99 Fun Facts About Hillbilly Trivia Questions and Answers

Historically, the word "hillbilly" has been applied to people of Appalachia and which other rural US upland region?

The Ozarks: TV's best-known hillbillies, the Clampetts, were Ozark mountaineers, a clan their creator based on his own camping trips in those hills.

In the Scottish origin story for "hillbilly", "billy" meant what?

Comrade: in Scots a 'billie' was a comrade or companion, and the theory joins it to the 'hill-folk', Covenanters who hid in the southern uplands to escape persecution.

An 1892 use of "hillbilly", among the earliest known in print, appeared in a journal for which industry's workers?

Railroads: in The Railroad Trainmen's Journal of July 1892 a worker grumbled that it wasn't right to hire 'some Hill Billy' and give him the same rights as an old hand.

A 1900 New York Journal definition called a "Hill-Billie" a free and untrammeled white citizen of which state?

Alabama: the April 1900 New York Journal defined a 'Hill-Billie' as 'a free and untrammelled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills' and 'fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him'.

Which country songwriter of the 1940s and 50s was nicknamed the "Hillbilly Shakespeare"?

Hank Williams: the 'Hillbilly Shakespeare' wrote 'Your Cheatin' Heart' and 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry', then died at 29 in the back seat of a car on the way to a concert.

The disputed Ulster origin story links "hillbilly" to Protestant supporters of which king?

William III: 'King Billy' of Orange won the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and the tale has his Ulster followers carrying the name to America, yet dictionaries find the word in print only from the late 1800s.

Which Chicago neighbourhood was nicknamed "Hillbilly Heaven" in the 1960s for its Appalachian migrants?

Uptown: its old mansions and large apartments had been cut up into small, cheap rooms, and that affordable housing is what drew the newcomers from the mountains.

Steve Earle's 1986 debut album, which included his song "Hillbilly Highway", was called what?

Guitar Town: Steve Earle's 1986 MCA debut album included 'Hillbilly Highway', a song that follows three generations of men leaving home to find work.

Which country star sang of Route 23 on his 1987 album Hillbilly Deluxe?

Dwight Yoakam: born in Pikeville and raised in Columbus, Ohio, he had made the trip himself, and his song turns the three Rs into reading, writing and Route 23.

Which pianist led the Hill Billies, the 1925 string band widely credited with giving "hillbilly music" its name?

Al Hopkins: in January 1925 his band told OKeh's recording director they were 'nothing but a bunch of hillbillies', were billed as the Hill Billies, and the label stuck to the genre until the 1950s.

Which OKeh Records recording director is credited with applying "hillbilly" to all Southern country music?

Ralph Peer: he always claimed to have given country music the name it wore until after World War II, and on one 1927 field trip he made the first records of both the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers.

Which Tennessee city has Congress recognized as the 'Birthplace of Country Music' for its 1927 recording sessions?

Bristol: Victor's July–August 1927 sessions on State Street in Bristol, Tennessee, produced the first Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers records, and Congress recognized the city as the Birthplace of Country Music in 1998.

Which Nashville station began broadcasting the Grand Ole Opry in 1925?

WSM: the call letters stand for 'We Shield Millions', the motto of the insurance company that owned the station, which launched its Saturday barn dance within weeks of signing on in 1925.

What was Elvis Presley called early in his career, when he was playing rockabilly?

The Hillbilly Cat: his first single in 1954 put a blues song on one side and a speeded-up bluegrass waltz on the other, the mix the billing was selling.

The "hillbilly" label for the genre faded after which trade organisation was founded in 1958?

Country Music Association: performers, disc jockeys and music executives formed it in Nashville because rock and roll was threatening country's record sales, and they set out to win the music more radio and TV exposure.

Blake Shelton's 2009 duet 'Hillbilly Bone' featured which country singer?

Trace Adkins: the duet insists that everybody, even a New York friend who has never heard of Conway Twitty, has a hillbilly bone deep down, and it topped the country chart in 2010.

What is Ivy League station WHRB's long-running weekly old-time and bluegrass show called?

Hillbilly at Harvard: the Ivy League station still uses the label the music industry dropped, and two Harvard graduates, Lynn Joiner and Brian Sinclair, hosted the show side by side from the 1970s until 2002.

Which brother duo recorded "Hillbilly Boogie" for King Records in the 1940s?

The Delmore Brothers: Alton and Rabon Delmore mixed blues and boogie into their harmonies at King, and their 'Freight Train Boogie' is regarded by some as the first rock and roll record.

Which country star's childhood in Butcher Hollow became the 1980 film Coal Miner's Daughter?

Loretta Lynn: she picked Sissy Spacek for the part from a photograph, and Spacek sang every Lynn hit in the film herself and won the Best Actress Oscar.

Bluegrass music takes its name from the band of which musician?

Bill Monroe: the 'Father of Bluegrass' named his band the Blue Grass Boys after his home state's nickname, and the style they forged ended up taking the band's name.

Which bluegrass duo performed "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" for The Beverly Hillbillies?

Flatt and Scruggs: Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs recorded 'The Ballad of Jed Clampett' in 1962; Jerry Scoggins sang the theme over the credits, backed by the pair, and the single topped Billboard's country chart in early 1963.

The Clampetts moved to Beverly Hills after striking what on their land?

Oil: the theme song has Jed 'shooting at some food' when 'up through the ground came a-bubbling crude', and the OK Oil Company bought the drilling rights for millions, sending the family to Beverly Hills.

Who created The Beverly Hillbillies?

Paul Henning: the former radio writer created The Beverly Hillbillies for CBS in 1962 and wrote its theme, 'The Ballad of Jed Clampett'; CBS followed with two more of his rural comedies.

Which CBS sitcom, a sister show to The Beverly Hillbillies, sent a New York couple to a run-down farm?

Green Acres: the 1965 CBS sitcom, created by Jay Sommers for the Beverly Hillbillies producer, moved a Manhattan lawyer and his wife to a farm near Hooterville, the town shared with Petticoat Junction.

Ma and Pa Kettle first appeared in which 1945 best-selling memoir?

The Egg and I: Betty MacDonald's memoir of chicken farming on Washington's Olympic Peninsula introduced the Kettles, and neighbours who saw themselves in the pair sued her, one case settling out of court.

Which actress played Ma Kettle in all ten films and got an Oscar nod for the 1947 original?

Marjorie Main: born Mary Tomlinson, a minister's daughter, she took the stage name to avoid embarrassing her family, and Percy Kilbride played Pa beside her in eight of the films.

The Ma and Pa Kettle films are said to have saved which studio from bankruptcy?

Universal: audiences took to the Kettles so strongly in their 1947 debut that the studio spun them off into nine cheap comedies, which are often credited with keeping it solvent.

Which 1941 film won Gary Cooper an Oscar for playing a real Tennessee mountain marksman?

Sergeant York: Alvin York had refused film offers for years and gave in only to pay for a Bible school he wanted to build; Cooper's performance won the Best Actor Oscar.

Which scruffy, illiterate hill man became Marshal Dillon's deputy on Gunsmoke after Chester left?

Festus Haggen: Ken Curtis, who played the cantankerous deputy for 11 years, had been a big-band vocalist and a singer with the Sons of the Pioneers.

Which cartoonist created Li'l Abner and kept the strip running for 43 years?

Al Capp: a native of New Haven, Connecticut, he spent 43 years chronicling a Southern mountain village he had invented, with help from assistants such as Frank Frazetta.

What was the name of the impoverished mountain village where Li'l Abner lived?

Dogpatch: its creator called it 'an average stone-age community', and in the Great Depression it gave hard-up readers yokels even worse off than themselves to chuckle at.

Li'l Abner created which pseudo-holiday in 1937, on which unmarried women chase bachelors?

Sadie Hawkins Day: within two years Life magazine counted celebrations at 201 colleges, and the girls-ask-boys dance it inspired outlived the strip.

In Li'l Abner, what was the potent brew made by Hairless Joe and Lonesome Polecat called?

Kickapoo Joy Juice: one sip was said to send the hardiest drinker into the air 'stiff as frozen codfish', and in 1965 the name was licensed to a real soft drink.

Which Li'l Abner creature bred exponentially, ate nothing and tasted like pork, chicken or steak?

Shmoo: the bowling-pin-shaped creatures died of happiness when anyone looked at them hungrily, and after their 1948 debut they set off a craze of toys, songs and fan clubs.

A theme park based on Li'l Abner opened in 1968 at Marble Falls, in which state?

Arkansas: the park near Harrison reported 300,000 visitors in its first year, and its host town officially took the comic-strip village's name to promote it.

Snuffy Smith entered the Barney Google strip in 1934 when Barney visited the mountains of which state?

North Carolina: in 1934 Barney Google went to the North Carolina mountains and met the pint-sized moonshiner Snuffy Smith, who soon took over the strip; Barney himself was written out in 1954.

What is the name of the Appalachian hamlet where Snuffy Smith lives?

Hootin' Holler: Snuffy Smith, his wife Loweezy and nephew Jughaid live in this remote Appalachian hamlet, the strip's setting since the moonshiner eclipsed Barney Google in the late 1930s.

What was the name of Barney Google's bow-legged, blanket-wearing racehorse?

Spark Plug: the bow-legged racehorse draped in a patched blanket debuted in 1922 and was so popular that the strip was retitled Barney Google and Spark Plug.

Which two country stars co-hosted Hee Haw for most of its run?

Buck Owens and Roy Clark: Owens was an architect of California's hard-edged Bakersfield sound, a reaction against Nashville's polished hits, and Clark a virtuoso instrumentalist who mixed his playing with comedy.

Hee Haw was set in which fictional rural community?

Kornfield Kounty: cast members popped up from a studio cornfield to swap one-liners, and to save money a whole season of those gags was taped in one batch.

Hee Haw was modelled on which fast-cut comedy show of the late 1960s?

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In: Hee Haw copied the NBC show's rapid-fire blackout sketches, with a cornfield in place of the joke wall; CBS launched it in June 1969 as a summer replacement for the cancelled Smothers Brothers.

CBS dropped Hee Haw and all its other country-themed shows in 1971 in what became known as what?

The Rural Purge: in 1971 CBS axed Hee Haw, The Beverly Hillbillies, Mayberry R.F.D. and its other rural shows to chase younger urban viewers; Hee Haw sat at No. 16 in the ratings and simply moved into syndication.

Which Hee Haw comedian ended his used-car sales sketches by telling viewers to call BR-549?

Junior Samples: his sign-off number became so well known that a Nashville alt-country band of the 1990s named itself BR5-49 after the gag.

In the WWF storyline, which champion "trained" Hillbilly Jim after he turned down Roddy Piper's offer?

Hulk Hogan: after Hillbilly Jim refused Roddy Piper's offer, WWF vignettes in early 1985 showed the champion training him and presenting his first wrestling boots.

Which pig-farming WWF tag team did Hillbilly Jim manage in the 1990s?

The Godwinns: Henry O. and Phineas I. Godwinn were named so that their initials spelled HOG and PIG, and Hillbilly Jim managed the pair from 1996 until they turned villain a year later.

Who wrote the 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy?

JD Vance: Vance's memoir of his Appalachian family topped The New York Times best-seller list in August 2016, and in January 2025 he was sworn in as US vice president.

Hillbilly Elegy centres on the author's hometown, which Ohio city?

Middletown: the author grew up in Middletown, Ohio, an Armco steel town where his grandparents had settled after World War II, having left Breathitt County in the Appalachian hills.

Who directed the 2020 film adaptation of Hillbilly Elegy?

Ron Howard: his Netflix adaptation, scripted by Vanessa Taylor, brought the Oscar-winning director a Golden Raspberry nomination for Worst Director.

Which actress played the grandmother in Hillbilly Elegy and got a Golden Raspberry nomination?

Glenn Close: Close played Mamaw, the author's grandmother, and was nominated for both the Best Supporting Actress Oscar and the Worst Supporting Actress Razzie; Amy Adams played the mother, Bev.

Which Pulitzer Prize-winning novel did Barbara Kingsolver write partly as a rebuttal to Hillbilly Elegy?

Demon Copperhead: Kingsolver's 2022 retelling of David Copperfield in southwest Virginia won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; she wanted a 'great Appalachian novel' that pushed back on the memoir's stereotypes.

The Hatfields and McCoys lived on opposite sides of which river?

Tug Fork: the Hatfields lived on one bank and the McCoys on the other, and because the stream is a state line, a posse's raid across it carried the feud to the US Supreme Court.

What was the nickname of the Hatfield patriarch, whose timber business enriched the family?

Devil Anse: William Anderson 'Devil Anse' Hatfield led the clan, and his timber business made the Hatfields wealthier and better connected politically than the McCoys.

The Hatfield–McCoy feud flared in 1878 after a court dispute over the ownership of what?

A hog: Randolph McCoy said the notches on its ears made it his, a Hatfield justice of the peace ruled for Floyd Hatfield, and the witness who swung the case was killed two years later.

In 1979 descendants of the Hatfields and McCoys faced off for a week on which TV game show?

Family Feud: descendants of the two clans played a special week of the game show in 1979, and the McCoys took the series three games to two.

Kevin Costner's 2012 miniseries Hatfields & McCoys set a ratings record for which network?

History: the network's record-setting Appalachian saga was shot nowhere near Appalachia, but in Romania, whose mountains stood in for the feud's own hills.

When the Hatfield–McCoy feud reached the US Supreme Court in 1888, the justices ruled in favour of which state?

Kentucky: in Mahon v. Justice the court held that the state could try the Hatfield men a posse had seized across the border; several were convicted and Ellison Mounts was hanged in 1890.

Local members of which organisation started Pikeville's Hillbilly Days festival as a fundraiser?

The Shriners: local members launched the festival in the 1970s to raise money for the Shriners children's hospital, and the same town hosted the Hatfield and McCoy families' official truce in 2003.

Which US president received Springfield's "Hillbilly Medallion" at a breakfast with fellow army veterans?

Harry S. Truman: he was at a reunion of the 35th Division, his own First World War outfit, and quipped that a president seldom gets a medal: 'He usually gets brickbats.'

The word "moonshine" is popularly traced to a tradition of doing what?

Distilling at night to avoid detection is the popular account; the word is first recorded for illicit liquor in a 1785 English slang dictionary, for spirits smuggled by night along the coast.

As of 2025, which of these states lets adults distil spirits at home for personal use?

Missouri: state law lets a household make up to 200 gallons of liquor a year for its own use without a licence, even though federal law has long required a permit for any home still.

Traditional American moonshine is a clear, unaged whiskey made from a mash of which grain?

Corn: the bulky crop was costly to haul over mountain roads, so farmers turned it into whiskey, which was far easier to carry to market; Scots and Irish makers used barley.

Which bluegrass instrumental became a pop-culture landmark thanks to a scene in the 1972 backwoods thriller Deliverance?

Dueling Banjos: in the scene a silent mountain boy on banjo trades licks with a city canoeist's guitar, and the soundtrack single climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1973.

Deliverance was shot mainly in Rabun County, in which state?

Georgia: the Chattooga and Tallulah rivers in Rabun County stood in for the story's invented river, and the mountain boy of its best-known scene was a local schoolboy, Billy Redden, hand-picked at his school.

Who wrote the 1970 novel Deliverance and adapted it for the screen?

James Dickey: the poet's 1970 novel and his own screenplay gave the 1972 film its plot, and Dickey appears on screen as the sheriff in the final scenes.

Barred from owning guns by probation, what did Bo and Luke Duke arm themselves with?

Bows and arrows: on probation for running moonshine, the Duke boys could not carry firearms, so they used bows and arrows, sometimes with dynamite tied to the shafts.

Who wrote and sang "Good Ol' Boys" for The Dukes of Hazzard and narrated it as the Balladeer?

Waylon Jennings: the opening credits showed only his hands on a guitar, so on the No. 1 single he added a line complaining that TV never showed his face.

The Dukes of Hazzard grew out of which 1975 bootlegging film by its creator, Gy Waldron?

Moonrunners: Gy Waldron's 1975 film about a bootlegging family, based on the stories of real moonshiner Jerry Rushing, supplied the premise Waldron reworked into The Dukes of Hazzard in 1979 after Smokey and the Bandit's success.

The TV series Justified sent Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens back to his coal-country hometown of what?

Harlan: the FX series (2010–15), based on Elmore Leonard's Raylan Givens stories, sent the marshal back to Harlan County, where plots leaned on oxycodone dealers and snake-handling revivalists.

Which 2010 horror comedy parodies the murderous-hillbilly trope of Deliverance and Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil: Eli Craig's comedy flips the trope, as two well-meaning hillbillies are mistaken for killers by college students who keep dying in freak accidents.

Which actress played Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies?

Irene Ryan: the vaudeville veteran was only five and a half years older than the actor who played her son-in-law Jed, and the role brought her two Emmy nominations.

Which 1955 Tennessee Ernie Ford hit tells of a coal miner deep in debt to the company store?

Sixteen Tons: Merle Travis wrote it in 1946 about life in the mines, lifting the line about growing older and deeper in debt from a letter his brother had sent him.

Who played Jed Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies?

Buddy Ebsen: he had been cast as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, but the aluminium dust in his makeup put him in hospital and Jack Haley took over the part.

Which Beverly Hills banker would do anything to keep the Clampetts' millions in his bank?

Milburn Drysdale: the money-obsessed head of the Commerce Bank lived next door to his richest depositors and catered to their every wish, to the horror of his snobbish wife.

Miss Jane Hathaway, the bank secretary on The Beverly Hillbillies, held a degree from which college?

Vassar: Nancy Kulp, who played the bookish Miss Jane, ran for Congress in Pennsylvania in 1984, and to her dismay the co-star who had played Jed recorded a radio ad calling her too liberal.

Which Valley of the Dolls star played bank secretary Janet Trego in 15 episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies?

Sharon Tate: her producer gave her small parts on Mister Ed and The Beverly Hillbillies to build her confidence, because he did not want audiences to see her until she was ready.

In the 1981 reunion TV movie, what job does Elly May Clampett hold?

Head of a zoo: in The Return of the Beverly Hillbillies (1981) Elly May runs her own zoo, a fitting job for the character famed for her 'critters', while Jethro has become a Hollywood producer.

In the 1981 Beverly Hillbillies reunion movie, Jane Hathaway works for which federal department?

Department of Energy: with an energy crisis on, Washington sends Miss Hathaway to find the formula for Granny's home-brewed 'white lightning' as a possible fuel.

In 1888 Hatfield men attacked and burned Randolph McCoy's cabin on the night of which holiday?

New Year's Day: the raiders killed two of McCoy's children as the cabin burned, and the outcry over the New Year's Night Massacre brought the posse raids and murder trials that followed.

Who played Randolph McCoy opposite Kevin Costner in the 2012 miniseries Hatfields & McCoys?

Bill Paxton: he and Costner, playing the rival patriarchs, were both nominated for the same lead-actor Emmy, and Costner took it home.

Which star of Hitchcock's Rope played Johnse Hatfield in the 1949 romance Roseanna McCoy?

Farley Granger: producer Samuel Goldwyn developed the film for him and replaced his intended co-star with newcomer Joan Evans, but the romance failed at the box office.

Mountain Dew, named after old slang for moonshine, was first created in which Tennessee city?

Knoxville: bottlers Barney and Ally Hartman made it as a lemon-lime mixer for their whiskey when they could not get their usual soda, and early labels showed a barefoot mountaineer with a rifle and a jug.

In Hillbilly Hare (1950), the Martin brothers mistake Bugs Bunny for a member of which clan?

The Coys: Curt and Punkinhead Martin demand to know whether Bugs is 'a Martin or a Coy', and the short ends with Bugs calling an increasingly violent square dance that sends the brothers over a cliff.

What was the surname of the feuding cartoon family in Hanna-Barbera's The Hillbilly Bears?

Rugg: Paw Rugg mumbled so badly that he was barely intelligible, and his feud with the neighbouring Hoppers meant both sides firing the same bullet back and forth from their rocking chairs.

Which Chicago group of Appalachian migrants joined the Black Panthers in the 1969 Rainbow Coalition?

The Young Patriots: the Chicago group of white Appalachian migrants wore the Confederate battle flag as its symbol while allying with Fred Hampton's Black Panthers and the Puerto Rican Young Lords in 1969.

Who hosted Ozark Jubilee, the 1950s ABC country music show broadcast live from Springfield?

Red Foley: the Grand Ole Opry star hosted Ozark Jubilee from Springfield's Jewell Theatre from 1955 to 1960, and the show gave an 11-year-old Brenda Lee her first national exposure.

Max Baer Jr., who played Jethro Bodine, was the son of a world champion in which sport?

Boxing: his father Max Baer won the world heavyweight boxing title in 1934 by stopping Primo Carnera; unlike sixth-grade Jethro, Baer Jr. earned a business degree from Santa Clara University.

In the 1950s sitcom The Real McCoys, the Appalachian family leaves home for an inherited farm in which part of California?

San Fernando Valley: the McCoys leave the fictional Smokey Corners to work a farm left to them by Grandpa Amos's brother, five years before the Clampetts made their own move west on TV.

What price was shown on the tag that dangled from Minnie Pearl's hat?

$1.98: the bumpkin in the bargain hat was played by Sarah Colley, a prosperous lumberman's daughter who had studied theatre at Nashville's most prestigious school for young ladies.

Hee Haw banjo picker Stringbean was also a semiprofessional player of which sport?

Baseball: he met his future bandleader on the diamond, where the bluegrass pioneer fielded a rival semipro team, and played banjo in his band from 1943 to 1945.

Jesco White, the mountain dancer of the 1991 documentary Dancing Outlaw, comes from which state?

West Virginia: Jesco White comes from Boone County, West Virginia, and dances in the tap shoes of his late father D. Ray White, filmed by the Smithsonian as one of America's greatest mountain dancers.

Moonshiner Marvin Sutton got which nickname after attacking a bar's faulty vending machine with a pool cue?

Popcorn: it was a popcorn machine that had let him down, and Sutton went on to write a moonshining guide, Me and My Likker, which he sold from his junk shop in Maggie Valley.

Which president pardoned NASCAR legend Junior Johnson for his 1956 moonshining conviction?

Ronald Reagan: the 1986 pardon wiped out a conviction for working an illegal still, which cost Johnson about a year in an Ohio prison; in years of hauling liquor at speed he was never caught on the road.

Bluegrass anthem 'Rocky Top' was written in 1967 by which husband-and-wife songwriting team?

Felice and Boudleaux Bryant dashed off 'Rocky Top' in about 15 minutes as a break from slow songs at the Gatlinburg Inn; the Osborne Brothers recorded it first and Tennessee made it a state song in 1982.

Who played Ree Dolly, the teenager searching for her missing father, in Winter's Bone (2010)?

Jennifer Lawrence: the low-budget backwoods drama won Sundance's Grand Jury Prize and proved her breakthrough, bringing a first Oscar nomination at the age of 20.

The doomed canoe trip in Deliverance takes place on which river?

Cahulawassee: the river is invented, and the men go because a dam is about to drown it; on screen it was played by the real Chattooga.

Mayberry's wild mountain man Ernest T. Bass was notorious for hurling what through windows?

Rocks: Howard Morris's Ernest T. Bass hurled rocks through windows whenever he was crossed, boasted he was the best rock thrower in the county, and wanted a gold tooth to impress the ladies.

Which real bluegrass band played the Darlings, the family of mountain musicians on The Andy Griffith Show?

The Dillards were signed by Elektra within weeks of reaching Los Angeles in 1962 and soon booked as the Darlings, playing the mountain musicians from 1963 to 1966.

The bluegrass band The Hillbilly Thomists is made up of friars from which Catholic order?

Dominican: the band of Dominican friars from the Province of St. Joseph took its name from Flannery O'Connor, who wanted readers to see her as a 'hillbilly Thomist' rather than a 'hillbilly nihilist'.

The General Lee, the Duke boys' car in The Dukes of Hazzard, was what make and model?

1969 Dodge Charger: the General Lee was a 1969 Dodge Charger painted orange with a Confederate flag on the roof; its doors were welded shut, and crews wrecked an estimated 255 to 325 of them across the series.