Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show (35 page)

Twenty Great Episodes of
The Andy Griffith Show

1.2. “The Manhunt.”
Written by Charles Stewart and Jack Elinson, broadcast October 10, 1960. This story, which would win a Writers Guild Award for comedy writing, established Don as the comedic center of
The Andy Griffith Show.
State police arrive in town to hunt an escaped prisoner. Barney cannot bear to be left out and promptly finds himself captured by the criminal. Andy hatches a plan to recapture the crook and vindicate Barney, setting a template for many more
Griffith
episodes to come.

1.11. “The Christmas Story.”
Written by Frank Tarloff, broadcast December 19, 1960. This was the first of eighty episodes directed by the great Bob Sweeney, and his ear for pathos is immediately evident. The script pays artful homage to Dickens and Seuss. Hard-hearted merchant Ben arrests a local moonshiner on Christmas and insists that he go to jail over Andy's protests. So, Andy transforms the jail into a joyous Christmas party, enlisting Barney as an anemic Santa Claus. Repentant Ben is reduced to standing outside the jailhouse window, clinging to the bars, tears pooling in his eyes as he wordlessly joins Andy and Ellie in a refrain of “Away in a Manger.”

2.11. “The Pickle Story.”
Written by Harvey Bullock, broadcast December 18, 1961. No one seemed to like this script when Bullock first presented it. Today it stands as perhaps the quintessential
Griffith
episode. “The Pickle Story” celebrates the Mayberry virtue of going to comic lengths to protect people's feelings. Aunt Bee presents Andy and Barney a batch of her ghastly homemade pickles. The boys can't bear to eat them; to protect Bee's feelings, they secretly swap her pickles for store-bought surrogates. But their plan implodes when Bee elects to enter her pickles in the county fair. Now, Andy and Barney must choose between hurting Bee's pride and perpetrating fraud.

2.20. “Barney and the Choir.”
Written by Charles Stewart and Jack Elinson, broadcast February 19, 1962. Andy revisited his childhood choral memories in this story, a sweet lesson in human frailty. Andy goes to outrageous lengths to protect Barney from hurt when he joins the town choir and it becomes painfully obvious that he cannot sing. The choir director wants Barney out. But Andy refuses to fire him, searching instead for some means to coax him away. Several ploys fail. As a concert draws near, it becomes increasingly plain that Andy is not merely concerned for Barney's welfare; he is reluctant to deliver the bad news—a gentle reminder that Andy, too, is only human.

2.29. “Andy on Trial.”
Written by Jack Elinson and Charles Stewart, broadcast April 23, 1962. Andy confronts a big-city businessman over a neglected speeding ticket. The executive manipulates Barney to gather dirt on the sheriff and publishes a hit piece in his newspaper. A state prosecutor comes after Andy, and Barney is called to the stand to defend him. He testifies that Andy “is more than just a sheriff. He's a friend.” Barney delivers his speech with striking pathos, reflecting Don's powerful real-life friendship with Andy.

3.1. “Mr. McBeevee.”
Written by Ray Saffian Allen and Harvey Bullock, broadcast October 1, 1962. Season three of
The Andy Griffith Show
opened with this meditation on fatherhood and faith. Opie appears at the sheriff's office with tales of Mr. McBeevee, a man who lives in the trees. It sounds fanciful—until the boy begins to show up bearing gifts from his imaginary friend. Andy fears Opie has stolen the items. Opie insists his friend is real, but he can produce no evidence. This is agony for viewers, who know Mr. McBeevee is a man from the power company, up in the “trees” to work on the lines. In the end, Andy decides to trust in his son.

3.11. “Convicts at Large.”
Written by Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, broadcast December 10, 1962.
The Andy Griffith Show
never got weirder than in this gender-bending parody of the escaped-convict drama
The Desperate Hours.
Mayberry milquetoasts Barney and Floyd visit the old O'Malley cabin and stumble upon three escaped convicts, a trio of tough broads led by lantern-jawed Maude Tyler. The women force Barney to dance at gunpoint, and Floyd succumbs to Stockholm syndrome. The story ends with a slapstick scene worthy of Buster Keaton, Andy laboring to slap a cuff on Big Maude as she and Barney tango in and out of the cabin door.

3.13. “The Bank Job.”
Written by Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, broadcast December 24, 1962. This story showcases Barney and his delusions of law-enforcement grandeur; it also marks the onscreen
Griffith
debut of Jim Nabors. Barney frets that Mayberry is ripe for a crime wave. He decides to teach the town a lesson, sneaking into the bank to stage a theft. Caught by the manager, he panics and closes himself in the vault, whence he must be rescued. Barney's charade catches the attention of real bank robbers, who stage a real robbery; Andy thwarts it, and Barney is vindicated.

3.16. “Man in a Hurry.”
Written by Everett Greenbaum and Jim Fritzell, broadcast January 14, 1963. Surely the finest
Griffith
episode, “Man in a Hurry” stands as the ultimate expression of the Mayberry maxim that life is to be savored. An out-of-town businessman wanders into Mayberry on a Sunday morning after his car breaks down. Mayberry is closed for business, a scenario Malcolm Tucker cannot accept. He is trapped in the Mayberry Twilight Zone. Andy takes him in, and Tucker paces across the front porch as Andy and Barney hum a spiritual. In time, Tucker lifts his voice and joins them in song.

3.27. “Barney's First Car.”
Written by Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, broadcast April 1, 1963. This story, which earned the
Griffith Show
its second Writers Guild Award, tells a father-son story about life's lessons learned, but with Barney cast as the son. Barney buys his first car, handing his life savings to a little old lady who spots an easy mark. Barney packs the gang into his new car for a ceremonial first ride, bobbing his head with smug pride. Tragedy descends in a hilarious sequence of taps and clanks. This episode includes the classic Andy-Barney septic-tank skit.

3.31. “Mountain Wedding.”
Written by Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, broadcast April 29, 1963. This late-season entry introduces Ernest T. Bass, an unvarnished hillbilly set loose like a Tasmanian devil among the gentle souls of Mayberry. Ernest T. scampers through the brush and hurls rocks through windows, intent on romancing a fellow rustic named Charlene Darling. He charges into Charlene's wedding ceremony and drags off the bride—who turns out to be Barney in drag, planted as a decoy. Then Barney comes crashing out of the woods in his dress, fleeing unknown horrors and crying out for Andy, one of the odder scenes on prime-time television in 1963.

3.32. “The Big House.”
Written by Harvey Bullock, broadcast May 6, 1963. The season-three finale displayed all the talents of three
Griffith
funnymen and showcased an ascendant partnership between Don and Jim Nabors to complement the interplay between Don and Andy. The sheriff is charged with holding two hardened cons for a few hours. He begs Barney not to intervene, but of course Barney cannot resist. Barney deputizes Gomer and sets about finding new and inventive ways to enable the convicts' escape. The highlight is Barney delivering his “Here at the Rock” speech to the bewildered cons, while Andy tries his best not to crack up.

4.1. “Opie the Birdman.”
Written by Harvey Bullock, broadcast September 30, 1963. The season-four opener was the best among many
Griffith
episodes to explore the relationship between Andy and Opie. It was a daring broadcast because Harvey Bullock's script wasn't really a work of comedy. Opie inadvertently kills a bird with his slingshot. When Andy learns what has happened, he punishes Opie by throwing open his bedroom window, so Opie can hear the plaintive tweets of three baby birds that have lost their mother. By morning, Opie has decided to raise the baby birds himself. This is Andy at his most Lincolnesque.

4.2. “The Haunted House.”
Written by Harvey Bullock, broadcast October 7, 1963. This classic episode displays Andy's impish side. Opie hits a baseball through a window in an abandoned house. Opie fears the house is haunted. When Barney lectures Opie on childish fears, Andy teasingly goads Barney into entering the house himself. Now terrified, Barney enlists Gomer and Andy to join him. Andy quickly traces the ghostly happenings to a mundane source. Barney later parlayed this story into
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.

4.10. “Up in Barney's Room.”
Written by Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, broadcast December 2, 1963. Viewers had never been afforded a glimpse inside Barney's inner sanctum: a simple room on the upper floor of a boardinghouse, with a hot plate and a jug of sweet cider. When Barney defies the house rules, his landlady, the sweet Mrs. Mendelbright, asks him to leave. With Barney gone, Mrs. Mendelbright swiftly falls prey to a con man, who woos her and plots to take her money. Andy and Barney arrive in the nick of time to apprehend the villain. The story affirms the quiet power of friendship.

4.11. “Citizen's Arrest.”
Written by Everett Greenbaum and Jim Fritzell, broadcast December 16, 1963. This story explores the poignant fragility of Barney's worldview and the stark emptiness of his life outside the sheriff's office. Barney catches Gomer making a U-turn and insists on writing him a ticket. When Gomer protests, inflexible Barney warns, “It's from little misdemeanors that major felonies grow.” Gomer takes this lesson to heart: when Barney executes a U-turn of his own, Gomer cries, “Citizen's ar-ray-yest!” Now, Barney must write himself a ticket. Seething, he chooses jail over a five-dollar fine. Only the next morning does he realize he might lose his prized job and his best friend.

4.16. “Barney's Sidecar.”
Written by Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, broadcast January 27, 1964. This episode is built from a single sight gag—one purloined from the Marx Brothers, to boot. But Don makes the most of a fine script, a comic expedition into Barney's puerile soul. The deputy returns from an army-surplus auction with a World War I motorcycle and sidecar, with which he intends to police the state highway. His menacing helmet, black leather jacket, and reptilian goggles induce peals of laughter everywhere Barney goes, even as they impel the deputy toward fascist extremes. Andy confides to Aunt Bee, “I wish we had a psychiatrist in town. I bet Barney'd be a real study.”

4.21. “The Shoplifters.”
Written by Bill Idelson and Sam Bobrick, broadcast March 2, 1964. This story won the
Griffith Show
won its third and final Writers Guild Award. Working from a one-line concept—What if Barney posed as a mannequin to catch a shoplifter?—the writers built a story populated with quirky characters from previous episodes: Ben Weaver, the impatient department-store manager; and Asa Breeney, the doddering night watchman. The episode climaxes with a farcical midnight stakeout inside Weaver's store.

5.25. “The Case of the Punch in the Nose.”
Written by Bill Idelson and Sam Bobrick, broadcast March 15, 1965. Most viewers didn't know it, but this would be the last great
Griffith
episode to feature Barney as a regular. Barney stumbles upon a minor scuffle from years ago, utterly trivial—but unsolved. Over Andy's strenuous objections, Barney reopens the case. His interrogations set off a fresh outbreak of nose punching. By the end, Andy seems genuinely angry at Barney for his meddling, perhaps reflecting real-life strain as Don prepared to exit.

6.17. “The Return of Barney Fife.”
Written by Sam Bobrick and Bill Idelson, broadcast January 10, 1966. This is the first, and probably the best, of five reunion episodes filmed in the three years after Don left the
Griffith Show.
(All are worth watching; they earned Don two of his five Emmys.) Barney has decamped to Raleigh for big-city police work, but he returns to Mayberry for a stirring visit with Andy. They attend the Mayberry High School reunion, where Don has a poignant encounter with Thelma Lou, his old girlfriend, who now has a husband. Barney is devastated, and Thelma's revelation stands as perhaps the saddest moment in the series.

Andy and Don:
A Selective Filmography

A Face in the Crowd
, 1957, directed by Elia Kazan. Andy Griffith's finest single performance.

No Time for Sergeants
, 1958, directed by Mervyn LeRoy. A fitting memorial to the first collaboration between Andy and Don.

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
, 1966, directed by Alan Rafkin. Don's first and best Universal feature.

Angel in My Pocket
, 1969, directed by Alan Rafkin. Andy's cinematic comeback, a well-written, well-acted flop.

The Love God?
, 1969, directed by Nat Hiken. Don's most ambitious Universal film.

Pray for the Wildcats
, 1974, directed by Robert Michael Lewis. Andy bikes through Baja. A midnight-movie classic.

Three's Company
, 1979–84. Don's television comeback.

The Private Eyes
, 1980, directed by Lang Elliott. Don's best film collaboration with Tim Conway.

Murder in Coweta County
, 1983, directed by Gary Nelson. Andy's finest moment in a long run of television bad-guy roles.

Return to Mayberry
, 1986, directed by Bob Sweeney. The long-awaited
Griffith Show
reunion.

Matlock
, 1986–95. Andy Griffith's television comeback, and a touching reunion with Don.

Notes

I
N COMPILING
the sources listed below, I have sought to avoid duplicate or unenlightening citations. Generally speaking, I have supplied endnotes wherever I cite material from a previously published work and do not identify the publication in the text. I have provided a single citation for any passage, no matter its length, that draws from a single interview. I mostly avoid notes for brief or inconsequential quotes from my own interviews, for conversations reconstructed from multiple sources, for things said at public events, and for material taken from sources who wished not to be identified.

Prologue: The Call

000 “
the wheels in my brain”:
Don Knotts, undated audio recording created in preparation of the book
Barney Fife and Other Characters I Have Known
(New York: Berkley Boulevard, 1999), accessed at the West Virginia and Regional History Collection of the West Virginia University Libraries.

1. Don's Demon

000
“I did not come into the world”:
Don Knotts, undated handwritten notes provided by the Don Knotts estate.

000
“one of the truly good people”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

000
When Don's older brother:
Ibid.

000
“My mother took me”:
Don Knotts, interview by Gary Rutkowski for the Archive of American Television, July 22, 1999.

000 “
The clowning would begin”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

000
“Sid was a real hick”:
Richie Ferrara, interview by author, October 24, 2012.

000 “
I think my mother”:
Knotts, undated handwritten notes.

000 “
But when he got”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

000
“We were supposed”:
Richie Ferrara, interview by author, October 5, 2012.

000
“They had a little bit”:
Ferrara, interview by author, October 24, 2012.

000
“the happiest and most fertile”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

000
“His father employed”:
Ferrara, interview by author, October 24, 2012.

000
“He'd do ‘Ave Maria'”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

000
“We called ourselves”:
Ferrara, interview by author, October 24, 2012.

000
“We always had”:
Remarks by Richie Ferrara at Don Knotts memorial service, May 4, 2006.

000
“I had walked”:
Don Knotts with Robert Metz,
Barney Fife and Other Characters I Have Known
(New York: Berkley Boulevard, 1999), 29.

000
“I was a terrible president”:
Dick Hobson, “The Wages of Fear,”
TV Guide
,
October 21, 1967.

000
“we told everyone”:
Ray Gosovich, uncredited interview, June 19, 2008, provided by the Don Knotts estate.

000
“Remember, Donald”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

000
“You seem like”:
Ibid.

000
“Most of us in our teens
”:
Knotts with Metz,
Barney Fife
, 36.

000
“It was an experimental thing”:
Al Checco, interview by author, February 1, 2013.

000
“Before I knew it”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

000
“We performed on whatever”:
Remarks by Al Checco at Don Knotts memorial service, May 4, 2006.

000
“If you wonder why”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

000
“The Japanese kept bombing”:
Checco, remarks at Don Knotts memorial.

000 “
The constant rain”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

000
“Out of the clear”:
Checco, remarks at the Don Knotts memorial.

000
“Everybody was in stitches”:
Jim Allen, uncredited interview, June 26, 2008, provided by the Don Knotts estate.

000
“And she died laughing”:
Ferrara, interview by author, October 5, 2012.

000
“In most cases”:
Knotts, undated handwritten notes.

000 “
When we got back”:
Ferrara, interview by author, October 5, 2012.

000
“He was very charismatic”:
Kay Knotts, interview by author, November 5, 2012.

000
“Guess what?”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

2. Laugh, Lest Ye Cry

000
“Mama wasn't quite”:
James Brady, “In Step with Andy Griffith,”
Parade
, June 2, 1996.

000
Young Andy had a shock of blond hair:
Some facts in this passage were taken from Terry Collins,
The Andy Griffith Story: An Illustrated Biography
(Mount Airy, NC: Explorer Press, 1995).

000
“It seemed like he had”:
J. B. Childress, interview by author, April 19, 2013.

000
“She didn't really care”:
Garnett Steele, interview by author, April 18, 2013.

000
“We picked on him”:
Childress, interview by author.

000
“The other fellas”:
Tricia Jones, “Everybody Was Laughing—but Me!,”
TV Radio Mirror
, December 1963.

000
“I don't know why I didn't
”:
Andy Griffith, interview by Michael Rosen for the Archive of American Television, May 5, 1998.

000
“I don't know to this day”:
Jones, “Everybody Was Laughing.”

000
“I did it as a matter”:
Griffith, interview by Rosen.

000
“He was a person”:
Steele, interview by author.

000
“If something really”:
Dotson Rader, “Why I Listened to My Father,”
Parade
, February 4, 1990.

000
“He simply adored”:
Dixie Nann Griffith, interview by author, April 29, 2013.

000
“A lot of the men
”:
Childress, interview by author.

000
“This'll tell you”:
Griffith, interview by Rosen.

000
“Sitting astride his bicycle”:
Edward T. Mickey, “The Andy Griffith I Know,”
Wachovia Magazine
, February 1968.

000
“was the turning point”:
Griffith, interview by Rosen.

000
“was the kind they used to”:
Lillian and Helen Ross,
The Player
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962), 217.

000
“All the younger students”:
Eleanor Powell, “Andy Griffith Left Imprint on ‘Mayberry' Residents,”
Mount Airy News
,
undated.

000
“And what I remember”:
Robert Merritt, interview by author, April 19, 2013.

000
“He stood on”:
Steele, interview by author.

000
“My major was sociology”:
Griffith, interview by Rosen.

000
“Some people thought”:
Robert Merritt, interview by author, April 24, 2013.

000
“I had a wonderful time”:
Andy Griffith, remarks to the North Carolina Literary & Historical Association, November 1982.

000
“I didn't even know who”:
Griffith, interview by Rosen.

000
“tell what you know”:
William Ivey Long, interview by author, May 17, 2013.

000
“breakfast and eight dollars”:
Griffith, remarks to the North Carolina Literary & Historical Association.

000
“Have you heard”:
Freda Balling, “Hillbilly Hero,”
TV Radio Mirror
, October 1957.

000
“They were a genteel”:
Robert Edwards King, interview by author, April 22, 2013.

000
“Barbara Edwards was a sweetheart”:
Carl Perry, interview by author, May 3, 2013.

000
“They were doing the Haydn”:
Barbara Griffith, interview by Edward R. Murrow, June 14, 1957.

000
He asked her:
Jody Andrews, “The Secret Life of a Married Man,”
TV Radio Mirror
, September 1963.

000
“They paid only twenty-five”:
Griffith, interview by Rosen.

000
“My dad started out”:
Dixie Nann Griffith, interview by author, April 29, 2013.

000
Barbara remained, to this point:
Lawrence Maddry, “Old Lost Colonist Seeks Self,”
The
Virginian-Pilot
, August 27, 1972.

000
“would play popular songs”:
Robert Hurley, interview by author, May 7, 2013.

000
“I remember helping pick”:
Long, interview by author.

000
“They only had six hundred students”:
Griffith, interview by Rosen.

000
“I don't know how”:
Andy Griffith, interview by Edward R. Murrow, June 14, 1957.

000
“Every night after the show”:
George Vassos, interview by author, May 22, 2013.

000
“Singing had always”:
Griffith, interview by Rosen.

000 “
He talked just like”:
Edwards King, interview by author.

000
“I really think our families”:
Barbara Griffith, interview by Murrow.

000
“She'd sing.”:
Griffith, interview by Rosen.

000
“We figured that at least”:
Ross and Ross,
Player
, 220.

000
“They were like a”:
Mike King, interview by author, October 30, 2014.

000
“I'm trying to gain”:
Childress, interview by author.

000
“And I didn't have but one”:
Andy Griffith, interview by Fred Griffith,
The Morning Exchange
, WEWS-TV, 1972.

000
“so blue Andy wouldn't tell”:
Marjory Adams, “4,000,000 People in the United States Know Andy Griffin [
sic
],”
Daily Boston Globe
, October 9, 1955.

000
“could have held the stage”:
History of the Raleigh Little Theatre, http://raleighlittletheatre.org/about/history/index.html.

000
“We've got to make
”:
“Andrew Samuel Griffith (1926–2012),” http://blogs.lib.unc.edu/morton/index.php/2012/07/andrew-samuel-griffith-1926-2012/.

3. The Bumpkins Take Broadway

000
“We would go to a place”:
Kay Knotts, interview by author, November 10, 2012.

000
“He introduced me all around”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

000
“I walked onstage”:
Ibid.

000
“There was quite a technique”:
Ibid.

000
“There were hundreds”:
Ivan Cury, interview by author, February 6, 2013.

000
“He had quite a collection”:
Clive Rice, interview by author, February 2, 2013.

000
“everything was up for grabs”:
Knotts with Metz,
Barney Fife
, 67–68.

000
“the most boring thing”:
Don Knotts, interview by Gary Rutkowski, July 22, 1999.

000
“He played a nebbish”:
Lee Grant, interview by author, March 18, 2015.

000
“He didn't have to speak”:
Kay Knotts, interview by author.

000
“My day went something like this”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

000
“Have you looked into”:
Ibid.

000
“I'm sorry”:
Ibid.

000
“I was determined”:
Knotts, undated handwritten notes.

000
“I was learning”:
Knotts,
Barney Fife
audio.

000
“My name is Maurice”:
Knotts with Metz,
Barney Fife
,
78–79.

000
“His teeth”:
Donald Freeman, “I Think I'm Gaining on Myself,”
The Saturday Evening Post
, January 25, 1964

000
“And we went over”:
Dick Linke, interview by author, October 6, 2012.

000
“I have found”:
Gayle White, “Behind the Badge,”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
, July 14, 1996.

000
“I 'preciate it”:
Joan Barthel, “How to Merchandise an Actor on TV,”
The New York Times
, October 25, 1970.

000
“They put on my”:
Griffith, interview by Rosen.

000
“Now, I want you”:
Andy Griffith, interview by Larry King, June 1, 1996.

000
“He needed a lot”:
Linke, interview by author, October 6, 2012.

000
“And I scored”:
Griffith, interview by Rosen.

000
“About half-way through”:
Lawrence Laurent, “Andy Hit It ‘Right Nice,' ”
The Washington Post
, December 11, 1960.

000
“an old man”:
Andy Griffith, remarks at Don Knotts memorial service, May 4, 2006.

000
“If there's ever anything”:
Griffith, interview by King, June 1, 1996.

000
“Andy, you have to know”:
Andy Griffith, interview by Larry King, November 27, 2003.

000
“I didn't read well
”:
Griffith, interview by Rosen.