Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Swimmin' pools...movie stars...

Max Baer, Jr. is at it again.

The one-time actor, best known as the musclebound bumpkin Jethro Clampett on the 1960s TV comedy The Beverly Hillbillies, is still trying to build his long-planned — if not especially eagerly-awaited — northern Nevada hotel and casino with a Beverly Hillbillies theme.

Baer originally wanted to erect his masterpiece, complete with a 200-foot-tall fire-belching oil derrick, right on the main drag in Reno, on the current site of a shopping mall. The Reno city fathers repeatedly told him to take his cement pond and his possum pie and not let the screen door smack him on the rump on the way out of town.

After years of wrangling with the Reno authorities without success, the erstwhile Jethro bought an old Wal-Mart store in Carson City as the site for his dream castle. This week, a judge put the kibosh on the project, ruling that local zoning restrictions prohibit places of recreation or amusement on the property.

Memo to Jethro:

Pardon my asking, but...does anyone except you still care about The Beverly Hillbillies? That chapter closed 30-plus years ago, man. Time to move on. Nothing to see here.

Perhaps instead of trying to build a casino in Nevada, where your sterling contributions to American popular culture are apparently not appreciated, you should consider opening your hillbilly house in Branson, Missouri. That crowd may just be more your speed.

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