Ma and Pa Kettle were the featured characters in a series of popular light comedic movies in the 1940s and 1950s. The movies revolved around the absurd misadventures of the Kettle clan, a large but loving family of country hicks. Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed. ... // Events and trends World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrination, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atomic bomb. ... // Events and No. ... Hick (also country hick or country bumpkin) is a derogatory term for a person from a rural area. ...

Pa (Percy Kilbride) was a gentle but slow-speaking, slow-thinking and lazy man. His only talents appeared to be avoiding work and winning contests. Ma (Marjorie Main) was larger, raucous, more ambitious and smarter than Pa, but not by much, and could easily be fooled. She was content with her role as mother to a small army of children on the Kettle's ramshackle farm. (Later in the series the Kettles moved into a modern home that Pa won.) Percy Kilbride (July 16, 1888 - December 11, 1964), born in San Francisco, California, was a popular character actor. ... Marjorie Main (24 February 1890 – 10 April 1975) was an American character actress who was best known for her role as Ma Kettle in a series of ten Ma and Pa Kettle movies. ...

Much of the humor came from the preposterous situations the Kettles found themselves in, such as Pa being mistaken for a wealthy industrialist or being jailed after he accidentally set a series of events in motion that resulted in race horses at the fair eating feed laced with concrete.

The Kettles first appeared in supporting roles in The Egg and I, starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert. After that they starred in a series of their own movies. Main was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1948 for her role in The Egg and I. The Egg and I, first published in 1946, is a humorous memoir by American author Betty MacDonald about her adventures and travails as a young wife on a chicken farm on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. ... Fred MacMurray Fred MacMurray (August 30, 1908 – November 5, 1991) was a Hollywood actor who appeared in over one hundred movies, during a career that lasted from the 1930s to the 1970s. ... Claudette Colbert Claudette Colbert (September 13, 1903 - July 30, 1996) was a French-American actress. ... The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; nominations are made by Academy members who are actors and actresses. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ...

Kilbride retired after making the "Waikiki" movie; the Pa Kettle character did not appear in The Kettles in the Ozarks. In The Kettles on Old MacDonald's Farm, the last Kettle movie, Parker Fennelly played Pa Kettle.

The eight Kettle films starting Kilbride and Main have been released on DVD, as part of Universal's Franchise Collection series. Volume 1 contains The Egg and I, The Further Adventures of Ma and Pa Kettle, Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town and Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm, while Volume 2 contains Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair, Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation, Ma and Pa Kettle at Home, Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki. The current Universal Studios logo Universal Studios, a subsidiary of NBC Universal, has production studios and offices located at 100 Universal City Plaza Drive in Universal City, California, an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County between Los Angeles and Burbank. ...

Films

• The Egg and I - 1947
• Ma and Pa Kettle - 1949
• Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town - 1950
• Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm - 1951
• Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair - 1952
• Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation - 1953
• Ma and Pa Kettle at Home - 1954
• Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki - 1955
• The Kettles in the Ozarks - 1956
• The Kettles on Old MacDonald's Farm - 1957