The Butt-ram of Jokes

At the start of 1960, CBS was gamely hanging onto shreds of its radio network programming. A 7 to 8 p.m. comedy block was part of it. Of course, so was former cash-cow Arthur Godfrey in the mornings and evergreen soaps “Ma Perkins,” “The Romance of Helen Trent” and “Young Doctor Malone” in the afternoons. There was another 15-minute affair in the daytime, too, fronted by someone who was a perennial non-star—Pat Buttram.

Buttram was a side-kick, and proud of it. He founded with such sub-luminaries as Andy Devine and Ben Alexander a social club called “The Exalted Order of Sidekicks.” He was a wheezy con artist on “Green Acres” on television and played opposite Gene Autry and Champion in a string of B movies. But he came from radio. He was a hillbilly announcer on WSGN Birmingham and shoved into the national spotlight in October 1934 when he was signed to the staff of WLS Chicago and onto “The National Barn Dance.”

When Autry retired in the mid-‘50s, Buttram was signed by KNX, the CBS affiliate in Hollywood, to emcee a couple of shows that were picked up by the network. His twangy observation style of humour went over well with farm and city folks alike—he wasn’t a rube storyteller but used his wit on things suburbanites knew well.

Here are a couple of syndicated stories. The first appeared in newspapers around November 20, 1965 during the first season of “Green Acres.”

Pat Buttram Makes Another Comeback
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD (NEA) – As you may have noticed Pat Buttram is a very funny fellow with a fast line.
About his film career he says, "I've been in 200 pictures, many of them movies."
About Disneyland he once said, "It's the first people trap ever built by a mouse."
About his rich, one-time boss Gene Autry he has flipped, "He couldn't act and he couldn't sing—but he could ADD."
And about being seated at the dais one night at the Friars Club along with Jack Benny, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, George Burns and Gene Autry, he stood up and said, "I'm the only one here tonight I haven't heard of."
The latter remark, in a way, launched another comeback for Pat Buttram, a fellow who has made more comebacks than a yo-yo. The retirement of Gene Autry had left Pat jobless after 40 movies and 130 telefilms as Autry's sidekick.
By sidekick to Gene he explains:
"I was the fellow he would turn to and say, ‘Shoot low, Pat, they may be crawling.’"
Well, anyway, his appearance as master of ceremonies for a Friars dinner honoring Autry gave him another comeback as master of ceremonies on the banquet circuit. He has averaged two a week for the last five years, plus comedy spots on TV with Ed Sullivan and Arthur Godfrey.
"And now it's funny," he chuckled in his dressing room, "here I am playing another sidekick. But actually the role is more of a bucolic Bilko."
This season the Pat Buttram wit landed him the regular role of sharp Mr. Haney with Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor in the new CBS-TV comedy series "Green Acres." It also gave him another comeback.
As a country slicker there is larceny in Mr. Haney's heart and as Pat sees the role: "Whenever a country slicker out-slicks a city slicker you know it's a good part."
Pat's career goes way back to the old days of radio and the National Barn Dance. He did a regular comedy spot on the show for 13 years, and then went out of orbit until making a comeback in the Autry movies.
Even before the first TV ratings put Green Acres in the top 10 this season, Pat had what he calls "whiffs of the sweet smell of success."
After the first show, he explains, a fellow who once marketed Gene Autry songbooks telephoned Pat about making rodeo appearances and also wondered if he could get Eva to lend her name to a country style cook book.
"Those," grins Pat, "are whiffs of that sweet smell."

“Green Acres” was among the shows dumped in CBS’ rural purge in 1971; Buttram is the one credited with saying the network cancelled everything with a tree in it. That didn’t end his career. Animation fans know about his feature work for the Disney studio. There were other things, too. This article was published around July 20, 1972.

Pat Buttram spreads talent far and wide
By DON FREEMAN
Copley News Service
HOLLYWOOD — It was Pat Buttram, the noted rural philosopher, who once observed: "I'm proud to say that Hollywood has a heart. In Hollywood, if you need sympathy, love, affection, money or friendship, all you have to do is look in the Yellow Pages under pool halls."
Now Pat was saying that things really are tough in Hollywood, with the decline of movie-making and not enough TV jobs to go around. "There's nothing sadder," said Pat, "than an actress running out of money in the middle of a facelift."
I nodded sympathetically and Pat went on: "Why, this one actor I know in Hollywood, he's already spent the $1,000 he thought he'd get if McGovern were elected." Actually, Pat Buttram is no stranger to hard times. "Where I come from," says Pat, "the 'Beverly Hillbillies' show was considered a documentary."
Pat is from the rather small community of Addison, down in Alabama, where his father was a circuit-riding preacher and, he insists: "We were in poverty before it got fashionable."
Today, Pat visits the bank regularly and his career is still winging along — as a comedian, actor, writer, talk show guest, after-dinner speaker and master of ceremonies at show business gatherings and also, at present, emcee of shows at the Southern California Exposition.
For seven profitable years, Pat played in "Green Acres" as Mr. Haney, the country slicker, the rural con man. "Made a nice living as a second banana in a TV series," Pat said. "Should have done it a long time ago. I had a hankering to get into a series once but I took this fella's advice and turned it down. He's real smart, this fella. He's the one who told Eddie Fisher to sit tight until it all blows over...."

For all of his down home country manner, which goes well with his Alabama drawl, Pat Buttram won't sing any folk songs. "You know what a folk singer is," said Pat. "That's someone, who sings through his nose by ear. Which reminds me of a line about folk singers I just sent to Eddy Arnold. Goes like this: ‘A kid who never had to roll a car window down by hand can go out and sing about how tough the times are.’"
Pat writes for an assortment of people. Occasionally, he even sends lines to his old friend, Gov. Ronald Reagan, which might end up in a speech or two. "What I write for the governor are little observations," Pat said. "Like, for instance: ‘If a man holds you up with registered gun and you shoot him with a gun that isn't registered, you're in more trouble than he is.’"
Pat spreads his talents in all directions. Recently he turned out a baseball joke book which, he says, is selling at the rate of 300 a day in ballparks across the country. "I've got a line in the book I first said about the New York Mets when they were so bad. I said that the Mets play like a box of Kleenex — they're soft and gentle and they pop up one at a time."
"I mean, we've got some mighty strange laws. Why, you can see an X-rated movie, where they do everything on the screen, and they can't arrest you. But if you call a friend and tell her about how bad the movie is, they can arrest you for making an obscene phone call."
With his background of 17 years as a bearded sidekick Gene Autry, on movies and TV, and before that his 13 years as a comic on. radio's National Barn Dance out of Chicago, Pat finds himself at home writing for Ken (Festus) Curtis of "Gunsmoke" fame.
"Festus goes out on the real corny fair and rodeo circuit," Pat said. "I give him lines like, ‘Beauty is only skin deep but ugly goes clear to the bone.’ One thing about jokes for the rural circuit — you can go into the bathroom but you better stay outa the bedroom. They love outhouse humor but the only sex jokes they'll take are about cows and bulls."

Buttram had a chance for stardom on TV. We go back to January 1960, when he was still doing his CBS radio show. 20th-Fox signed Hal Kanter to create “Down Home” for him. It never got on the air. Regardless, he had a steady career and died in 1994.