Did you hear? Dave is doing classic shows all month! I know! It'll be about as relevant as our show is these days!
Hey everyone, it’s time to take a trip back to when the television had no color and no one needed to say a bad word to spike a rating. A time when comedy moved at the speed of a glacier, not some energized crack addict with super speed. We are going back to a time where the town drunk was adorable and the guy filling the gas can go on to be a great soldier and sings at the Indy 500. I’m talking about going back to Mayberry, North Carolina in 1960 to the town presided over by Sheriff Andy Taylor.
What makes this time so magical? I can’t answer that. It becomes evident though that when Mayberry is set to color in 1966, that the time of black and white was much better. You could tell something was wrong with the town barber. Any looked old and seemed to hate everyone. The deputy disappeared and all of a sudden some dork with a mustache started butting in. Mayberry looked perfect in the classic black and white, and the color made the show look as bad as the horrible looking backgrounds you could see were terrible finally in 1966.
Andy Taylor and his aunt/slave Bee resided in a sleepy little town with Andy’s son Opie. Opie would grow up to have different parents and some awesome friends….maybe not.
...maybe not.
The two men of the house were also the only ones in Mayberry that were born with brains. The Andy Griffith show had some awesome characters, but they were just so dumb. The most famous character on this show (at least it seems) is Deputy Barney Fife. He is nice, sweet and tries to do what is right. It just so happens, that he is just stupid. He is also very egotistical, which makes for the worst kind of stupid person. He thinks he can sing, he thinks he’s tough, and he thinks he’s a ladies man. Well, he’s not, he’s not, and only one girl likes him, and she’s kind of an ug-o.
So I was wrong.
Barney was hilarious though. Don’t get me wrong on that point. His idiosyncrasies are what made him so great. The same can be said for all the other oddballs in Mayberry. Unlike other shows of the time, we’ll pick I Love Lucy; the main character of this show wasn’t the funny part. He was the brain and the common sense. He held all these idiots together. Makes sense now that Ron Howard was part of Arrested Development huh? The central character was not the main comedic point in a comedy. That is an interesting idea. It made for great television, but the Emmy shelves of Don Knotts’ and Francis Bavier’s say comedy is where it’s at. At least until they both died. I guess Andy gave up the awards to live longer. Smooth move Sheriff.
I mentioned idiots in Mayberry right? Well, look no further than the Pyle and Lawson families. Gomer and Goober Pyle….I could just stop there and be right. I’ll forge on. Gomer was so stupid that all he did was pump the gas. He didn’t know jack cars and was almost useless outside of his weird singing ability. He eventually went on to bother a pre-NBA Vince Carter in the military. His cousin Goober could fix cars, but somehow he was even dumber. I’ll leave it at him allowing 13 year old Opie Taylor help runs his business when he tried to run the place himself. A child was more able to run a mechanic shop. He also wears a stupid hat.
But makes for awesome sketches.
The Lawson family is a little less known. Floyd, the barber, was a central character in Mayberry. Every dude got his hair cut there, and they gossiped like a bunch of high school girls there. Floyd would often say or do dumb things. You get it. I have to stress again, I love these characters. They are hilarious. But it is their complete lack of knowledge that makes them funny. That leads me to this man:
Warren Ferguson is his name. He’s one of the most disliked characters in television history. It really wasn’t his fault. He was a decent play off of Andy, it just wasn’t the same. Poor Warren tried to be a good deputy by talking really fast and being a know it all, but he was no Barney Fife. The slight changes in character from Barney to Warren just weren’t enough and fans didn’t like him. So, he got the axe. You know who fans liked? Ernest T. Bass is who they liked. He was the lunatic that ran around not speaking right and throwing rocks through windows. He came from a land just outside of Mayberry that was even back woodsier. They let father’s raise boys to be ensemble performers!
It’s a shame I can’t write about every character I want. Trust me, I watched this show with my grandma so many times, I could write a paragraph or two on every single one. So let me just give a few nods and I’ll move on:
1. Ellie was better than Helen in every way.
2. Otis was an entitled prick.
3. Howard Sprague was dull, but I’ll be hog tied if you can find a better dressed man.
4. Emmett got to stick around and not Warren? Warren was way better than this poor Floyd replacement.
5. I’ve got a dark alley and some bad ideas that say Clara Edwards should mind her own’s.
6. Both Mayors were lame. Andy should have taken over the whole town.
7. Malcolm Meriwether was a dweeb.
8. Daphne and Skippy beat the pants off Helen and Thelma Lou.
9. Johnny Paul was the coolest kid I’ve ever seen on TV.
10. Take your pick on famous people to be on this show, but I’ll take young Jack Nicholson as a shady father and robber any day.
Aside from an amazing cast of characters, the Andy Griffith Show has some of the best stories and messages of any show ever. That’s why as a person born well after it was cancelled, I can quote whole episodes. It has never been off the air since it started. That is amazing. Whether Aunt Bee makes horrible pickles or Opie kills a bird, someone is learning a lesson. It could be Barney, Otis, or more likely, YOU AMERICA! We all should learn from this show. To quote the great Andy Griffith when he heard about JFK’s assassination, “Damn Southerners.” That’s not a non sequitur, pay attention.
The Andy Griffith show ran for 8 seasons, but has lasted for over 5 decades as an example of great television. I don’t like to preach, but there is a reason shows like this are considered special. They taught you something and had the ability to evoke emotion. It wasn’t a laugh every two seconds or non-stop dick jokes (I’m looking at you Kat Dennings). It is the standard for situational comedy. It was awesome. It is a bonus living up in an area with hicks and seeing that these people exist. A lot of the plot points revolved around prohibition in this show, I think it speaks to the genius of Andy Griffith that his show lasted longer than that law, by a lot. As long as Americans love beer, I’m sure they’ll love Mayberry. I don’t see that first one ending anytime soon, so get in for long haul, the Taylor family and all of Mayberry isn’t going anywhere.
Here that gang? You're here to stay!
Credit goes to: gregssketch.blogspot.com, tv.rage.com, sitcomsonline.com, ovguide.com, mayberry.wikia.com, and baptistcourier.com.