THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW

THE SERIES’ WARM-HEARTED HUMOR, LOVABLE CHARACTERS AND SMALLTOWN CHARM CONTINUES TO DELIGHT AMERICA SIX DECADES LATER E By LOUISE A. BARILE

As the beloved TV sitcom turns 60, Ron Howard and other stars share their favorite memories of Mayberry.

ven when it was No. 1 in the ratings, The Andy Griffith

Show did not get a lot of love or respect from TV critics. Despite deft writing and a talented cast lead by the title star as Sheriff Andy Taylor, the series drew middling reviews during its eight-season run, from 1960 to 1968. It was also never an Emmy magnet like The Dick Van Dyke Show.

But no matter where they lived, TV viewers of the turbulent 1960s responded to the small-town nostalgic feeling of The Andy

Griffith Show and made it a consistent Top 10 hit. “Though it was shot in the ’60s, it had a feeling of the ’30s,” Andy once said. “It was, when we were doing it, of a time gone by.”

Six decades later, Sheriff Andy and his neighbors still have the power to take viewers away from troubled times and back to a kinder, gentler place. “You watch it and it makes your heart feel good,” Elinor Donahue, who played Ellie Walker in the first season of the show, tells Closer.

That’s a big reason why the show remains so popular today. “Mayberry was the America, polite and decent, that so many yearned for and possibly still do,” notes TV Guide Senior Critic Matt Roush to Closer. “Andy Taylor represented authority without danger, a kind, fatherly presence in a community where everyone was connected and indulged each other’s flaws.”

Although the lovable sheriff often acted as the voice of reason among the quirky denizens of Mayberry, he treated everyone with respect and as friends, not jokes. “What made The Andy Griffith Show such a hit was the characters,” said Don Knotts, who played hysterics-prone Deputy Barney Fife. “These are real people who cared about each other.”

WORK AND FUN

Ron Howard, who was just 5 when he was cast as Andy’s son Opie, remembers the set as place with a real sense of community. Everyone worked hard and took their jobs seriously, but they also laughed a lot, too. “I grew up in an environment with an equilibrium - a work ethic but also a sense of joy of what it could be like to live in this creative life,” he tells Closer. “Andy was unbelievably playful. He was also very thoughtful and a good leader because it wasn’t all fun and games.”

“Andy was really

kind to me, always playful and

fun, but he wanted

to get the work

done.”

—Ron Howard

The former child star, who would grow up to become an Oscar-winning director, says that he first learned about collaboration on the show. “Every episode — 249 episodes — was a function of real vision and hard work, and yet, [Andy and the cast] were having fun,” Ron recalls.

A CENTRAL FRIENDSHIP

In many ways, the show revolved around the real-life friendship between Andy and Don, who first met in 1955 when they appeared together in the Broadway play No

Time for Sergeants.

From the beginning, the two performers bonded over their shared Southern roots — Andy hailed from North Carolina while Don had grown up in West Virginia. “They could talk about things like mumblety-peg [a game played with a pocketknife], seeing preachers in tents on the weekend and sitting on the family farm,” explains Don’s brother-in-law Daniel de Vise, author of

Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship

and a Classic American TV Show. “They became very close and remained very close.”

Don tended to be reserved in real life, but he enjoyed making Andy and the rest of the cast laugh. “He had Andy literally in tears once a week,” recalls Ron, who says that Don’s best impression was of a Southern preacher based on his father. “He would do these hymns and harmonies. It was warm, kind of like the show. Smart and funny but very, very relatable.”

Today The Andy Griffith Show continues to draw viewers in to its sweeter, less complicated world. “Watching Opie look up to his dad, and just hearing the whistle of the theme song, takes us back to a time when simplicity didn’t mean stupidity,” notes Roush. “They may look like yokels at first glance, but there’s a wisdom to Andy Taylor and the residents of Mayberry that we can still admire and enjoy.”