The Andy Griffith Show Information

The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised on CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays the widowed sheriff of the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina. His life is complicated by an inept, but well-meaning deputy, Barney Fife (Don Knotts), a spinster aunt and housekeeper, Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier), and a precocious young son, Opie (Ron Howard). Local ne'er-do-wells, bumbling pals, and temperamental girlfriends further complicate his life. Andy Griffith stated in a Today Show interview, with respect to the time period of the show: "Well, though we never said it, and though it was shot in the '60s, it had a feeling of the '30s. It was when we were doing it, of a time gone by."

The series never placed lower than seventh in the Nielsen ratings and ended its final season at number one. It has been ranked by TV Guide as the 9th-best show in American television history. Though neither Griffith nor the show won awards during its eight-season run, series co-stars Knotts and Bavier accumulated a combined total of six Emmy Awards. The show, a semi-spin-off from an episode of The Danny Thomas Show titled "Danny Meets Andy Griffith", spawned its own spin-off series, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (1964), a sequel series, Mayberry R.F.D. (1968), and a reunion telemovie, Return to Mayberry (1986). The show's enduring popularity has generated a good deal of show-related merchandise. Reruns currently air on TV Land, and the complete series is available on DVD. All eight seasons are also now available by streaming video services such as Netflix.

Origin

Sheldon Leonard, producer of The Danny Thomas Show, and Danny Thomas hired veteran comedy writer Arthur Stander (who had written many of the "Danny Thomas" episodes) to create a pilot show for Andy Griffith, featuring him as justice of the peace and newspaper editor in a small town. At the time, Broadway, film, and radio star Griffith was interested in attempting a television role, and the William Morris Agency told Leonard that Griffith's rural background and previous rustic characterizations were suited to the part. After conferences between Leonard and Griffith in New York, Griffith flew to Los Angeles and filmed the episode. On February 15, 1960, The Danny Thomas Show episode "Danny Meets Andy Griffith" aired. In the episode, Griffith played fictional Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry, North Carolina, who arrests Danny Williams (Thomas's character) for running a stop sign. Future players in The Andy Griffith Show, Frances Bavier and Ron Howard, appeared in the episode as townspeople Henrietta Perkins and Opie Taylor (the sheriff's son). General Foods, sponsor of The Danny Thomas Show, had first access to the spinoff and committed to it immediately. On October 3, 1960 at 9:30 pm, The Andy Griffith Show made its debut.

Production notes

The show's production team included producers Aaron Ruben (1960"1965) and Bob Ross (1965"1968). First-season writers (many of whom worked in pairs) included Jack Elinson, Charles Stewart, Arthur Stander and Frank Tarloff (as "David Adler"), Benedict Freedman and John Fenton Murray, Leo Solomon and Ben Gershman, and Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum. During season six, Greenbaum and Fritzell left the show and Ruben departed for Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., a show which he owned in part. Writer Harvey Bullock left after season six. Bob Sweeney directed the first three seasons save the premiere.

The show was filmed at Desilu Studios, with exteriors filmed at Forty Acres in Culver City, California. Woodsy locales were filmed north of Beverly Hills at Franklin Canyon.

Don Knotts, who knew Griffith professionally and had seen The Danny Thomas Show episode, called Griffith during the developmental stages of the show and suggested the Sheriff character needed a deputy. Griffith agreed. Knotts auditioned for the show's creator and executive producer, Sheldon Leonard, and was offered a five-year contract playing Barney Fife.

The show's theme music, "The Fishin' Hole", was composed by Earle Hagen and Herbert Spencer, with lyrics written by Everett Sloane, who also guest starred as Jubal Foster in the episode, The Keeper of the Flame (1962). Whistling in the opening sequence, as well as the closing credits sequence, was performed by Earle Hagen. One of the show's tunes, "The Mayberry March", was reworked a number of times in different tempo, styles and orchestrations as background music.

The show's sole sponsor was General Foods, with promotional consideration paid for (in the form of cars) by Ford Motor Company (mentioned in the credits).

Plot and characters

The series plot revolves around Sheriff Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) and his life in sleepy, slow-paced fictional Mayberry, North Carolina. Sheriff Taylor's level-headed approach to law enforcement makes him the scourge of local moonshiners and out-of-town criminals, while his abilities to settle community problems with common-sense advice, mediation and conciliation make him popular with his fellow citizens. His professional life, however, is complicated by the gaffes of his inept deputy, Barney Fife (Don Knotts). Barney is portrayed as Andy's cousin in the first, second, and sixth episodes, but is never again referenced as such. Andy socializes with male friends in the Main Street barber shop and dates various ladies until a schoolteacher becomes his steady interest in season three. At home, Andy enjoys fishing trips with his son, Opie (Ronny Howard), and quiet evenings on the front porch with his maiden aunt and housekeeper, Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier). Opie tests his father's parenting skills season after season, and Aunt Bee's ill-considered romances and adventures cause her nephew concern.

Andy's friends and neighbors include barber Floyd Lawson (Howard McNear), service station attendants and cousins Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors) and Goober Pyle (George Lindsey), and local drunkard Otis Campbell (Hal Smith). On the distaff side, townswoman Clara Edwards (Hope Summers), Barney's sweetheart Thelma Lou (Betty Lynn) and Andy's schoolteacher sweetheart Helen Crump (Aneta Corsaut) become semi-regulars. Ellie Walker (Elinor Donahue) is Andy's first girlfriend in the series. In the color seasons, County Clerk Howard Sprague (Jack Dodson) and handyman Emmett Clark (Paul Hartman) appear regularly, while Barney's replacement deputy Warren Ferguson (Jack Burns) appears in season six. Unseen characters such as telephone operator Sarah, and Barney's love interest, local diner waitress Juanita Beasley, as mentioned in the first season, are often referenced. In the series' last few episodes, farmer Sam Jones (Ken Berry) debuts, and later becomes the lead of the show's sequel, Mayberry R.F.D..

Griffith's development of Andy Taylor

Initially, Griffith played Taylor as a heavy-handed country bumpkin, grinning from ear to ear and speaking in a hesitant, frantic manner. The style recalled that used in the delivery of his popular monologues such as "What it Was, Was Football". He gradually abandoned the 'rustic Taylor' and developed a serious and thoughtful characterization. Producer Aaron Ruben recalled:

"He was being that marvelously funny character from No Time for Sergeants, Will Stockdale [a role Griffith played on stage and in film]...One day he said, 'My God, I just realized that I'm the straight man. I'm playing straight to all these kooks around me.' He didn't like himself [in first year reruns]...and in the next season he changed, becoming this Lincolnesque character."

As Griffith stopped portraying some of the sheriff's more unsophisticated character traits and mannerisms, it was impossible for him to create his own problems and troubles in the manner of other central sitcom characters such as Lucy in I Love Lucy or Archie Bunker in All in the Family, whose problems were the result of their temperaments, philosophies and attitudes. Consequently, the characters around Taylor were employed to create the problems and troubles, with rock-solid Taylor stepping in as problem solver, mediator, advisor, disciplinarian and counselor. Aunt Bee, for example, was given several wayward romances requiring Andy's intervention, Opie suffered childhood missteps that needed a father's counsel and discipline, and Barney engaged in ill-considered acts on the job that required Sheriff Taylor's professional oversight and reprimand.

Andy Griffith has also said that he realized during the earlier episodes of the program that it was much funnier for him to play the straight man to Knotts' "Barney," rather than his being the originator of the comedic scenes between them.

Episodes

The show comprises 8 full seasons and 249 episodes "? 159 episodes in black and white (seasons 1"5) and 90 in color (seasons 6"8). Griffith appears in all 249 episodes with Howard coming in second at 209. Only Griffith, Howard, Bavier, Knotts, and Hope Summers appeared in all eight seasons.

Knotts left the show at the end of season five to pursue a career in films (on the show it is told that he takes a job as a detective in Raleigh) but returned to make five guest appearances as Barney in seasons six through eight. His last appearance in the final season in a story about a summit meeting with Russian dignitaries "ranked eleventh among single comedy programs most watched in television between 1960 to [1984], with an audience of thirty-three and a half million."

The color episodes of the show in its later years are markedly different from the black-and-white episodes of the first five seasons. New writers took over the scriptwriting for the post-Knotts color seasons, and they generally abandoned the character-based sitcom format in favor of dry humor revolving around rather mundane aspects of life in a small town.

Reruns, spinoffs, and reunions

In 1964, daytime reruns began airing and the show was retitled Andy of Mayberry to distinguish the repeat episodes from the new episodes airing in prime time; this alternate title has continued to turn up in some syndication prints. As of 2011, the show has been seen in syndication for 48 years. Most off-network series, in comparison, do not last longer than ten years in syndication.

At the end of season four (May 1964), the backdoor pilot "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." aired, and, the following September, the spin-off series Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. debuted with Jim Nabors in the role of Gomer and Frank Sutton as drill instructor Sergeant Vince Carter.

In the last episodes of the series, the character Sam Jones, played by Ken Berry, was introduced, and a sequel series, Mayberry R.F.D., was fashioned around him for the fall of 1968 (in essence replacing The Andy Griffith Show). Several performers reprised their original roles in the sequel, with Bavier becoming Sam's housekeeper. To create a smooth transition from the original series to RFD, Andy and Helen were married in the first episode, remained for a few additional episodes, and then left the show, with a move to Raleigh effectively ending their appearances. After RFD's cancellation in 1971, George Lindsey played a Goober-like character for a number of years on the popular variety show Hee Haw.

In 1986, the reunion telemovie Return to Mayberry was broadcast with several cast members reprising their original roles. Absent, however, was Frances Bavier. She was living in Siler City, North Carolina in ill health, and declined to participate. In the TV movie, Aunt Bee is portrayed as deceased (and in fact Bavier did die three years later), with Andy visiting her grave.

Two cast reunions of the show were subsequently filmed and aired on CBS in 1993 and 2003.

Merchandise and pop culture

Dell Comics published two The Andy Griffith Show comic books during the show's first run. In 2004, copies in near-mint condition were priced in excess of $500 each. The show's enduring popularity has spawned considerable merchandise since its first run, including board games, bobblehead dolls, kitchenware, books, and other items. In 2007, a line of canned foods inspired by the series was made available in grocery stores across America. Griffith's hometown of Mount Airy, North Carolina annually hosts a week-long "Mayberry Days" celebration featuring concerts, parades, and appearances by the show's players.

In 1997, the episode "Opie the Birdman" was ranked No. 24 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. In 2009, TV Guide ranked The Andy Griffith Show ninth on its list of the 50 Best Shows of All Time. Bravo ranked Andy Taylor 63rd on their list of the 100 greatest TV characters.

A bronze statue of Andy and Opie was erected in both Pullen Park in Raleigh, and at the Andy Griffith Playhouse in Mount Airy.

The Taylor Home Inn in Clear Lake, Wisconsin, is a bed-and-breakfast modeled after the Taylor Home.

Video releases

In the late 1980s, Premier Promotions released various episodes on VHS. Most tapes had either two or four episodes. In the early to mid-1990s, United American Video released VHS tapes of various episodes. They either had two or three episodes.

Between 2004 and 2006, Paramount Home Entertainment and later in 2006, CBS DVD released all eight seasons as single-season packages on Region 1 DVD. The complete series was released as a boxed set in 2007 (ISBN141573159) and includes the pilot from The Danny Thomas Show, the telemovie Return to Mayberry, and an episode from Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. featuring Ron Howard. Sixteen episodes from the season three (in public domain) are available on discount DVDs.

DVD Name	Ep#	Release Date
The First Season	32	November 16, 2004
The Second Season	31	May 24, 2005
The Third Season	32	August 16, 2005
The Fourth Season	32	November 22, 2005
The Fifth Season	32	February 14, 2006
The Sixth Season	30	May 9, 2006
The Seventh Season	30	August 29, 2006
The Final Season	30	December 12, 2006
The Complete Series	249	May 29, 2007

Note: The Region 1 release of The Third Season contains two episodes edited for syndication: "The Darlings Are Coming", which had several scenes cut, and "Barney Mends a Broken Heart", which had its epilogue cut.

Ratings

The Andy Griffith Show consistently placed in the top ten during its run.

Note: The highest average rating for the series is in bold text.

Season	Rank	Rating
1) 1960–61	4	27.8
2) 1961–62	7	27.0
3) 1962–63	6	29.7
4) 1963–64	5	29.4
5) 1964–65	4	28.3
6) 1965–66	6	26.9
7) 1966–67	3	27.4
8) 1967–68	1	27.6

A Nielsen study conducted during the show's final season (1967) indicated the show ranked No. 1 among blue collar workers followed by The Lucy Show and Gunsmoke. Among white collar workers, the show ranked No. 3 following Saturday Movies and The Dean Martin Show. The show is one of only three shows to have its final season be the number one ranked show on television, the other two being I Love Lucy and Seinfeld. In 1998, more than 5 million people a day watched the show's re-runs on 120 stations.

Awards and nominations

Emmys

1961

• Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actor or Actress in a Series: Don Knotts " Won
• Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Humor " Nominated (Winner: The Jack Benny Program)

1962

• Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actor: Don Knotts " Won
• Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Humor " Nominated (Winner: The Bob Newhart Show)

1963

• Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actor: Don Knotts " Won

1966

• Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Comedy: Don Knotts for "The Return of Barney Fife" " Won

1967

• Outstanding Comedy Series " Nominated (Winner: The Monkees)
• Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Comedy: Don Knotts for "Barney Comes to Mayberry" " Won
• Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Comedy: Frances Bavier " Won

TV Land Awards

• Favorite Second Banana: Don Knotts " Won (2003)
• Single Dad of the Year: Andy Griffith " Won (2003)
• Legend Award " Won (2004)