The Clampetts Strike Oil (1962)

Episode 1 of The Beverly Hillbillies · The Beverly Hillbillies: Getting Settled

Ralph Levy, Paul Henning · 1962 · 32 min

The pilot, and the fastest premise in sitcom history: Jed shoots at a rabbit, hits oil, and twenty-five million dollars moves the whole family to Beverly Hills. Paul Henning wrote it, Ralph Levy directed, and the show is fully formed from the first reel — which is why it was the number one programme in America inside a month.

Chosen print: Archive.org item thebeverlyhillbilliestheclampettsstrikeoilhq — The Beverly Hillbillies - The Clampetts Strike Oil HQ.mkv, 1333 MB · 32 min.

A note on this print. It runs about 32 minutes against the 25 or 26 the series normally ran, and appears to be an unedited copy of the pilot rather than the broadcast cut. It is by some distance the best-quality copy available, which is why it is the one here; shorter prints of the same episode exist if the longer cut turns out to be wrong.

One torrent per episode, with the Archive.org item as a BEP 19 webseed alongside our seedbox and tracker. Not yet fetched, hashed or watched: the print report is completed when the file is downloaded and verified against Archive.org's published size and checksum.

Public domain: registered as published, never renewed. Filmways TV Productions, Inc. registered this episode with the Copyright Office as a published motion picture, in association with the CBS Television Network. That is the fact that matters most — a series that was only broadcast and syndicated was never published, never needed renewing, and would still be protected today. The registration reads: The Clampetts strike oil. © 26Sep62; LP25377.

No renewal was filed in the 28th year. The check is not a search for this episode's title, which can be spelled differently on the record than on air; it is a sweep of the Copyright Office's post-1978 records for the claimant's own filings, which returns a single batch of episode renewals filed on 18 February 1992 covering only the last seventeen episodes of season two. Everything this series copyrighted in 1962 and 1963 lapsed; everything dated 1964 was renewed. This episode is on the clear side of that seam. Underneath, the teleplay is original and no renewal surfaced under any credited writer.

The music did not lapse, and it ships with the episode. Hen-Ten Corporation, as employer for hire of Paul Henning, renewed nine compositions used by this series and they remain in copyright: The Ballad of Jed Clampett in three registrations (RE0000491061 and RE0000491062, both 17 May 1990, and RE0000497563, 20 November 1990), and — jointly with Filmways TV Productions where noted — Sentimental Soliloquy (RE0000491063), Ozark Theme (RE0000491064), Drive Them Horses, Ben, Ben! (RE0000491065), Elly May (RE0000491066), Miss Hathaway (RE0000491067) and Pearl, Pearl, Pearl (RE0000491068), all filed 17 May 1990. Four of those are score cues that play inside episodes rather than over the titles. We do not alter prints — the public-domain labels that reissue this series replace the theme with library music, and we would rather name what is here than quietly swap it out.