Classic TV Rewind · Episode 1
Welcome to Mayberry
Season 2, The Andy Griffith Show. How Mayberry began: Andy Griffith growing up in Mount Airy, What It Was, Was Football, No Time for Sergeants, the pilot hidden inside The Danny Thomas Show, the first episode with Aunt Bee, and the whistle everyone knows.
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Shannon A dirt road, winding down to a lake. A tall man in a sheriff's uniform, with a fishing pole over his shoulder. And beside him, a little boy, carrying his own pole, and tossing a rock into the water.
Carol And somebody, somewhere, is whistling.
Shannon That's how every episode began. No car chases. No explosions. Just a father and his boy, going fishing.
Carol Welcome to Classic TV Rewind, where we go back to the shows we grew up with, and find out what made them work.
Shannon This season, we're going home. To a little town in North Carolina called Mayberry. It's The Andy Griffith Show.
Carol Episode one. Welcome to Mayberry.
Carol So, let's start with Andy himself.
Shannon Andy Griffith was born in 1926, in Mount Airy, North Carolina. A small town up near the Virginia line. His family didn't have much, and he grew up loving music. He sang, he played the guitar, and for a while, he even thought he might become a preacher.
Carol Andy Griffith? A preacher?
Shannon He studied music at the University of North Carolina, and he taught high school for a few years. But he loved to perform. So he and his wife, Barbara, started touring around the state, singing and telling stories.
Carol And then came football.
Shannon Then came football. In 1953, he recorded a comedy monologue called What It Was, Was Football. It's a country preacher who wanders into a college football game by accident, with no idea what's going on, and tries to describe it.
Carol I remember that. He thinks they're fighting over a punkin.
Shannon That's the one. It sold nearly eight hundred thousand copies. And suddenly, Andy Griffith was famous.
Carol And then he went to Broadway.
Shannon He did. He starred in a comedy called No Time for Sergeants, about a good-hearted country boy who gets drafted into the Air Force and drives everyone around him crazy. He played it on television, then on Broadway, and then in the movie.
Carol Who else was in the movie?
Shannon A young actor named Don Knotts, in a small part. Remember that name. We'll come back to him.
Carol And Andy did something dark too, didn't he?
Shannon He did. In 1957, he made a film called A Face in the Crowd, playing a drifter who becomes a powerful, cruel television star. It's a brilliant performance, and nothing like the Andy we know. It shows what a fine actor he was.
Carol So how did he end up in Mayberry?
Shannon Through Danny Thomas. Danny Thomas had a hit sitcom of his own, and his producer, Sheldon Leonard, came up with a clever idea. Instead of filming a separate pilot for a new show, they'd slip it into an episode of Danny's show.
Carol A sneak preview.
Shannon Exactly. In February of 1960, Danny Thomas is driving through a little Southern town, and he gets pulled over by the local sheriff. The sheriff is Andy Griffith. The town is Mayberry.
Carol And Danny gets arrested?
Shannon He's sure he's being swindled by a small-town sheriff. But Sheriff Andy Taylor turns out to be smarter, and kinder, than Danny expected. And there was a little boy in that episode too. Opie, played by Ron Howard.
Carol Little Ronny Howard.
Shannon He was about six years old. Audiences liked what they saw, and that fall, The Andy Griffith Show was on the air.
Carol So, what was the first real episode about?
Shannon It's called The New Housekeeper, and it went out in October of 1960. Andy is a widower, raising Opie on his own. And his Aunt Bee moves in to keep house for them.
Carol And Opie doesn't like it.
Shannon Not at first. He's used to it being just him and Pa. And he decides Aunt Bee has to go. She can't fish, she can't play ball, she can't catch frogs.
Carol Oh, poor Aunt Bee.
Shannon But by the end, Opie realizes she needs him as much as he needs her. And Aunt Bee stays. For the next eight years.
Carol That's the whole show right there, isn't it?
Shannon It really is. A family, looking after each other, in a small town where people look out for each other.
Carol Now, in the early episodes, Andy's a bit different from how we remember him.
Shannon He is. In the very first season, Andy Taylor is a bit more of a country comedian. Folksy, a little goofy, with a big laugh.
Carol And that changed.
Shannon It changed because of Barney. Don Knotts, the actor from No Time for Sergeants, saw the pilot, and he called Andy to suggest that the sheriff ought to have a deputy.
Carol And they gave him the part.
Shannon They did. And Andy quickly saw that Barney was funnier than he was. So Andy did something generous. He stepped back, and became the calm one. The straight man. Andy Taylor became the wise, steady center of the town, and he let everyone around him get the laughs.
Carol That's not easy for a star to do.
Shannon It's not. And a lot of people think it's the secret of the whole show.
Carol Now, about that opening. The walk to the lake.
Shannon The music is called The Fishin' Hole. It was written by Earle Hagen. And that whistle you're hearing in your head right now? That's Earle Hagen himself, whistling.
Carol I can hear it.
Shannon Everybody can. And the lake isn't in North Carolina at all. It was filmed at a reservoir in a canyon near Los Angeles.
Carol Really?
Shannon Truly. Mayberry was made in California. But it felt like home to people all over the country.
Carol So is there a real Mayberry?
Shannon Well, for years, Andy said Mayberry wasn't Mount Airy, his hometown. But later in life, he admitted, it sure sounds like it. And the show mentions real places nearby, like Mount Pilot, which sounds a lot like Pilot Mountain, just down the road.
Carol And Mount Airy embraced it.
Shannon Oh, completely. Today, you can visit the Andy Griffith Museum, ride around town in an old squad car, and get a pork chop sandwich at a lunch counter Andy used to go to as a boy. But we'll save the full tour for the end of the season.
Carol So, what's your pick for this one?
Shannon Mine is the very first episode, The New Housekeeper. Opie, Aunt Bee, and Andy, becoming a family. It's sweet without being sappy, and it sets up everything.
Carol And mine is the pilot, the one on The Danny Thomas Show. It's fun to see Mayberry for the very first time, through the eyes of a big-city stranger.
Shannon And this season, we need a new rating. No more twitches. So we're going to rate out of five fishing poles.
Carol Oh, I like that.
Shannon So, how many?
Carol For the beginnings of Mayberry? Five fishing poles. It started out right.
Shannon Five from me too. One for each of them. Andy, Opie, Aunt Bee, Barney, and the lake.
Carol That's how Mayberry began. A boy from Mount Airy, a pilot in disguise, a family at the kitchen table, and a whistle everyone knows.
Shannon Next time, we spend the whole episode with Barney Fife. One deputy, one bullet, and five Emmys.
Carol That's next time, on Classic TV Rewind.