Are Ozarks Folks Hillbillies or Just like You?

Think "hillbilly" and Jed Clampett, the Beverly Hills millionaire who found oil in his Ozark home comes to mind. His old, worn clothing, floppy hat, and hound dog (Duke) are classic hillbilly motif. So is feisty little Granny, Jed's mother-in-law, the big but dumb (he graduated the eighth grade) nephew Jethro Bodine and lovely, clueless, animal loving Elly May. If "Bevery Hillbillies" isn't the inspiration for most Americans views of what folks from the Ozarks are like, then they might think about the old comic strip "Snuffy Smith" or Al Capp's "Dogpatch", a long running fictional strip featuring the likes of Lil'Abner and Daisy Mae, two characters all too similiar to Jethro and Elly Mae.

Americans who have traveled to Branson, Missouri, a vacation hot spot hidden away in the Ozark Mountains of Southern Missouri, may think the hillbilly shtick comedy that is rampant in the small town is the reality. After all, theme park Silver Dollar City has made money for almost forty years with their brand of down home hillbilly humor and country themed fun.

Branson is infamous for joke outhouses, funny hillbilly teeth, postcards that portray ragged hill families in overalls and cotton dresses circa about 1930, and shows with hillbilly comedians who talk with a twang. The inherent ignorance in the hill folk is spoofed again and again throughout Branson although in more recent years, Las Vegas style shows and major attractions like the Titanic musuem have brought outside culture to "them, thar hills".

Even the Shepherd of the Hills park plays on the hillbillies of yesteryear, the characters first portrayed in Harold Bell Wright's 1906 best selling novel, "Shepherd of the Hills". Visitors tour "Old Matt's Cabin" and other sites within the farm with a tour guide who plays up hillbilly history and leaves the reality wanting.