Posted on 11/14/2004 2:21:13 PM PST by silent_jonny
November 12, 2004 - You can't grow up in North Carolina without being subjected to endless reruns of The Andy Griffith Show. Though the show was a bit harder to find once I moved to San Francisco, I still made a point of seeking out the reruns wherever I could find them. The nostalgic show, produced by Sheldon Leonard and Danny Thomas, looks back to an idealized time and place that never really existed. The popularity of the show lasted a full eight seasons and it was, along with I Love Lucy and Seinfeld, one of the few shows to ever end its run while still at the top of the Nielsen ratings. Though the show has thrived in syndication ever since it went off the air (or morphed into the decidedly unfunny Mayberry R.F.D.), fans have long been waiting for a comprehensive DVD version of the show. Thankfully, Paramount has finally consented to release the entire first season in a remastered DVD format, available November 16.
(Excerpt) Read more at dvd.ign.com ...
Good point. Someone should write a doctoral thesis on the disappearance of the funny drunk from popular culture.
Sgt. Shultz: "I see nothing! Notheeeeng!"
As Andy Griffith would say, "Ummmmmmmmmmmmm!!! Gooooooood!!"
One of my favorites was Howard Sprague..The guy could have made it, if he hadn't been such a mama's boy. I thought Elly was cuter than Helen.
http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/startrek/mayberry/city8.jpg"
Just about anyone was cuter than Helen! Too bad, they didn't keep Flora the waitress around. She was a babe.
And yes Ellie was much nicer--far nicer--than Helen Crump. One of the mysteries of the show is how Andy bypassed all these sweet and pretty young ladies (Ellie, Peggy, three or four county nurses) to end up with a shrew like Crump.
I liked that one, too. But one of my favorites is when the Governor's driver parks the Governor's car in a no parking spot and Barney gives him a parking ticket. The Mayor is upset but Andy sticks with Barney and even the Governor himself appears in Mayberry to congratulate Barney. Maybe that driver worked for Clinton in later years!!!
Thanks for the recomendation!
You know...I can stomach Andy doing all of that nasty stuff...but I don't know if I can stomach John Ritter, LOL!
Oh, now don't flame me you RIP John Ritter/Jack Tripper fans! Just "Come and knock at my door..."
I'm glad you mentioned Flora. I thought I was the only one that found her attractive. She had some meat on her bones! Milly was nice too (Howard's "girlfriend").
I know what it is like growing up with an overbearing Mother, which is why I felt for Sprague. I used to love watching Helen get jealous when those fun girls came around. Those fun girls reminded me of many groupies that I knew from my broadcasting days!!!
This is probably old hat to all you folks, but here is my one piece of Mayberry trivia for those few that haven't heard it...the actor playing Floyd suffered a stroke midway through the series and lost the use of his legs, so after a certain point in the run, you only saw him sitting...sitting in the barber chair, on the porch, on a box, pretty much anywhere you could rationalize it. Like FDR, it was kept as a secret.
Did you know that the actor that played the driver was really Ron Howard's father, Rance?
Flora also played Andy and Barney's classmate in one of earlier high school renunion shows. Flora is the same age as those two? Don't think so.
Ritter is actually very good in Gramps. He plays Andy's traumatized son and his performance is very subdued. Highly recommended.
I did know that Mayberry trivia. That same actor who played Floyd actually played a disabled person in a movie called "The Fortune Cookie." This movie is where Walter Matthau plays a trial lawyer who tries to help out his buddy, Jack Lemmon who plays a CBS cameraman, claim monetary damages, after Lemmon gets battered around at a Cleveland Browns football game. The "Floyd" actor appears in one scene as one of Matthau's clients.
They also rigged a special high-seat for Howard McNear (Floyd) so he could appear to be standing--usually while he was cutting hair--when he was actually sitting.
Howard's "girlfriend" is right. BTW, did anyone see the guy who played Howard play a nerdy character in the "The Getaway." He kills himself from the humiliation of having his girlfriend, Sally Struthers, having sex in front of him with a criminal who kidnaps them. Pretty brutal stuff.
"The Fortune Cookie"--without a doubt one of the greatest movies ever made! Billy Wilder rules!
Our favorite episode is the one with Barney singing in the choir..... or TRYING to sing in the choir. Andy gets this great idea to have him sing a solo, but makes him sing really quiet because of the microphone being so powerful (wink, wink). The solo is being sung from behind the curtain by Bert Mustin.
Actually Andy had a gospel album out too..quite big if i recall
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