The Pruitts of Southampton (1966)
The Pruitts of Southampton is a situation comedy that aired during the 1966-67 season on the ABC network. The show was based on the novel House Party by Patrick Dennis. It was ABC's futile attempt to turn female stand-up comic Phyllis Diller into a sitcom comedienne very much in the style of Lucille Ball. The program starred Diller as Phyllis Pruitt, and featured Gypsy Rose Lee and Richard Deacon in supporting roles with Diller feeling the series was an inverted version of The Beverly Hillbillies. The show's producers originally sought comic actress Beatrice Lillie in the Diller role. The premise was that the Pruitts, a supposedly incredibly wealthy family living on Long Island in the Hamptons, were approached by the Internal Revenue Service about overdue taxes. An audit revealed that the Pruitts were in fact broke; rather than reveal this fact publicly and cause the economic depression which would presumably result from this revelation, an improbably charitable IRS allowed them to continue living in their mansion and maintaining the pretensions of great wealth, which was difficult given their reduced circumstances. By mid-season, in order to raise more money, Phyllis had opened the mansion to boarders, attracting a "nutty" collection of tenants as well, a group that included Paul Lynde as her hopeless brother, John Astin as her brother-in-law, and Marty Ingels as a handyman.
Seasons & Episode
During a party, an IRS agent arrives to inform the Pruitts that they are $10 million in debt and that their possessions now belong to the United States government. But they are going to allow the Pruitts to maintain the illusion that they are wealthy, rather than risk a stock-market collapse with the news that they are bankrupt. Phyllis is forced to let the entire staff go and stand by as her priceless art is taken from their home. It isn't long before Phyllis comes up with a scheme to pay off the IRS – by marrying a wealthy general who's been pursuing her for years. The General is overjoyed, but in the end, of course, her plan backfires.
Phyllis turns private eye to lift a curse from the house of Pruitt. Someone has stolen the family good-luck charms: the Rolls Royce hubcaps.
An Internal Revenue agent helps Phyllis locate a secret room in the Pruitt mansion, where they're soon awash in a tide of champagne, romance, and burglars.