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Buddy Ebsen learned not to question the popularity of ''Barnaby Jones''
You can't have Barnaby Jones without Buddy Ebsen.
There are people who are just downright likable; people like Robin Williams and Mr. Rogers who, before being funny, kind, or earnest, have an undeniably positive energy that people can't help but be drawn to. Another great example of one of those people is Buddy Ebsen, who audiences gravitated towards in The Beverly Hillbillies, and continued to love when he starred in Barnaby Jones.
Jones had countless fans, including former president Richard M. Nixon, who once stopped by the Barnaby Jones Luncheon Club, then full of Ebsen's fans, to drop off a wedding present for Ebsen and his wife. It's safe to say that Barnaby Jones is well-loved and well appreciated too.
But if there's a secret to Ebsen's success, he doesn't want to know about it. According to an interview with the Associated Press, Ebsen that he couldn't find a single reason for the show's popularity, but explained, "My position and policy is not to poke around too much into blessings."
He continued, "We just try to do good stories, use good actors, and do it in such a way that people believe it. If you tell a good story, that's good enough. You don't have to analyze it." So for Ebsen, things were pretty simple, and while he played a detective on screen, he didn't really see how sleuthing around the show's success would be a good use of his time.
Barnaby Jones' executive producer Quinn Martin has a very simple answer for why the show was so popular: The star, Ebsen himself. Martin said, "The key to the show is Buddy." He did agree with Ebsen that the simple formula of the show made it a surefire classic. He commented, "It's a classic idea with a star that's well done."
But while the skeleton of the show was cinematically sound, Martin was aware that Ebsen was the key to making the series special. He said, "I think it can go on for as long as Buddy wants to do it. I don't think it could go on without him."
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