His wife, Lisa, a glamorous Hungarian immigrant (played by Eva Gabor), has no desire to leave sophisticated New York City for a rural area.

His mother, Eunice (Eleanor Audley), sides with Lisa against the couple leaving New York City for the country.

However, once they arrive at their newly purchased farm (which features a run-down, dilapidated farmhouse), it is not Oliver, but Lisa, who immediately fits into Hooterville and its collection of zany characters.

Oliver doesn't fit into a place where everyone takes for granted that a "talking" pig, Arnold Ziffel, is his owners' "son"; where one of the two housing contractor "brothers" is a woman; where the farmhand he hires, young Eb Dawson, refers to him and Lisa as his "parents"; and where local confidence man Mr. Haney, from whom he bought the farm, is always getting the upper hand.

Another running gag in later seasons of the show involves Oliver frequently unable to finish a sentence, due to being interrupted by other characters.

In the 1950 radio sitcom on which Green Acres was originally based, the character was a banker named John Granby and portrayed by Gale Gordon.