The BEST episodes of Green Acres season 3
Every episode of Green Acres season 3, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Green Acres season 3!
A New York attorney and his wife try to live as genteel farmers in the bizarre community of Hooterville.
#1 - A Star Named Arnold is Born (1)
Season 3 - Episode 29 - Aired 4/3/1968
Arnold's performance as a British police dog in the Hooterville theater production of Who--the marquee wasn't big enough for Who Killed Jock Robin?--turns him into an overnight star. Lisa is so impressed, she arranges for an old friend to give him a Hollywood screen test. The Douglases are soon Tinseltown bound, escorting the hammy actor west for his big showbiz break.
#2 - My Mother the Countess
Season 3 - Episode 22 - Aired 2/14/1968
On learning that Lisa's mother is coming for a visit, the Hooterville residents go overboard in wanting to welcome the countess. Despite Oliver's protests that she's not royalty, they forge ahead anyway with plans for a parade and marching band.
#3 - Love Comes to Arnold Ziffel
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/20/1967
Fred Ziffel objects to Arnold's love affair with Haney's "basket" hound Cynthia. Realizing that their relationship can never work, Arnold breaks things off. When Cynthia performs miserably at the county field trials, Haney wants to sue over his heartbroken hound.
#4 - Lisa's Jam Session
Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/13/1967
Drucker's store doesn't stock jam since all the Hooterville women make their own. Oliver encourages Lisa to learn how to make preserves from Doris Ziffel since hers are the best in the valley. Lisa learns her trick, but it doesn't stay secret for long.
#5 - How to Succeed in Television Without Really Trying
Season 3 - Episode 19 - Aired 1/24/1968
Boy genius Dilly Watkins improves farm life for Douglases with his new electronic inventions. Besides the barn door opener that works when Eleanor moos at it, there's the television camera that sends pictures of the cow to the bedroom set. Oliver doesn't realize the camera is transmitting to all the sets in the valley, turning him into an overnight Nielsen sensation.
#6 - Not Guilty
Season 3 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/3/1968
Sam Drucker calls the law when he discover $300 is missing from his safe. With the investigation pointing only to Frank Nitti, Eb is finally charged when he shows up in a car he paid $300 for and can't recall who gave him the money to buy it.
#7 - Alf and Ralph Break Up
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/13/1967
Alf and Ralph announce that they are FINALLY going to finish the bedroom for Lisa and Oliver, but when a fight breaks out between brother and sister, Ralph comes to stay with the Douglas's and since Ralph refuses to work on the bedroom because it reminds her of Alf, Lisa hires her as the maid, but when Oliver realizes she's a good cook he has trouble letting go of her, Alf eventually comes and apologizes and the two go home, Oliver then realizes that Lisa is a good plasterer and goes into the bedroom with Oliver.
#8 - Eb Elopes
Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 10/25/1967
The Douglases find a note from Eb saying he's eloped. While he's on his honeymoon, his cousin Walter will cover his duties. Unfortunately, Walter's experience is limited to bartening at the old Stankwell Falls Lounge. This leads to more destruction than usual on the farm and everyone thinking Oliver's opening a cocktail lounge.
#9 - Eb Returns
Season 3 - Episode 16 - Aired 12/27/1967
Eb is embarassed to tell the Douglases that he was stood up at the altar and took his honeymoon trip alone. He begs an old girlfriend, Cynthia, to pose as his new bride just long enough to meet his "parents". She agrees if it won't take long since she has a big date to get ready for.
#10 - The Rutabaga Story
Season 3 - Episode 27 - Aired 3/20/1968
It's planting season in Hooterville, but Oliver doesn't know what to plant...the other farmers aren't in the mood for planting this year because they lost so much money from their crops last year. After many thoughts...Oliver discovers that the land in Hooterville is perfect to plant rutabagas. With that, Lisa gets everyone into the spirit of the new "Rutabaga Bowl". She even is sent up in a hot air balloon, to send out rutabagas across the country that says "Eat Hooterville Rutabagas."
#11 - Flight to Nowhere
Season 3 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/7/1968
The farmers of Hooterville are offered a good deal on a government chartered trip to Europe as part of an agriculture exchange program. Everyone except Oliver misunderstands the cost of the trip. Of course, the wives want to go on the trip, too.
#12 - The Man For the Job
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/6/1967
The state committee to nominate a new senator considers Oliver as their candidate. Upon hearing about his credentials (he can read and write), they send representatives to Hooterville to meet the man and learn what his neighbors think of him.
#13 - Oliver vs. the Phone Company
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/27/1967
It all begins when the driveshaft comes apart on Oliver's tractor. He decides to phone the company (his phone sits atop a telephone pole) to have a replacement part shipped to him, but can't get through because the operator is not available - she's at home cooking a rump roast. Eb mans the antiquated switchboard, but is only able to play recordings explaining the operator's absence. At Drucker's General Store, Oliver discovers that everyone has come to tolerate the operator's frequent absences. Oliver's blood pressure rises a few more notches when he can't use Drucker's two-piece telephone, which sits below the counter (whose very short cord is too long, per the phone company's constitution). The final straw comes when Mr. Trendell, the phone company CEO, refuses to reason with Oliver, viewing his grievances as mere complaints from an unhappy subscriber. Frustrated with the outdated equipment, frequently absent operator and the phone company's notoriously poor customer service, Oliver
#14 - Jealousy, English Style
Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/22/1967
Over Lisa's objections, Oliver plans on attending a farm symposium alone. To watch over her, he hires a charming young British man as a temporary farm hand. Determined to go along, Lisa plots to make Oliver so jealous of the handsome help that he wouldn't dare leave her behind.
#15 - Instant Family
Season 3 - Episode 28 - Aired 3/27/1968
At Sam Drucker's store, Oliver and Lisa meet their new neighbor, who is also expecting. She decides it's time, so Oliver offers to drive her to the hospital. Once back home, Lisa had already offered to "sit" with her other 4 children...and Eb. Oliver doesn't mind at first, but quickly changes his mind after the kids break dishes, run amuk in the house, and when he is forced to sleep in living with the boys, while Lisa, Ralph, and the other girls sleep in the bedroom. Things are even worse when Oliver finds himself drive each kid to school at a different time, then having to turn right around and pick them up a different times. Later that night, it's a wild goose chase at the drive in as each kid ends up getting lost. The day they finally have to go home, they end up staying longer after one of them catches the measels from Ralph.
#16 - Arnold Ziffel, Boy Hero
Season 3 - Episode 20 - Aired 1/31/1968
Arnold tries to open a bank account, so he can save enough money for a new color TV set. While at the Pixley Bank, two robbers come in and rob it, and Arnold's $5. While the two flee, they decide to hold up in the Douglas' place. Once inside, Lisa finds their picture on the newspaper, and she is taken hostage. Oliver comes home, and he is held hostage. Arnold steals their bag, and takes it to the police, while the crooks force Lisa to make hotcakes. Eb is later captured, and as the robbers leave to take Oliver's car, the police arrive and arrest them.
#17 - The Thing
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/1/1967
Oliver is tired of paying storage for something neither he or Lisa can recall, so he has it shipped to Hooterville. Inside a giant crate is a genuine Stavinski birdbath that Lisa had bought years earlier for Oliver's birthday. The hideous collection of pipes and faucets leads Oliver to plot "the thing's" demise.
#18 - No Trespassing
Season 3 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/20/1967
Oliver's crabby attitude leads everyone think he's about to snap from overwork. To help him relax, Lisa takes him on a picnic by the lake. That's where he runs into gun-totin' Ira Hatch, who hassles him about trespassing on his property. When he tells the locals about the old man, they declare Haney the winner of the "Oliver Douglas crack-up pool" because Ira had died 20 years earlier.
#19 - Oliver Takes Over the Phone Company
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/4/1967
Oliver's without an operator on his first day as president of the Hooterville Phone Company. As he wrestles with an exploding switchboard, the locals gossip about how he stole the company from Roy Trendell in a rigged card game. Lisa figures out how to put calls through, but had rather flirt with the president than work the switchboard all night.
#20 - The Spring Festival
Season 3 - Episode 23 - Aired 2/21/1968
Everyone in Hooterville, except Oliver, is overcome with spring fever; even Sam Drucker is wearing his spring toupee. Deciding to revive the Hooterville spring festival, Lisa visits the neighbors to drum up support. Meanwhile, Oliver tries to do his planting with Eb who can't understand how to work the automatic planter.
#21 - The Hungarian Curse
Season 3 - Episode 26 - Aired 3/13/1968
The man who saved the life of Lisa's uncle moves in on the Douglases seeking repayment for his good deed. Lisa feels an obligation to help Lazlo, but Oliver is simply irritated by his constant money-grubbing. Oliver's also unfazed by Lazlo's threats to cast a Hungarian curse on him.
#22 - Won't You Come Home, Arnold Ziffel?
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/15/1967
With Doris out of town, Fred has to look after Arnold all by him self, but when Arnold sees an advertisement for free movies, ice cream, he goes to Pixley, and Lisa comes to the conclusion that he has been kidnapped, so Mr. Kimball, Sam Drucker, and the rest go search for Arnold.
#23 - Our Son, the Barber
Season 3 - Episode 24 - Aired 2/28/1968
Eb's latest career choice is that of a barber. He talks Oliver into paying his tuition to MIT, a mail-order barber college. Eb's sent a dummy head and hair to practice on and receives his grades by mailing the trimmed toupees back to the school. Lisa is excited about Eb's education while Oliver is irratated by all the hidden costs he keeps being asked to pay.
#24 - Don't Count Your Tomatoes Before They're Picked
Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/18/1967
Oliver's reign as "El Presidente" of the phone company hits bottom when he hires a farm worker to be his operator. He pays Haney to take the business off his hands, but soon Hooterville is up in arms over the price-gouging Haney Phone Company.
#25 - Das Lumpin
Season 3 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/8/1967
Lisa tells another version of how she and Oliver met during World War II. As a member of the Hungarian underground, she saved him from Nazis by hiding him in a barn and earned him a Purple Heart by poking him in the rump with a pitchfork. They saw each other again after the war when Lisa was a professional cello player.