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.īarney and Andy with town drunk Otis Campbell.Īndy's friends and neighbors include barber Floyd Lawson ( Howard McNear), service station attendants and cousins Gomer Pyle ( Jim Nabors) and Goober Pyle, Andy called him Goober Beasley in episode "TV or Not TV"( George Lindsey), and local drunkard Otis Campbell ( Hal Smith). The color episodes of the show in its later years are markedly different from the black-and-white episodes of the first five seasons. 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, with an audience of thirty-three and a half million." Only Griffith, Howard, Bavier, Knotts, and Hope Summers appeared in all eight seasons.ĭon Knotts left the show at the end of the fifth season 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. Griffith appears in all 249 episodes with Howard coming in second at 209. 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). 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.Īndy 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. Consequently, the characters around Taylor were employed to create the problems and troubles, with rock-solid Taylor stepping in as problem solver, mediator, adviser, disciplinarian and, counselor. and in the next season he changed, becoming this Lincolnesque character."Īs Griffith stopped portraying some of the sheriffs 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. I'm playing straight to all these kooks around me.' He didn't like himself. One day he said, 'My God, I just realized that I'm the straight man. "He was being that marvelously funny character from No Time for Sergeants, Will Stockdale. He gradually abandoned the 'rustic Taylor' and developed a serious and thoughtful characterization. The style recalled that used in the delivery of his popular monologues such as "What it Was, Was Football". Initially, Griffith played Taylor as a heavy-handed country bumpkin, grinning from ear to ear and speaking in a hesitant, frantic manner. This episode would serve as the pilot for "The Andy Griffith Show" and was first aired on February 15, 1960. While traveling with his family, Danny has an encounter with small-town law enforcement in the form of Sheriff Andy Taylor. This episode, in the seventh season of "Make Room for Daddy," was the launching pad for one of the most popular television series of all time. In order to gauge audience response for their upcoming TV series "The Andy Griffith Show," executive producers Sheldon Leonard and Danny Thomas presented a pilot episode on Thomas' own weekly sitcom. Aunt Bee once remarked that Andy single-handedly runs the town, and was always trying to help those in need. In 1986 the cast was reunited for a television movie called Return to Mayberry, which aired on NBC. The series received Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Humor (19) and for Outstanding Comedy Series (1967). The Andy Griffith Show is itself a spinoff series from Make Room for Daddy starring Danny Thomas. After The Andy Griffith Show was canceled, it was replaced by Mayberry R.F.D., a series about a widowed farmer named Sam Jones who had been introduced at the end of the eighth season, by winning a seat on the City Council. Gas station attendant Gomer Pyle was one of the stars of the spinoff series Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. Andy's girlfriend is Opie's schoolteacher, Helen Crump. The Sheriff's only employee at the Court House is Deputy Barney Fife. Andy Taylor is a widower raising a young son, Opie, with the help of his Aunt Bee.
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