I don’t know if it’s true for the entire series, but at least in Season 3, Ronny Howard got billing over Don Knotts in the opening credits, with Andy getting top billing of course. Why?
Knotts was older, and I assume an experienced actor. Howard hadn’t been in the business all that long. The show seemed pretty evenly split between Andy’s family role and his role as sheriff, so screen time was fairly evenly divided between Howard and Knotts.
It seems odd to me that the older actor was billed behind the younger.
I guess that leads to another question. Who was paid more?
Well, does Don Knotts get bottom billing? Last billing is actually preferred to second billing, because of actual research that people remember that first and lat items on a list better than anything in between, including the second item.
However, there could have been lots of other factors. Ron Howard actually had more credits than Don Knotts (check IMDb), and during the run of the show, did The Music Man and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. He was a very impressive young performer, and extremely popular. He probably was pretty highly paid.
But if you want to understand how the top vs. bottom billing works, look at the billing for One Day at a Time. The first season, star (and recent Tony nominee) Bonnie Franklin gets top billing, and retains it throughout the show. What is interesting is what happens to the other actors. Pat Harrington has bottom billing the first season, and Mackenzie Phillips second billing. By the fourth or fifth season, Valerie Bertinelli, whose name was originally buried (she was the only complete unknown when the show premiered), has become second billed, and by the end of the show, she has bottom billing. Her star rose steadily through the run of the show, and she really was even more popular than Franklin, but Franklin had it in her contract to receive top billing. Harrington ended up with less of a role as the show went on (although, when they tried to fire him, there was a huge fan rebellion), and Phillips get fired from the show in disgrace, twice.
If I’m not mistaken, actors either want top billing or will choose last billing. Top billing is coveted but so is the final billing, especially on TV. Most TV shows will end their opening credits with:
“and _______ as ______”. In the Andy Griffith Show, Andy was Top billed and even though they don’t say "and Don Knotts as Barney Fife, it’s still the coveted final billed name. Frances Bavier who appeared in about the same amount of episodes as Knotts never appears on the opening credits.
Other shows that included the “coveted and…” credit includes:
and Jason Alexander as George
and Mr. T as B.A. Baracus
and Agnes Moorehead as Endora
and Dave Madden as Reuben Kincaid
and Jimmie Walker as J.J.
and Tom Bosley as Howard Cunningham
and Andy Kaufman as Latka Gravas
and Polly Holliday as Flo
Don may have traded money for billing. He was the real star of the show, he was the one bringing home the Emmys. He couldn’t have top billing so he may as well have traded the second spot for cash.
It comes from the bias where people are more likely to remember the first and last items in a list than any in the middle. If Ron Howard hadn’t become a big name beyond this, I think his name would be harder to remember.
I know I didn’t remember Ron Howard’s until Happy Days. (Though I am just a 31 year old who only saw reruns as a kid.) But I knew Andy Griffith and Don Knotts.
The primacy and recency effect. Which I mentioned in post 2.
I know “Ronny” Howard from The Music Man. I know Don Knotts from his Disney movies. Oddly, I associate Don Knotts with Russia. When I was 10 and living in Moscow, every other Saturday, the embassy used to rent an afternoon movie for kids on 16mm. It was usually an old Disney B movie-- something like The Incredible Mr. Limpet, or* The Shaggy Dog*, as opposed to a newer movie, or a classic, like Snow White. We did get The Apple Dumpling Gang, which was just a few years old at the time.
It was such a good time, as it was an oasis in a time when we had no English-language TV, the internet (for an ordinary person) was two decades in the future, and even videotapes were several years away. It must be really different for American kids there now. I bet they can get by without even learning Russian just to be able to make friends.
I just finished Andy & Don, which is a quick and enjoyable read if you are interested in the actors and The Andy Griffith Show in general.
the show was developed for Andy
the book opens with Don Knotts out in LA and playing bridge when they stop their game to watch The Danny Thomas Show. or was it Make Room for Daddy? anyway, a show with Danny Thomas in which he drives through Mayberry and gets arrested by Sheriff Andy Taylor.
Don, knowing Andy from Broadway, called him and said the Sheriff needs a Deputy. turns out he was right.
That final billing is the more valuable spot makes sense. There were at least a few shows of that period that final-billed lesser roles though. One that comes to mind is Gilligan’s Island (Tina Louise and then later Russell Johnson/Dawn Wells sharing – Jim Backus was the most well-known). And later, The Brady Bunch (Ann B. Wilson) and MAS*H (William Christopher and Jamie Farr, I believe in the beginning one of them was credited at the end of the show only and then got bumped up to the opening).
I imagine there are a lot of factors that factor into determining the sequence.
Speaking of final billing, I’m old enough to remember that in the early years of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, the show would begin with Ed reading the guest list, always concluding with, “And me, I’m Ed McMahon,” which always got a lot of applause. After a few years of this, they changed it, and he began the show with “This is Ed McMahon, along with Doc Severinsen…” and then gave the list of guests, so there was no chance for the audience to applaud him.
I’ve always assumed that the change was made because Johnny didn’t like Ed getting that applause. Anybody know whether that’s right?
I see in the wiki that initially there was a 15 minute pre-show with Ed and Skitch (before Doc). Usually local news preempted that segment until it was finally dropped. Maybe that was the point where they changed the format.
Hypno-Toad may be right about Johnny’s influence on the change, but I can see the producers changing it just for a better flow in the opening. It depends when the change happened, early on Carson didn’t have tremendous pull, no one knew he’d stay as host forever. After the night time talk show wars left him the undisputed winner he gained incredible Hollywood power.
I think Barney’s role was not originally intended to be as big as it became - Barney Fife was the breakout character of the show, but the billing may have reflected the original vision of the show as being about Andy interacting with the townsfolk as the sheriff (with a deputy around just to fill the space), and about Andy interacting with his family (primarily Ronnie Howard).
I think she did once - after Knotts left the show, I remember an episode when he came back (I think he got a Special Guest credit of some sort in the opening credits), and Frances Bavier got the last credit in the opening.
