Margaret Drysdale


 * The Drysdales: Milburn, Margaret, and Sonny: The Drysdales are the Clampetts' next door neighbors. Milburn is the Commerce Bank's tightwad president and the friendly bumpkins' confidant. The haughty Mrs. Drysdale touts a heritage that traces back to the Mayflower, but money-hungry Milburn's concerns are strictly monetary. When suffering an anxiety attack, Milburn sniffs a stack of money and is quickly revived. Mr. Drysdale appeases the Clampetts and says that anything they do is unquestionably right. He often forces others, especially his secretary, to placate the Clampetts' by granting their unorthodox requests. Although wife Margaret, a blue-blooded Bostonian, has obvious disdain for the "peasant" hillbillies, she tacitly agrees to tolerate them (rather than Milburn lose their ever growing account—which is $96,000,000 in 1969, equal to $0 today). Margaret loathes all four "vagabonds," but her most heated rivalry is with Granny, with whom she occasionally has some "scraps." Raymond Bailey appears in 247 episodes. Harriet E. MacGibbon appears in 55 episodes between 1962 and 1969, she is not seen in the last two seasons of the show although is occasionally mentioned. Margaret's aged father has gambled away most of their money. Mrs. Drysdale's son—and Milburn's Stepson—is Sonny (played by Louis Nye), who is a forty-something collegian who doesn't believe in working up a sweat and is an insufferable mama's boy. Finding Elly May a lovely, naive Pollyanna, he courts her until she literally tosses him. Although the character is fondly remembered by fans, Sonny only appears in four episodes, three in 1962 and a final appearance in 1966.