 months ago
😂😅👏👍
Fred_Clampett ncadams27 8 months ago
Most likely a continuity error, but it's possible that someone's trying to show NYC and Hooterville as being completely backwards from each other.
gene 46 months ago
i like the cartoons in the morning, i would like to see more cartoons and less chatter from bill and company
DickTater gene 7 months ago
I can't stand Toonie or the dude that provides the voice for it. I'm fairly okay with Bill as long as he talks about the cartoon that about to be shown. Those skits gotta go. They're geared towards kids which may be inappropriate considering they present some famously controversial cartoons in their uncensored versions. Those are the cartoons of my childhood and many others of my generation. Sooner or later, one demographic will have to be favored over the other. Okay, I'll shut up. In short, I agree with your post.
Jeffrey 46 months ago
You're right, I didn't know those things about the Green Acres Theme song. Except they both got it right or nailed it on the first try.
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