Hillbilly 'reality' pilot draws some flak for NBC

By Roger Alford
Associated Press

PIKEVILLE, Ky. — After months of Appalachian outrage over CBS' planned "Beverly Hillbillies" reality series, NBC has shot the pilot of its own rural-to-riches show without attracting widespread attention.

Tentatively titled "The High Life," the program follows a family transported from backwoods Appalachia to a ritzy life in a Beverly Hills mansion.

NBC spokeswoman Kathy Kelly-Brown confirmed Wednesday that a pilot has already been produced, and the network is still considering the program.

"It seems like it's been somewhat of a stealth operation, keeping it quiet and springing it on us all at once so folks in the region don't have time to organize against it," said Ewell Balltrip, a former director of the Kentucky Appalachian Commission.

Balltrip said an outcry across the region kept CBS' "The Real Beverly Hillbillies" from ever getting made, and he's stunned another network has decided to move forward with a similar show.

"Programs of this type do nothing other than perpetuate negative stereotypes of residents of Appalachia and the rural South," Balltrip said.

Some political leaders, including members of Congress from Kentucky to Texas, had urged CBS to reconsider its hillbilly idea. And coal miners from Kentucky and West Virginia protested in May 2003 outside a shareholders' meeting at the New York headquarters of CBS' parent company, Viacom.

NBC spokeswoman Kelly-Brown declined to answer any other questions about the show.