Classic TV Rewind · Episode 5
The Last Fishing Trip
Season 2 finale, The Andy Griffith Show. The color years, life after Barney, ending at number one in 1968, Mayberry R.F.D., Return to Mayberry, the cast we remember, and Mayberry Days in Mount Airy today.
Now playing
Loading episodes…
Click any section or line to jump there in the audio.
Shannon Late September, in Mount Airy, North Carolina. Main Street is packed. There are old-style squad cars, people dressed as Barney and Aunt Bee, and a bluegrass band playing on the corner.
Carol It's Mayberry Days.
Shannon Every year, thousands of people come to celebrate a TV show that went off the air in 1968. And it's still going strong.
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 is our last episode of the season.
Carol Episode five. The Last Fishing Trip.
Carol So, after Barney left, what happened?
Shannon Two big changes, both in the fall of 1965. Barney was gone, and the show switched to color.
Carol So Mayberry looked different.
Shannon Brighter, for sure. And it felt a little different, too. Andy got a new deputy, Warren Ferguson, played by Jack Burns. But it's hard to replace Barney Fife, and Warren only lasted one season.
Carol So who filled the gap?
Shannon The town, mostly. Goober had more to do. Howard Sprague, the county clerk, came in, played by Jack Dodson. And more and more, the stories centered on Andy as a father, and on Andy and Helen.
Carol And Opie was growing up.
Shannon He was. By the last season, Opie was a teenager. And the show grew up with him.
Carol And here's the amazing part. The ratings never dropped.
Shannon They didn't. The Andy Griffith Show was in the top ten every single season. And in its final season, 1967 to 1968, it was the number one show in America.
Carol Number one, and they stopped?
Shannon They stopped. Andy Griffith decided it was time to move on and try other things. And so the show ended while it was still the most watched program on television.
Carol How often does that happen?
Shannon Almost never. It's one of only three shows ever to end at number one. I Love Lucy is another. And, years later, Seinfeld.
Carol But Mayberry didn't go away.
Shannon Not right away. The next fall, there was a new show, Mayberry R.F.D., starring Ken Berry as a widowed farmer on the edge of town. Andy appeared in the first few episodes, and in the very first one, he and Helen finally got married.
Carol Oh, finally!
Shannon And Barney came back as the best man. Then Andy and Helen moved away, and the new show carried on with Goober, Howard, Emmett, and Aunt Bee for a while too.
Carol And then, years later, a reunion.
Shannon In 1986, a TV movie called Return to Mayberry. Andy comes home after many years away. Opie is all grown up, and about to become a father himself.
Carol And Barney?
Shannon Barney is still in Mayberry, running for sheriff. And at long last, Barney and Thelma Lou get married. Most of the old cast came back, and a huge audience tuned in.
Carol That must have been wonderful to see.
Shannon People loved it. It felt like going home.
Carol And Andy kept working, didn't he?
Shannon For decades. In the eighties and nineties, he played a folksy, very sharp lawyer named Ben Matlock, in Matlock, and a whole new generation came to know him. He recorded gospel albums, and won a Grammy for one of them. And in 2005, President George W. Bush gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Carol And we've lost most of them now.
Shannon We have. Frances Bavier in 1989. Don Knotts in 2006. And Andy Griffith in 2012, at his home on the North Carolina coast. Jim Nabors, Betty Lynn, and George Lindsey are gone too.
Carol And Ron Howard?
Shannon Still going strong. Directing, producing, and always happy to talk about growing up in Mayberry.
Carol So, back to Mount Airy.
Shannon Where we started. The town has truly embraced it. There's the Andy Griffith Museum, there's Andy's childhood home, and you can take a tour in an old squad car, just like the one Andy drove.
Carol And Mayberry Days.
Shannon Every September since 1990. Parades, music, look-alikes, and fans from all over the world. It's a whole town saying thank you to a show that made small-town life feel like the best place in the world to be.
Carol So, after five episodes. Why do you think The Andy Griffith Show lasted?
Shannon Because it was kind. Mayberry is a place where people look out for each other. Where the sheriff solves problems with common sense instead of a gun. Where a father always has time for his boy.
Carol And it was funny.
Shannon Very funny. Barney, Gomer, Floyd, Ernest T., the Darlings. But the laughs were never mean. Everybody in Mayberry belonged.
Carol I think people still want to live there.
Shannon I think so too. And for half an hour at a time, we still can.
Carol So, for our last picks of the season. What's yours?
Shannon Mine is Return to Mayberry. Seeing Andy and Barney together again, older, but just the same, gets me every time. And Barney finally marries Thelma Lou.
Carol And mine is a trip. Go to Mount Airy, for Mayberry Days. Get a pork chop sandwich, ride in a squad car, and say hello to Andy.
Shannon And our ratings, out of five fishing poles. For the whole show this time.
Carol Five fishing poles. The Andy Griffith Show is one of the great ones.
Shannon Five from me too. Eight seasons, two hundred and forty-nine episodes, and it ended at number one.
Carol That's The Andy Griffith Show on Classic TV Rewind. A boy from Mount Airy, a deputy with one bullet, a family at the kitchen table, and a whole town full of friends.
Shannon Thank you so much for spending this season with us, in Mayberry. We'll be back with more of the shows we grew up with.
Carol Until then, see you down at the fishing hole.
Shannon That's The Andy Griffith Show, on Classic TV Rewind.