Classic TV Rewind · Episode 4
The Folks of Mayberry
Season 2, The Andy Griffith Show. Around town with Gomer and Goober, Floyd the barber, Otis, Ernest T. Bass, the Darlings and their bluegrass, and Gomer's own spin-off.
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Shannon Main Street, Mayberry. The barber's sweeping out his shop. Down at the filling station, a young fellow in a ball cap is grinning at nothing in particular. And up in the hills, a family of musicians is tuning up.
Carol And every one of them is about to walk into the sheriff's office with a problem.
Shannon That was the magic of Mayberry. It wasn't just Andy and Barney. It was a whole town.
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, it's The Andy Griffith Show. And this time, we're taking a walk around town.
Carol Episode four. The Folks of Mayberry.
Carol So, let's start at the filling station.
Shannon With Gomer Pyle, played by Jim Nabors. Gomer is the sweetest, most innocent young man in the county. He works at Wally's filling station, he believes everything anyone tells him, and when he's amazed, he says, Gollll-ly.
Carol (laughs) I can hear it.
Shannon Everybody can. And here's the surprise. Jim Nabors had a big, rich, operatic singing voice. When Gomer sang, people couldn't believe the same man was talking a minute before.
Carol And Gomer got his own show.
Shannon He did. In 1964, Gomer joined the Marines, in a new series called Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Poor Gomer, at boot camp, with a drill sergeant who could never quite figure him out. It was a big hit in its own right.
Carol And then there was his cousin.
Shannon Goober Pyle, played by George Lindsey. When Gomer went off to the Marines, his cousin Goober took over at the filling station. A little louder, a little goofier, and very proud of his impression of Cary Grant.
Carol Which was terrible.
Shannon Gloriously bad. George Lindsey stayed with the show through to the end, and then into Mayberry R.F.D. And later on, a lot of people knew him from Hee Haw.
Carol And the barbershop.
Shannon Floyd Lawson, the barber, played by Howard McNear. Floyd is sweet and a little scatterbrained. He loses track of what he's saying, he gets names mixed up, and the barbershop is where the men of Mayberry go to sit and talk about nothing.
Carol And there's a sad part of his story.
Shannon There is. A few seasons in, Howard McNear had a stroke. It left him partly paralyzed, and he was away for over a year. But Andy Griffith wanted him back. So they found ways for Floyd to keep working, often sitting down, or leaning on something, and the cameras were careful with him.
Carol That's kind.
Shannon It is. And you'd hardly notice it, watching. Floyd was still Floyd.
Carol And Otis.
Shannon Otis Campbell, played by Hal Smith. Otis is the town drunk. And every Saturday night, he lets himself into the jail, locks himself in a cell, and sleeps it off. Then on Sunday morning, he lets himself out and goes home.
Carol The key was right there on the wall.
Shannon Hanging on a nail. It's a gentle joke, and the show was always kind to him. And here's a fun fact. Hal Smith did a lot of cartoon voices too. For many years, he was the voice of Owl in Disney's Winnie the Pooh films.
Carol And then the wild one.
Shannon Ernest T. Bass, played by Howard Morris. A mountain man who throws rocks through windows, hollers at the top of his lungs, and hollers his love for whatever girl's caught his eye.
Carol He's chaos.
Shannon In only a handful of episodes. And yet he's one of the characters fans remember best. Howard Morris was a comedy veteran from Sid Caesar's shows, and he threw himself into it.
Carol And my favorites. The Darlings.
Shannon A mountain family who come down to town every so often, led by their father, Briscoe Darling, played by Denver Pyle. And his four silent sons, who never say a word, but play bluegrass like nobody else.
Carol They really could play.
Shannon Because they were a real band. The Darling boys were played by The Dillards, a bluegrass group from Missouri. And when they played, Andy would often join them on guitar. Some of the happiest moments in the whole show are just the Darlings and Andy, picking and singing on the front porch.
Carol And Briscoe's daughter.
Shannon Charlene, who's always making eyes at Andy, much to his alarm.
Carol And the women of the town.
Shannon There's Helen Crump, Andy's girl, who we talked about last time. Thelma Lou, Barney's girl. Clara, Aunt Bee's best friend and pickle rival. And Juanita, the waitress at the diner, who Barney's always calling but we never see.
Carol Never once!
Shannon Never once. She lived entirely on the other end of a telephone.
Carol And Thelma Lou did something lovely later in life.
Shannon Betty Lynn moved to Mount Airy, the town Mayberry is so often compared to. She lived there for her last years, and she'd come to the Andy Griffith Museum to sign autographs and meet fans.
Carol So, what's your pick for the folks of Mayberry?
Shannon Mine is one with the Darlings. The Darlings Are Coming. You get the whole family, the music, and Andy right in the middle of it.
Carol And mine is Citizen's Arrest. Barney gives Gomer a ticket for an illegal U-turn, then turns right around and makes one himself. And Gomer hollers, Citizen's arrest! Right in the middle of town.
Shannon And our ratings, out of five fishing poles.
Carol For the folks of Mayberry? Five fishing poles. They're the reason we keep coming back.
Shannon Five from me too. And a rock through the window from Ernest T.
Carol That's the folks of Mayberry. A singing gas station attendant, a barber, the town's gentlest troublemaker, a rock-throwing mountain man, and the best bluegrass band on television.
Shannon Next time, our last episode of the season. The color years, life after Barney, a show that ended at the very top, and the town that's still celebrating it today.
Carol That's next time, on Classic TV Rewind.