A nouveau-riche hillbilly family moves to Beverly Hills and shakes up the privileged society with their hayseed ways.
Cast:Buddy Ebsen , Donna Douglas , Irene Ryan , Max Baer Jr. , Raymond Bailey , Nancy Kulp , Harriet E. MacGibbon , Judy the Chimpanzee , Bea Benaderet , Shug Fisher , Danielle Mardi , Linda Henning , Sharon Tate , Frank Wilcox , Elvia Allman , Roger Torrey , Larry Pennell , Frank Cady
Jed Clampett is told by a representative of an oil company that the swamp behind his shack is full of oil. (The oil company employee has been hauled in by Jed's daughter Elly May who asks whether she can keep him.) Later, Mr. Brewster, the head of the oil company, does a deal with Jed. Jed tells Cousin Pearl that he'll receive 25 to 100 of "some new kind of dollar." Pearl, thinking Jed has been "slickered", asks what kind of dollar he's talking about. "Million dollars," Granny, Jed's mother-in-law, replies. "Jed, you're a millionaire," Pearl says. "Yeah, that's what that Brewster fella said." Pearl convinces Jed to move to Beverly Hills, California (she pronounces it "Cal-i-forn-ee") and volunteers her son, Jethro, to drive Jed, Elly May and Granny there. Upon arriving, Granny complains the hills aren't that high. Jed says at least there are hills and "we'll be among our own kind of people." The Clampett clan mistakes their new home for a prison and the groundskeepers for prisoners. The Clampetts end up in jail, but Milburn Drysdale, their new banker, gets them freed. But, as Drysdale tries to take the Clampetts to their new mansion, the foursome flee, fearing they're going to prison.
The Clampetts begin to settle in their new home in Beverly Hills, California. They are having to adjust to things such as refrigerators (Granny remarks how a ham will require two days to thaw out), ovens and the "cement pond." Jed also is having to confront how his daughter Elly May is maturing. He tells her that he, in effect, raised her as a boy and should not have. Jethro also encounters a flamingo that he thinks is a chicken (which causes Jed to suspect Jethro has been sneaking drinks of moonshine). Meanwhile, Miss Hathaway, executive secretary to banker Milburn Drysdale, mistakes the Clampetts for "domestic" help. She thinks Granny is a cook and Elly a maid.
While Granny boils pool water for washing (due to the "lack of a pump") and Elly May gets a feminine make-over by Miss Hathaway, cousin Pearl is back at the cabin making eyes with the visiting oil man while he gives her a ride to the nearest phone.
Mr. Drysdale panics when Mrs. Drysdale comes back from Boston early, because she'll meet the Clampetts. He sets Miss Hathaway on a plan to get them to go to Palm Springs. Meanwhile, Grannie and Jed come to think Mrs. Drysdale is a drunk and make plans to cure her.
Grannie prepares her special mash to help cure Mrs. Drysdale of her drinking problem while Jed does as Mr. Drysdale suggests and buys stock: cows, goats, pigs, and chickens! Meanwhile, Mrs. Drysdale recovers from the shock of her first meeting with the Clampetts and is convinced she's imagining things.
Granny wants to go home because "folks is so unfriendly, no one has come to call." Jed convinces her that they should call on them, and they find that people welcome them and give them all manner of gifts when they show up on Halloween in their normal hillbilly clothes. Also, Jed works on getting Pearl to come visit while she's trying to get hitched to the oilman and find a young man for Jethrine.
Ellie May starts wearing dresses but takes it as an insult when someone says she looks like a city girl. Mr. Drysdale talks Jed into taking in his butler and upstairs girl in a plan to civilize the Clampetts, but they don't quite understand the idea of servants. Miss Hathaway takes Jethro bowling and begins to show an interest in him.
Jed enrolls Jethro at an exclusive Beverly Hills elementary school. Millicent Schuyler-Potts, the proprietor of the school, is aghast when Jed and Jethro show up, convinced this is part of some ghastly hoax. After Jed says that banker Milburn Drysdale is his neighbor, she calls the banker. It turns out that Drysdale's bank holds the mortgage on the school. Schulyer-Potts suddenly warms to the charms of the Clampetts, even if it means accepting Jethro as a fifth grader.
Mr. Drysdale convinces his self-absorbed stepson Sonny to date Elly May to Mrs. Drysdale's consternation, while Granny and Jed make preparations for Thanksgiving.
Sonny Drysdale decides he needs to be Pygmalion to Elly's Galatea and remake her from a hillbilly into a woman of society, while Granny uses love charms to heat up their relationship.
When Sonny Drysdale promises to give Elly May a ring, Granny thinks he's going to propose and becomes a matchmaker. Cousin Pearl can't stand the idea that Elly May will get married before Jethrine, so she sets to matchmaking Jethrine with Jasper Depew.
Granny and the rest of the Clampetts start a feud with the Drysdales since Sonny courted Elly May and then stood her up when granny suggested marriage.
Jed, Elly May, Jethro, and Granny take their first plane flight back home for Christmas to visit cousin Pearl, who is busy cooking up a feast to win Mr. Brewster's unwilling heart.
Back home for Christmas, Elly May bonds with her old animal friends, while Pearl plays the piano for the "new" movie in town (the silent version of Ben Hur) to impress Mr. Brewster.
Since Mr. Brewster doesn't want to get married, but since the whole county knows that Cousin Pearl had her hat set for him, Jed comes up with a plan for her to save face by having Mr. Brewster proposed in public and then have her turn him down. Jed didn't count on Mr. Brewster's background in the theater and him making a huge production out of it.
The Clampetts pack up to return to Beverly Hills, so Jethrine tries to pack Jazzbo Depew. Elly says goodbye to her animals. Back in Beverly Hills, Miss Hathaway dresses the vamp to meet Jethro at the airport, and once home the feuding starts between Grannie and Pearl over who's running Grannie's kitchen.
Granny and Cousin Pearl are at each other's throats over who's going to take care of cooking and the house, so Jed has to find ways to keep them apart.
Mrs. Drysdale leaves for a health farm, saying Mr. Drysdale is "going to have a new wife," while Mr. Drysdale tells Cousin Pearl he'd like her to keep his house. However, the Clampetts think he's wanting to marry Pearl, so Jed comes up with a plan to "save" the Drysdale's marriage.
When Pearl starts selling music lessons, Mrs. Drysdale complains about the noise to the police. Mrs. Drysdale also calls the dog catcher on Duke.
Flatt and Scruggs and their wives come to visit their old sweetheart, but Pearl thinks they're there to propose. Jed throws a wingding for them and the duo play music for the Clampetts.
Granny can't stand Pearl's yodeling so she reports her to the police. When one of the officers takes Pearl out, Granny thinks she got Pearl in trouble and becomes sad and contrite. Meanwhile, the police find her still, and new trouble results.
Jed and his dog Duke are both feeling down without a woman in their lives, until they see and pursue a French woman and her poodle that she brought to breed with Mrs. Drysdale's dog. Meanwhile, Mrs. Drysdale has arranged a "marriage" between the dogs, complete with a decorated bedroom.
Henry Jones shows up at the Clampett's, pretends to be an old friend and tries to sell the family the Hollywood Bowl, Griffith Park, and the freeway.
Drysdale hires Jed to be a banker when he needs a crack shot to help beat a rival banker in a skeet shooting competition, but his partner needs to be an employee.
Mrs. Drysdale wants to get rid of the Clampetts before the arrival of Mrs. Smith-Standish, the head of a 'first family' historical society. But Mrs. Smith-Standish goes to the Clampett's home first, and becomes enchanted with their antiques and way of life, even roping the horrified Mrs. Drysdale into helping do the chores the old-fashioned way.
Mrs. Drysdale continues to be forced into doing "practices from the past" by Mrs. Smith-Standish, who discovers that Jed's family is possibly the first to come the country. If so they'd be famous worldwide, but does Jed want that?
Miss Hathaway's brilliant-but-frumpy bank protegee Gloria is really a sultry gold-digger with eyes for Jed's $34 million, and Jed's just had his annual dose of Granny's spring tonic.
When an IRS agent gets chased away by Granny, Mr. Drysdale tells him the story of how the Clampetts came to be rich and move to Beverly Hills.
Jed and Jethro go golfing with Leo Durocher, coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who wants to recruit Jethro as a pitcher when he sees how well he can throw.
Mlle. Denise comes back for the birth of her dog's puppies, and to see Jed. They do some "courtin' and sparkin'" Mrs. Drysdale isn't nearly so happy when she finds the puppies share more in common with Duke the bloodhound than Claude the poodle.
Jed arranges a party to get Grannie out of her doldrums and invites the Drysdale. But when Mr. Drysdale's boss comes and wants to meet them for dinner, he wonders if he's going to be sent to an Alaskan bank when his boss finds out he's been lying about Jed and his family being sophisticated.
When a couple who ran into the Clampett's car discover that they're rich, they fake injuries and sue the Clampetts.
Jethro needs a health certificate to graduate from the fifth grade, so he goes to the only doctor the Clampetts know about: Mrs. Drysdale's psychiatrist. He gets nowhere with Jethro, so Pearl comes, and she thinks he is testing her virtue when he invites her to lie on his couch.
Jethro finally gets his bill of health from Dr. Twombly so he can graduate the fifth grade, but Twombly really wants to talk to Granny again. Drysdale brings him to the Clampetts' just as Granny shows Pearl how to use a love potion, so everyone thinks Twombly's interest in Granny is love.
When Miss Hathaway gets sick and Mr. Drysdale has to speak at a conference, Jed helps out by running the bank and having Elly be his secretary, while Jethro finds a speech that Drysdale accidentally uses instead of his own. All the while a new teller sucks-up to the men and flirts with the women.
Jethro brings home a friend, Armstrong Dueser McHugh III, who is coddled by a chauffeur who treats him as frail. The Clampetts know better, and show him a good time, friendship and family.