CBS looks to Kentucky for its 'hillbillies': Casting agents for new show looking in W.Va. as well

PIKEVILLE, Ky. - WANTED: Extended family from deep in theAppalachian backwoods, unfamiliar with big-city life. Must be willingto load up the truck and move to Beverly. Hills, that is.

Casting agents from the CBS reality series "The Real BeverlyHillbillies" plan to hold open auditions in eastern Kentucky nextmonth as part of an effort across the rural South to find real-lifecounterparts of the fictional Clampett clan.

"We're looking for people who have country smarts, but maybe notso much sophistication," said casting agent Ken Billings, who has putPikeville, Hazard and Harlan among the possible audition locales.

But don't expect a Clampett-like welcome, even in a regioncomfortable enough with its heritage to stage an annual HillbillyDays Festival.

Pure, bubblin' crude is what some locals already think of theshow's premise, which takes simple mountain folk, drops them into aluxurious mansion and lets the cameras roll.

"They're just going to be relying on a tired, old, worn-outstereotype about life in the rural South," said Ewell Balltrip, headof the Kentucky Appalachian Commission. "The result will be toperpetuate this myth of the 'Beverly Hillbillies' image, which is notrepresentative at all today."

E-mail petitions seeking to block the show are circulating andteachers at some schools in the mountain region are having theirstudents write protest letters to CBS.

"Don't represent us as stupid," pleaded Susie Davis, president ofthe Kentucky Black Lung Association, which helps coal miners applyfor government benefits. "The mountain people are very smart people.They're proud people. They're good neighbors. Don't make us out to besomething we're not."

Casting agent Billings said the reality series could be aneffective way to dispel old stereotypes. CBS has said it would focusits search primarily in the rural hills of Arkansas, West Virginia,North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky.

"We want to find families that are interesting, and also smart,"he said. "We're not looking for the Hollywood stereotype of ahillbilly. We don't want people who are barefoot and toothless. We'rejust looking for a family that loves each other, and that Americawill fall in love with."

Hazard Mayor Bill Gorman, for one, isn't buying it. He has afeeling he knows what the show really wants. "What they're lookingfor is somebody who is uniquely dumb."

Nor are officials in Arkansas especially pleased. State economicdirector Jim Pickens last month complained the show "wouldn't helpthe image" of Arkansas in the business world.

The original "Beverly Hillbillies," about a poor mountaineer whobecame rich when he struck oil on his mountain property, ran from1962 until 1971. At one time, it was television's No. 1 program,attracting up to 60 million viewers weekly.

Balltrip said sitcoms like "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "GreenAcres" - also the premise for a new reality show from Fox - didnothing but make a mockery of life in the rural South and Appalachia.

"I know that there will be people who will think we are especiallysensitive," he said. "The type of images I feel will be portrayedwill not do anything to attract industry to this region. Peoplesimply do not invest in the economies of backwoods places."

For the "Green Acres" reality show, producers are looking for arich family willing to move from the big city to the boondocks.

Some here said television producers may be disappointed to findout that people in the hills of Appalachia like to go at malls, surfthe Internet and play video games just like everyone else.

"I don't think anybody from Appalachia would have any troubleliving in California," said Pikeville city manager Kenny Blackburn."I'm sure there are plenty of people from eastern Kentucky living outthere now."