On the closing credits of The Andy Griffith Show, there’s a sketch of a lake and some trees, presumably a sketch of the lake often featured in Mayberry and to which Andy and Opie are walking in the opening credits (Myers Lake?)
Does anyone know anything about this sketch? The original artist? Anything out there that doesn’t have the credits overtop?
I did find a guy named Gregory Hugh Leng who created a sketch of the sketch and sold copies online in the past. I’m wondering about the original however. Any info would be appreciated.
Keep in mind that those were added for syndication. When you see something in the corner like that during the closing credits, they are a replacement for a sponsor’s logo that appeared on the network broadcasts (I think Kellogg’s Corn Flakes for The Andy Griffith Show). Repeats of The Dick van Dyke Show and My Three Sons also have this, and the black-and white episodes of F Troop just have a blank space in one corner (when they couldn’t find a print that didn’t have the Quaker Oats logo, they would just cut from the start of the credits right to the end).
There wasn’t much technology to help in those days. Cut and paste was meant literally when creating credits and title screens.
When The Adventures of Superman was first sent to syndication there was an opening line in the title narration about Kellogg’s Cornflakes. Portions of Kellogg’s commercials were also seen at the beginning and end of The Beverly Hillbillies in reruns. These old shows were filmed originally and someone had to get on a moviola and cut out the unneeded frames. That was considered a waste of time and money before the future value of the content was understood. The advent of videotape made the job somewhat easier since no physical cutting and joining was needed anymore.
Man, that’s a revelation! I always thought the unbalanced staggering of credits was a weird design choice that was in vogue for a brief time in the early 1960s.
Cigarettes (mainly Winstons, I believe) were also plugged on a lot of shows. Jed and Granny were often showed enjoying a smoke, as were Fred and Barney. Wilma too.
The last little bit of the show is called “the dump.” It the part on Inside Edition where they show the same little vids like in Daily Dose of Internet. But in the 60’s they were used to plug the sponsor.
An example that was at the end of Go West, Young Martian. Tim and Martin bring back an Indian with their time machine, the fade-out laugh being he’s mimicking the End of the Trail statue. After the regular commercials, they returned for a quick plug, showing them all eating Kellogs Corn Flakes the next morning,then roll credits. But they cut that for the archived edition of the episode. Which is too bad, because much of our fondness for these old shows was how stupid they were.
Supe flies into Jimmy Olson’s apartment to bring him a box of cereal for breakfast? Lois Lane walks into Perry White’s office while he’s digging into a bowl? Clark Kent having a snack with Jimmy and Lois on the job?
Just to add, I imagine most of us who have seen I Love Lucy associate the opening credits with the famous heart on a silk backdrop. That was added purely for syndication as the original opening featured whatever the sponsor at the time might have been. They were pretty shameless about integrating commercial messages into the show. There was one episode that was a bit shorter than usual, and at the end, it featured Lucy calling Ricky from a Ford dealership, and excitedly telling him about the new Ford hardtop convertible where a steel roof automatically folds down into the trunk, which is then duly demonstrated. Ricky thinks she’s nuts because such a miraculous thing could not be possible!
You’re correct in general, but I don’t think that was the case for the artwork in the Andy Griffith closing credits. I remember as a kid being very excited when a brand new TV channel came to our city, an outlet for a brand new Canadian TV network, CTV. One of the shows I enjoyed watching was The Andy Griffith Show. Looking at the relevant dates, the show ran from October, 1960, to April, 1968. The CTV network was founded in 1961, so those early shows I watched were weekly network broadcasts, not syndication, and I distinctly remember that iconic image in the end credits.
You must be a little older than me, but only a little. I remember watching The Andy Griffith Show in first-run also (and likely on CTV), and I remember the art of the trees and lake with the end credits. Same for The Dick Van Dyke Show, with the sketch of Dick Van Dyke in the lower left corner. Never saw a sponsor’s product in the end credits of those shows; at least, not that I remember.
Same here. I can’t recall sponsors’ images in Dick Van Dyke or Andy Griffith or Twilight Zone.
Regarding I Love Lucy, I was very surprised to learn that in their original run the opening credits not only included nods to the sponsors, but were animated.
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