So, right now I’m stuck without cable or satellite. One of the few shows I get is The Andy Griffith Show. I’ve enjoyed watching the old shows, although Barney, Goober, Gomer, and Floyd irritate the fire out of me. I particularly like the episodes with the Darlings, the mountain family that comes down to the “big city” of Mayberry once in a while.
Why would Helen Crump sit around for years waiting for Andy to propose? Do they ever get married? Is Opie short for something? Why doesn’t an All-American boy like Opie have a dog? I’ve been trying to decide if Howard Sprague is supposed to be the town’s token gay man, or is he straight? Why, when you know they have regular telephone capacity, does the courthouse still have a candlestick phone, and apparently a town operator, as well? Why in the world would Andy keep someone as totally incompetant at Barney Fife on the job?
Can anyone answer these questions, or have any of their own?
Cause she doesn’t want to wind up an Old Maid™, of course. What I can’t figure out is why Andy passed up cute little Ellie Walker for that pinched, hectoring, scold.
koeeoaddi - Ellie Walker (played by Eleanor Donohue) was beautiful. I can only guess that Andy was intimidated by a female pharmacist. A teacher is okay, sort of expected, but a pharmacist? That’s a women’s libber!
dwyr - Really? And it wasn’t short for Obediah or something?
bouv - Andy’s wife is dead. Barney was too incompetant to be allowed to carry a gun - he probably couldn’t breathe without some help from Andy.
A LOT of good questions. I’ll try to take a stab at it without checking any reference material, so I can’t make elaborate answers.
Andy & Helen eventually married; that much I do remember. I want to say though that this may have been on the first Mayberry R.F.D. episode. Andy & Helen just seemed to leave and they never came back. Why so long? I think keeping Andy single and making Helen jealous gave the writers a LOT of fodder.
I thought there was one episode that involved a LOT of dogs in it, though the details escape me.
Yeah, Howard made me wonder too. But he did propose to Millie who worked at the bakery and they were briefly engaged. Still, in one episode where Howard caught a legendary fish named Ol’ Sam, Howard offers to take Opie to Charlotte Aquarium so they can see it on display. I’d swear, you had to see the look of fear on Opie’s face, as if he thought Mr. Sprague was gonna pull the car over somewhere on the trip and and molest Opie in the woods. Sprague even tempts Opie by saying he’ll buy him a malt, too. Andy pushes him to go. It was a creepy moment in an otherwise good episode.
Andy kept Barney around because they were cousins. I think this was revealed in the first show and only mentioned once more. Barney eventually moved to Charlotte (Knotts left the show to do movies) and was replaced by the forgettable Warren, keeping the Mayberry Deputy incompetence intact.
I thought that Andy’s sense of humor really got worse as the show went on and he smiled less and less in the later seasons. I think Andy’s boiling point came on an episode of Gomer Pyle, USMC when Opie ran away from home all the way from Mayberry, NC to California & hid on the Marine base. Boy, was Andy pissed when he came to fetch him. I suppose I would be too.
ussentinel - I saw the Ol’ Sam ep. Yep, Opie didn’t want to go. Last night’s ep featured Andy not being able to take Helen to a dance. He basically arranges for Howard to take her, the intimation being that Howard was a “safe” date for Helen. It got me thinking. Especially since they show Howard living with his mother, reading poetry, etc. It seemed so stereotypical. The dog eps was Opie bringing one stray dog tot he courthouse. Barney fed it his sandwich and before you know it they have about 15 dogs in the courthouse just when they’re expecting an inspection. It turns out the inspector is a doglover so everything works out.
nope, not short for anything that I know of. Now, we did have a lot of odd names in the family so I’m not saying it was common or anything. Just really rural. Great Uncle Opie had eight brothers whose names included Otis, Haskell, and Jethro. A nice bunch of fellows really.
Oh, great. Now I have this image of Andy and Barny standing in each others arms in the sheriff’s station, while Andy gives Barney “mouth to mouth”. :eek:
Now that I think of it, Gomer and Goober didn’t go out with women much and spent a lot of time in that garage didn’t they?
Has anyone noticed in the early shows, the ones made when Opie is very small, that Andy is rather buffoonish, but after the first season he is the straight man to Barney and the others. Part of it is because when he was introduced on the “Danny Thomas Show” he was playing a rather thickheaded hick sherrif. Later on he became the wise voice of reason on the show.
Also there is a later episode (in color, without Barney Fife) in which Jack Nicholson appears as a defendant in a trial.
In regards to thier characters, I would think this most likely had everything to do with any available women’s decision and nothing to do with their sexual orientation.
Umm, Raleigh. Even Barney was smart enough to move there, instead of “that other place”. Which is one reason TV Land’s Andy Griffith Show Statue is located in Raleigh’s Pullen Park. (Although Mount Airy, the prototype for Mayberry, might have been a more fitting location).
