The Andy Griffith Show - General Discussion

[Maverick]

This topic replaces the old The Andy Griffith Show forum which has been vaulted at the location below:

http://forums.previously.tv/forum/574-the-andy-griffith-show-v/

[Kromm]

The heart of the show is the Taylors--Sheriff Andy, son Opie and Aunt Bee--and Deputy Barney Fife.  Over the course of 8 years, watch Andy morph from wise, affable small town sheriff to a lost cast member from Grumpy Old Men.

Well you know how they say "it could always be worse"?  Well as bad as Andy got that was true.  Mayberry RFD anyone? (although admittedly all I've seen is the "Pilot" which is actually a Griffith show episode)

[smiley13]

I see a direct correlation between Andy's grumpiness and the years of dating Helen Crump.  :)

Helen became increasingly mean and grumpy herself.  It is too bad Joanna Moore's Peggy did not stick around.

[Kromm]

I wonder, did they intend that of her when they named her "Crump"?  I mean come on.  Who's named that? (the surname, which I've bet is rare in real life, means:

 

 

Crump Family History
Crump Name Meaning English (chiefly West Midlands): nickname for a cripple or hunchback, from English cromp, crump ‘bent’, ‘crooked’, ‘stooping’ (from Old English crumb). Compare Croom.Americanized spelling of German Krump, the variant Krumpp, or German and Dutch Kramp.

[Rhondinella]

Discuss the show here.  Generally.

[Runningwild]

Hated the color episodes.  Preferred Gomer to Goober, Barney to Warren, and Floyd to Howard.  Saw a good one the other night.  The one where they don't want Barney in the choir and they get that bass singer to sing backstage.  Love the scene where the four of them (Andy, Barney, Thelma Lou, and Aunt Bee) are practicing and Opie keeps making comments about Barney's awful singing and Andy keeps covering his mouth.

[smiley13]

That one was indeed a classic.  The look on Barney's face when the man behind the curtain started singing is priceless.

[Badger]

That was Thurl Ravenscroft who was most famous for being the voice of "Tony the Tiger" in the Frosted Flake commercials.  

[HyeChaps]

And also for singing, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."

[penbrat]

Hated the color episodes.  Preferred Gomer to Goober, Barney to Warren, and Floyd to Howard.  Saw a good one the other night.  The one where they don't want Barney in the choir and they get that bass singer to sing backstage.  Love the scene where the four of them (Andy, Barney, Thelma Lou, and Aunt Bee) are practicing and Opie keeps making comments about Barney's awful singing and Andy keeps covering his mouth.

ITA!   I didn't watch all of the color eppies, especially after Barney left - to me the show lost its charm

[whatsatool]

Bone the fish - which took over after TV guide ruined Jump the Shark has this great link

http://www.bonethefish.com/viewtopics.php?835

[shapeshifter]

Just watched this episode on my lunch break:

Lawman Barney

When a harrowing encounter with two disrespectful truckers causes a grievous loss of confidence in Barney's professional abilities as an officer, Andy concocts an urban legend about his deputy's legendary shooting skills to bolster his reputation.

It should be mandatory viewing for all workplace supervisors, right?

[Chip]

if y'all want to create specific character threads or episode threads, please do!

[GrtGzu]

Well I'm glad TV Land came to their senses and put this show BACK on the schedule.....

 

This a.m., I saw the lady who plays Otis's wife on Bachelor Father.....And the guy who played Mayor Pike was her husband.....She must have been a good character actress cuz I've seen her on other older shows before TAGS was even aired...

[webruce]

Warren didn't seem to stay around long. I don't think he was well liked and then dropped from the cast.

Edited June 9, 2014 by webruce

[smiley13]

 

Well I'm glad TV Land came to their senses and put this show BACK on the schedule.....

What time is it back on?  Lately they have not had hardly anything good on TV Land, and certainly not any classic TV.

 

TAGS is a classic and is in, IMO, one of the best shows ever produced.

[GrtGzu]

It's on for about an hour in the morning starting at 9:00 I think....

[NausetGirl]

ITA!   I didn't watch all of the color eppies, especially after Barney left - to me the show lost its charm

 

Completely agree.  The Black-and-White Years were the very best.

It's on for about an hour in the morning starting at 9:00 I think....

 

In the last two weeks or so, have seen it on for an hour or two around 8 am and then again at 7 or 8 pm.

[Maherjunkie]

LOVE that one.

 

Has anyone watched the colored ones all the way through?  I'm thinking of giving it a try sometime, but I don't know if I can.

[Maherjunkie]

http://www.avclub.com/article/20-wonderfully-irrelevant-iandy-griffith-showi-con-1529

[Maherjunkie]

Does anybody find Parley Baer irritating?  The ones where he can't mind his own business?

[Maverick]

 Yes I found him annoying.  In fact, I never liked either of the Mayberry mayors.  I wish someone had told the one constantly changing his tune to agree with whoever was speaking to grow a pair.

[Maverick]

 I just broke down and watched an episode of Mayberry RFD.  Apparently Howard owned Emmett's building too?  I remember the plot where he bought Floyd's building and the fight that ensued.  Was he trying to be the Boss Hogg of Mayberry buying up all his friend's real estate?  Or wait, was Emmett supposed to be in Floyd's building?  But if so, where was Emmett before Floyd left that he was the town fix it man for so long before he retired (and unretired)?  I know I'm putting way too much thought into this.

 

 Also, Flora from the two TAGS episodes where she was Goober's girl was in the episode.  Since she disappeared after the horribly sexist episode with the gas station, I assumed she left Mayberry.  But there she was in the diner in what amounted to a bit part asking for someone's order.  Was she still supposed to be Goober's girlfriend in RFD?

[Maherjunkie]

He died on the show?  What was the sexist episode?

[Maherjunkie]

Thanks.  What did they do to Flora?

[Maverick]

 Yes, there was a throwaway line somewhere in the 7th season that Floyd had decided to move his shop to Mt. Pilot.  Which really made no sense; Floyd's life-long clientele was in Mayberry, he had no competition there and even with them ignoring his obvious failing health, Floyd would have been too close to retirement to think about making a big move like that.

 

 In Flora's second episode, she offers to fill in at the station so Goober can go on vacation.  He doesn't want her to because she's an icky girl, but he finally relents.  Flora does an outstanding job, raising sales and drawing a long line of customers.  Goober gets butt hurt because she does the job better than him and quits so she can keep it.  Andy gets sucked into helping Goober find a new job, which is impossible since he screws them all up.  To get Goober out of his hair, he talks to Flora and tells her this story about a woman he knows who focused on her career and was very successful but she was old and alone because she never had time for a man, fooling with all those numbers and charts and stuff.  So to avoid being a spinster, Flora quits the job and goes back to the diner.  You know, where those wimmen folk belong. 

[Miss Chevious]

The show was a bit sexist. Ellie Walker encountered opposition when running for Town Council just because she was a woman. Then there's the episode where Andy and Helen talk about future marriage plans and Helen says something to the effect of wanting to work a little bit longer, the inference being that women quit their jobs as soon as they landed a husband. Now that's sexist!

[dustylil]

Actually, I thought the show was rather "un-sexist" for the time, at least in the early years. Particularly when it came to Andy's lady friends. If I recall correctly, all of his romantic interests had substantive careers - pharmacist, county nurse, teacher - of their own.

When Thelma Lou's cousin (played by Gail Davis - television's Annie Oakley!) turns the tables on him and bests him in skeet shooting, he accepted her rebuke of his arrogance with considerable grace. And after initially setting Andy and Helen up, Barney tries  to nip the relationship in the bud (heh), Andy dismisses Helen's lack of interest in cooking  as unimportant and is supportive of her desire to continue with her career and work outside the home after marriage. Trust me, in the early sixties these were not common attitudes on sitcoms.

[Maherjunkie]

I felt bad for Andy in the skeet shoot ep.  It was Barney who once again fucked him over.

[Maherjunkie]

I was shocked I got 5 out of 9.

[oceanblue]

In what?

[Maherjunkie]

There was a quiz for how well you know your color episodes.  Sorry about the link.

[Browncoat]

I didn't much care for Helen after the first ep or two that she was in.  When she and Andy first got together, she was practically a feminist!  She didn't know how to cook leg of lamb, preferring frozen dinners, and she was not planning on quitting her job at all if she got married.  Barney was outraged!  I don't know why they changed her.

 

My favorite ep is the one where the spoiled city kid comes to town.  I love the conversations between Andy and Opie about how much Opie's allowance should be and whether or not he should have to work for it.  Opie throwing a tantrum is hilarious, too.

[dustylil]

When she and Andy first got together, she was practically a feminist!  She didn't know how to cook leg of lamb, preferring frozen dinners, and she was not planning on quitting her job at all if she got married.

 

And she wasn't all that anxious about getting married either. What a refreshing change from the career women we generally saw on television at the time. Yes,  I am looking at you Sally Rogers.

[BooksRule]

I just caught the end of one of the color episodes where Andy is sick in bed (with a cold, I think) and has left Goober to be the 'law'.  Of course, he totally channels Barney and begins writing tickets left and right.  I just tuned in during the last half and they got to the part where Andy was sleeping when Emmett came into the room to install a lamp, Howard to read from the rule book to show how Goober was overstepping his bounds, Aunt Bee to try to get Andy to eat a chicken sandwich, and Goober and the guy that he had just had a car accident with came in.  Everyone started talking to Andy (or in Emmettt's case, also pounding on the wall with a hammer).  Andy just lay there (looking all sick and sweaty) after they wouldn't leave when he yelled at them.  I started laughing when I thought that all he had to do was to throw up on them.  Then they would leave!  

[BooksRule]

I'm watching the episode where Opie gets a job at the drugstore.  He breaks the bottle of what he thinks is expensive perfume and gets Arnold to buy him a replacement in Mt. Pilot so he can keep the pharmacist from finding out.  A few things always bothered me about that episode:  For one thing, Opie would have known that something wasn't right when he didn't smell perfume after the bottle broke.  Also, would Andy really have spent $60-plus dollars on a bottle of perfume?  That was a lot of money in the early 1960s, especially for a small-town sheriff.  Finally, I always felt that the whole thing was mainly Arnold's fault.  Opie wanted to tell his boss, but Arnold talked him into keeping quiet.   However, I did like a couple of things about the episode.  Opie was being so grown-up about his first real job (until he broke the bottle, that is).  I would have loved to have had lunch (or a banana split) at a soda fountain like that one.

[Miss Ruth]

On ‎3‎/‎31‎/‎2014 at 8:41 PM, Kromm said:

I wonder, did they intend that of her when they named her "Crump"?  

Several years ago, I saw an interview with Andy Griffith, and he was asked that question.  He said Helen was named that as a joke, and she was only slated to appear in the "Old Lady Crump" episode.

[Browncoat]

It always amazes me, the sounds Jim Lindsey gets out of his acoustic guitar.

[cooksdelight]

On 8/19/2014 at 0:25 PM, Maherjunkie said:

LOVE that one.

 

Has anyone watched the colored ones all the way through?  I'm thinking of giving it a try sometime, but I don't know if I can.

Yes, I’ve seen them all. Some are better than others. Try to catch these:

Howard Sprague’s mother gets married and leaves town, so he turns his home into a swinging bachelor pad. Watching he, Emmet, Goober and Helen dance is hysterical.

Aunt Bee decides to take flying lessons, and I had to look it up to find out where she was flying. A small airport in the Los Angeles area, because I recognized the San Bernadino mountains immediately. Then she flies over Mayberry, and I choked on my tea. It was so obviously California.

If you want to see complete episodes, watch them on Sundance. TV Land cuts out the final scene every time. 

[cooksdelight]

Did you know Barney has had three middle names? Milton, as revealed in the class reunion episode, in the yearbook. Oliver, in the episode where Otis is a descendant of a revolutionary war hero... and the initial P, which I don’t think the name has ever been mentioned. Barney was Andy’s cousin in the beginning.

Goober also had a weird last name when he first came on the show... Beasley. But they had already established him as Gomer’s cousin, so not sure why that name got thrown in there.

Clara also changed names, she was first called Bertha.

[Browncoat]

Clara's last name wasn't always Edwards, either, was it?  Seems like it was different in at least one episode, but I could be misremembering.  Also, the first Floyd the Barber was a different actor.

I kind of wish they'd addressed Andy's wife, particularly in light of the class reunion episode.  He obviously didn't marry his high school sweetheart, and I've never gotten the impression that he went to college, so I wonder who he married and where he met her.

[cooksdelight]

There are a lot of discrepencies regarding Andy’s life. During the feuding family episode, he said he learned French when he was over there during the war. No way he was in WWII. Based on the year of the class reunion, he and Barney graduated in 1945, and the reunion episode aired in 1963, which was a weird year to have a reunion.

We know his wife died, but nothing was ever said about who she was or what happened. I also wish they’d brought some of that into the show.

Clara was also named Johnson. I want to wring the writers’ necks sometimes! :)

[Browncoat]

3 minutes ago, cooksdelight said:

reunion episode aired in 1963, which was a weird year to have a reunion.

They only organized the reunion because they found their old yearbook and started reminiscing. 

Continuity was not a strong point of this show.

[cooksdelight]

I know, it leads to a lot of trivia talk at my house. :)

Hal Smith, who played Otis, never drank. And Rafe Hollister, played by Jack Prince, (another actor who played different parts) never did any other TV appearances. He was a classically trained singer who preferred Broadway.

My favorite song from the entire series, from “Nashville Now”, with Otis.

[Browncoat]

I love the episode where Rafe wins the honor of singing for the Ladies' Auxiliary (or whichever organization it was -- I don't remember).  The only thing that would make it better is if he'd gotten to sing more.

Because Barney can't sing. Not a lick.  

[cooksdelight]

Yet, now and then, when he and Andy are singing their high school song, or other times, Barney is perfectly in key and has a nice voice. And it was nice of Gomer to fake losing his voice so Barney would get to sing. :)

[cooksdelight]

Watching “Opie and the Bully” during the scene where Andy is telling Opie about a kid who bullied him out of his fishing spot when he was a kid.... we’re wondering how much was script and how much was Andy Griffith the storyteller. :)

[Browncoat]

And it all looked so natural and real.  Not staged at all -- Andy stopping to tie Opie's shoe, for instance.  I liked that scene a lot.

[cooksdelight]

And when Opie gave his clean spare clothes to Andy to hold for him, Andy picked him up and gave him the biggest hug. 

[Browncoat]

I just watched the one where Thelma Lou's cousin, Mary Grace comes for a visit on the night of the big dance.  Barney, Andy, Thelma Lou and Helen set Mary Grace up with Gomer, who, after they all meet at Thelma Lou's house prior to the dance, abruptly leaves.  Mary Grace excuses herself with a headache, while the other four go on to the dance.  Of course, Gomer has just gone to get a corsage, and when he returns, he says he doesn't know how he and Mary Grace can get to the dance because "it's a good three miles."

Meanwhile, our other couples have gotten to the dance and decided to leave, arriving back at Thelma Lou's to find Gomer and Mary Grace dancing.  Great, right?  But my problem is that if it's only three miles, it couldn't have taken more than five or ten minutes to get to the dance, and five or ten minutes to return, but somehow it has gotten too late for all six of them to return to the dance.  That always bothers me.  I get that sometimes three miles can seem a lot longer than three actual miles, but they live in town! 

Or maybe I'm overthinking it....