Paul William Henning (September 16, 1911 – March 25, 2005) was an American TV producer and screenwriter. Most famous for creating the television sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies, he was also crucial in developing the "rural" comedies Petticoat Junction (1963–1970) and Green Acres (1965–1971) for CBS. Henning also served as one of the staff writers for George Burns, writing first for the Burns and Allen radio show and then their television show throughout its broadcast run. Author Kurt Andersen described Henning as "the Eli Whitney of American television production." Early life Henning was born and grew up on a farm in Independence, Missouri. While working in a drugstore as a teenager, he met future President Harry S. Truman, who advised him to become a lawyer. Although he did attend the Kansas City School of Law, his ambition was to be a singer on the radio. When the local radio station KMBZ (KMBC at the time) had no money for writers to create the "filler" between songs, he became a writer as well as a singer. Television writer Writing proved the more lucrative of the two, so he abandoned singing in order to write for series like Fibber McGee and Molly and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, and later TV series like The Dennis Day Show, The Real McCoys, and The Andy Griffith Show. Henning was also the creator, writer, and producer of The Bob Cummings Show, where he met many of the actors who appeared in his later series. He produced the Ray Bolger Show, and wrote (or co-wrote) screenplays such as Lover Come Back (1961, for which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing: original screenplay), and (with Stanley Shapiro) Bedtime Story (1964), which was re-made in 1988 as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Steve Martin, Michael Caine), and again in 2019, as The Hustle (Anne Hathaway, Rebel Wilson). Most popular television series In 1962, Henning created the CBS series, The Beverly Hillbillies—a sitcom based on his past experiences while camping in the Ozarks near Branson, Missouri. He wrote or co-wrote well over 200 of the series' 274 episodes, including every episode of seasons one, two, three, eight, and nine. (During seasons 4 through 7, he was still a frequent contributor, but wrote more frequently for Petticoat Junction.) Henning also wrote the music and lyrics for the popular theme song "The Ballad of Jed Clampett". The Beverly Hillbillies