Show business has a long history of "hook-ups," it seems. As noted in modern day instances like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and J.J. Abrams and Greg Grunberg, childhood friendships have a way of carrying themselves all the way to Hollywood.

In 1931, two childhood friends from Arkansas decided to break into the radio business by writing themselves into starring roles in an original pilot. Their end product, Lum and Abner, resulted in a 22-year run and the official name change of an Arkansas city.

We're getting ahead of ourselves.

Chester Lauck and Norris Goff developed a quaint soap opera set in the fictional rural Arkansas town, Pine Ridge. The elderly, moustached and bearded Lum and Abner, voiced by Chester and Norris respectively, ran the Jot 'Em Down Store--one of the only places in town to procure groceries, gas and other odds and ends.

Local Hot Springs radio station KTHS picked up the program first, but it wasn't long before a Chicago station began to broadcast the rustic comedy. By 1932, the show aired nationally.

An instant national success, several sponsors began attaching themselves to the series including Quaker Oats, Ford automobiles, Alka-Seltzer and Frigidaire. Premiums like the Lum Edwards for President cello, The Pine Ridge News paper and envelope, Lum and Abner's Family Almanac, a glass shake-up decanter with aluminum lid and several postcards and photos were develped in the '30s and '40s.

At the height of the show's acclaim, the small town of Waters, Arkansas officially changed its name to Pine Ridge. It's still known as Pine Ridge today.

Chester and Norris starred in seven Lum and Abner films, and lived quite well off their fledgling enterprise until their deaths in 1980 and 1978, respectively.