It was that horrible idea that there had to be a message. Griffith, Father Knows Best etc.
Give me Bilko trying to get a monkey enlisted in the army anyday.
That’s pretty much American-everything. There has to be a moral to the story. I’m surprised to learn other cultures do it differently, though.
Andy Griffith turned out to be a tin-plated phony. Though he grew up and was raised in that area of NW North Carolina, he ultimately disdained their values and went Hollyweird. He rarely came back to the state except to campaign for hard-left Democrat nutters antithetical to the values of North Carolina. He was exactly the nasty person he played in “A Face in the Crowd”, Lonesome Rhodes.
His kid on the show, Opie, the director Ron Howard, is equally as disdainful of those Mayberry country values.