MovieChat Forums > Petticoat Junction (1963) Discussion > What happened to Steve + Betty Jo's baby...

What happened to Steve + Betty Jo's baby boy?

posted 11 years ago by diof09
30 replies | jump to latest

Season 6, episode 25 Tune In Next Year threw me for a huge loop. In it, June Lockhart's Janet Craig is (once again) leaving the valley this time to become a neurologist. But alas, the clencher (and talk about dropping a bomb!) was she was going to stay because news from a far away big city confirmed that Betty Jo and Steve were now pregnant with a baby boy! So many problems with that! Needless to say, no word was mentioned of it again and how implausible could it possibly be that a doctor would turn down such an attractive offer to play baby doctor to Steve and Betty Jo? And was the medical technology advanced enough in 1969 that doctors could really determine the mother was having a baby boy at clearly what would have been the first trimester of her pregnancy? It's almost like they didn't know how to end this show and pulled the proverbial rabbit out of the hat.

[–] Joannakathryn 10 years ago

I was curious about that, too.

Several years ago, when TVLand was showing PJ episodes, there was an on-line forum and the question came up. I believe that Linda Henning didn't want to have to deal with Betty Jo having two babies on the show.

And no, medical technology didn't give us the option to find out the sex until the mid-80s. My son was born in '84, and I never even had a sonogram.

Roland, that's a lilac bush!

[–] joannabaroncelli 10 years ago

After Kathy Jo was born someone asked Betty Jo about a sibling and Betty Jo said of course they planned on having a large family. So why would she object to having two babies on the show?

[–] Joannakathryn 10 years ago

>>So why would she object to having two babies on the show?<<

Don't know!

I can only speculate that while the character Betty Jo was okay with being pregnant so soon after her first baby, and having two babies, the actress Linda Henning didn't want to deal with her character being swallowed up with lots of babies.

Also, the writers/producers may not have realized all the extra work that having a baby on the set involves. I know they have to have extra people, guardians, social workers, etc., when there are underage actors.

And they can only be on camera for a few seconds at a time.

Many actors don't like to work with children. On the Bob Newhart show, there was an episode where Emily wanted to have a baby and said they were going to an adoption agency. But that storyline disappeared and they never had children.

Later, in a documentary about him, someone said that while he adored his own, real, children, he said, if they brought kids into the mix, "Who will play Bob?"

Roland, that's a lilac bush!