Ma and Pa Kettle
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.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.)
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 Pa 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.
Kilbride retired after making the Waikiki movie. Pa Kettle 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.
Some movies