TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ As Andy Introduces a Farmer to Modern Medicine)

[Local farmer Rafe Hollister is refusing to take his tetanus shot, so Sheriff Andy accompanies the county nurse to change his mind.]

Andy Taylor [played by Andy Griffith] [showing Rafe different medical tools]: “That's a stethoscope. Know what it does?”

Rafe Hollister [played by Jack Prince]: “No.”

Andy: “Lets you hear your heartbeat. Wanna hear your heartbeat, Rafe?”

Rafe: “What for? I know my heart's beatin'!”

Andy: “Well, yeah...”

Rafe: “I'm alive, ain't I?”

Andy: “Well, yeah...”

Rafe: “Well, then my heart's beatin'!”

Andy: “Well, listen to it beat, Rafe. Here, put these two ends in your ear there. Stick 'em right in there. They won't hurt ya. That's right. Go ahead. Stick 'em right in there. All right? Now, now, listen. Listen.”

[puts the stethoscope eartips on Rafe's ears and the chest-piece to his heart]

Andy: “Huh? How 'bout that? Listen to mine.”

[moves the chest-piece to his own chest]

Andy: “Huh? Whadda ya think of that, Rafe?”

Rafe: “All right. Now we know we're both alive!”—The Andy Griffith Show, Season 2, Episode 24, “The County Nurse,” original air date Mar. 19, 1962, teleplay by Jack Elinson and Charles Stewart, directed by Bob Sweeney

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ on the Eternal Dilemma Facing Parents)

Sheriff Andy Taylor [played by Andy Griffith]: “You can't let a young’n decide for himself. He'll grab at the first flashy thing with shiny ribbons on it. Then, when he finds out there's a hook in it, it's too late. Wrong ideas come packaged with so much glitter that it's hard to convince ‘em that other things might be better in the long run. All a parent can do is say 'wait' and 'trust me' and try to keep temptation away."—The Andy Griffith Show, Season 2, Episode 6, “Opie's Hobo Friend,” original air date Nov. 13, 1961, teleplay by Harvey Bullock, directed by Bob Sweeney

There’s a reason why The Andy Griffith Show has aged so well. It’s not just because the sitcom treated its quirky characters with humor and humanity. It’s also because, in his down-home manner, Andy Griffith slipped in common sense and wisdom that viewers from all walks of life could appreciate.

Six decades ago, Andy Taylor had to contend with a homeless person showing son Opie how conniving and thieving could get what one wanted without having a job. Now, the presence of electronics (smartphones, TikTok, you name it—even penetrating a small town like Mayberry—makes it a million times more difficult for parents to “keep temptation away.”

In the early postwar period, they turned to Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care as their bible for raising kids. But the pace of life these days is so rapid that revisions to these and other child-rearing manuals are obsolete as soon as they are printed.

This school year, parents will have to be extra careful to watch out for how “the first flashy thing with shiny ribbons on it” can affect their children. As a matter of fact, they will have to exercise the same vigilance towards themselves lest they fall for consumer—or political—scams.

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ In Which Barney Reveals His Knowledge of American History)

[Claiming history to be his specialty, Barney asks Andy to test his knowledge, so Andy asks him about the Emancipation Proclamation, and it quickly becomes evident that Barney has no idea of its meaning.]

Sheriff Andy Taylor [played by Andy Griffith]: “Go ahead. I'm all ears.”

Deputy Barney Fife [played by Don Knotts] [under his breath] “Yeah, you always was.” [Then, more loudly]: “Well, the Emancipation Proclamation...”

[clears throat]

Barney: “...uh, was a proclamation, is what it was.”

Andy: “Mm, what was is about?

Barney: [testily] “Was about emancipation! What do you THINK it was about? ‘What was it about?’ Use your head, man. It's common knowledge. It was these folks - and how else was they going to get themselves emancipated unless there was a proclamation? So, they got themselves a proclamation and they called it ‘The Emancipation Proclamation.’"

Andy: “Yep?”

Barney: “Yeah, and I'm surprised at you for not knowing that, Andy! And I'll tell you something else: I'm even more surprised that you think that I don't know about The Emancipation Proclamation.”

Andy: “We're still waitin' for you to tell us about it.”

Barney: “Well, if you get so smart-alecky about it, maybe I'm not even GONNA tell you!” —The Andy Griffith Show, Season 3, Episode 23, “Andy Discovers America,” original air date Mar. 4, 1963, teleplay by John Whedon, directed by Bob Sweeney

Once again, Barney shows why his friend Andy calls him, with an amused smile, “a bird in this world.” But at least Barney hasn’t volunteered to write standard materials that youngsters should know about slavery, so you won’t hear him talking about the “skills” slaves learned.

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ With Barney Targeted by a Flirtatious Speeder)

[An attractive out-of-towner, who has vowed to fight her speeding ticket in Mayberry’s court, works her feminine wiles first on Barney.]

Elizabeth Crowley [played by Jean Hagen]: “Say... Do you sing?”

Deputy Barney Fife [played by Don Knotts]: “Hmm?”

Elizabeth: “Well, it just struck me...You bear an amazing resemblance to Frank Sinatra. The same magnetism, the same appeal.”

Barney: “Noticed that, did you?”

Elizabeth: “You've been told that before?”

Barney: “No, but...I've noticed it myself. Frankie and me are sort of birds of a feather, you might say.” [Chuckling.] —The Andy Griffith Show, Season 2, Episode 3, “Andy and the Woman Speeder,” original air date Oct. 16, 1961, teleplay by Charles Stewart and Jack Elinson, directed by Bob Sweeney

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ On Whether Opie Wrote Graffiti on a Bank Wall)

Sheriff Andy Taylor [played by Andy Griffith]: “Uh, Opie, Barney says there was a poem written on the wall of the bank and that you was standin' along beside of it with a piece of chalk in your hand.”

Opie Taylor [played by Ron Howard]: “Yeah, but I didn't do it, Pa. Honest.”

Andy: “I believe you.”

Deputy Barney Fife [played by Don Knotts]: [angrily] “Are you pittin' your crime detectin' judgement against mine?”

Andy: “Well, Barney, I have to, because, for one thing, Opie wouldn't lie to me.”

Barney: “You call that evidence?”

Andy: “And for another, he ain't learned how to write yet.”— The Andy Griffith Show, Season 1, Episode 7, “Andy the Matchmaker,” original air date Nov 14, 1960, teleplay by Arthur Stander, directed by Don Weis 

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ As Andy and Gomer Deal With Barney’s Jealousy)

[Deputy Barney Fife, jealous over girlfriend Thelma Lou’s extra attention to Gomer Pyle, walks out of the Mayberry jail, refusing to speak to him.]

Gomer Pyle [played by Jim Nabors]: “What's the matter with Barney?”

Sheriff Andy Taylor [played by Andy Griffith]: “Well, Gomer, Barney's been bitten by the green-eyed monster.”

Gomer: “He has? Well, they got some stuff down at the drugstore that'll keep 'em off of you. One fell on me just yesterday!”— The Andy Griffith Show, Season 4, Episode 30, “Barney and Thelma Lou, Phfftt,” original air date Mar. 4, 1964, teleplay by Bill Idelson and Sam Bobrick, directed by Coby Ruskin

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ With Barney’s Foolproof Method for Remembering Dates Like 1776)

[Barney explains his revolutionary system for remembering famous dates, such as 1776.]

Deputy Barney Fife [played by Don Knotts]: “The first number... is one.”

Sheriff Andy Taylor [played by Andy Griffith]: “Yeah.”

Barney: “Now, that's easy to remember 'cause that's the first number in the alphabet.”

Andy: “Yeah.”

Barney: “Now, the second number... is... you just remember... lucky... seven.”

Andy: “Lucky seven.”

Barney: “See? Now you got one and seven.”

Andy: “Yeah.”

Barney: “Now, what's the third number? Seven. Now, that's easy to remember 'cause you just remembered seven, see?”

Andy: [chuckles] “Yeah, that's right. Yeah.”

Barney: “Now, you got one, seven and seven.”

Andy: “One and... two sevens, yeah.”

Barney: “Now, what's the last number? All right, here's how you remember that: What's one... from... seven?”

Andy: “Six.”

Barney: “Six.”

[They laugh]

Barney: “1776.”

Andy: “Yeah, that's good.”

Barney: “Yeah, it works out, too.”

Andy: “Wouldn't it be just as easy just to go ahead and remember 1776?”

Barney: “Well, if you want to do things the easy way, you're never gonna learn anything!” —The Andy Griffith Show, Season 3, Episode 23, “Andy Discovers America,” original air date Mar. 4, 1963, teleplay by John Whedon, directed by Bob Sweeney

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ As Barney Explains a Particular Type of Thief)

Deputy Barney Fife [played by Don Knotts]: “Kleptomineracs, we call ‘em…that’s a person that steals cuz he can’t help it. It’s a sickness.”—The Andy Griffith Show, Season 2, Episode 21, “Guest of Honor,” original air date Feb. 26, 1962, teleplay by Jack Elinson and Charles Stewart, directed by Bob Sweeney

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ As Andy Tells What Led to ‘The Shot Heard Round the World’)

Sheriff Andy Taylor [played by Andy Griffith]: [explaining the founding of America to Opie and three other schoolboys] “Well, one time a long time ago, this country was a part o' England, and we wasn't gettin' along with 'em too good. Fact, we was thinkin' about breakin' away and startin' our own country, but the king over there in England, he says, ‘You do that and I'm gonna send my redcoats.’ They was British soldiers and he's a gonna send 'em here to whup us.”

Deputy Barney Fife [played by Don Knotts]: “Of all the nerve!” —The Andy Griffith Show, Season 3, Episode 23, “Andy Discovers America,” original air date Mar. 4, 1963, teleplay by John Whedon, directed by Bob Sweeney

On this day in 1775, the Battles of Lexington and Concord took place—the commencement of continual hostilities between royal forces and their rebellious American colonists, what we know as the American Revolution.

The ideal way to learn about the day when, as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “the embattled farmer stood/And fired the shot heard ‘round the world,” is to visit the bridge itself where the volleys were exchanged, which I was lucky enough to visit, as I recounted in this post from a dozen years ago. 

Not quite as involving is to explore in detail the poems the poems that made these fateful encounters part of American legend: Emerson’s “Concord Hymn” and, for the events preceding this, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride.” A couple of bestselling novels from yesterday—Howard Fast’s April Morning and John Jakes’ The Bastard—might, if you’re lucky, still be found in public libraries or book/remainder sales.

But for as long as I remember, most people learn about this and other major points in American history from a school textbook—or, as one of my college professors once termed it, “a cultural menace to our society.” These are often committee-reviewed, leeched of personality and drama, but filled with what kids hate the most: dates.

That’s why Andy Taylor has come to the rescue.

As I discussed in a prior post, The Andy Griffith Show has become for me in the last few years a gentle cleansing agent for all the toxins in American news and souls. And the episode where today’s quote comes from is a special favorite of mine, for the following reasons:

*Griffith plays a brilliant straight man to Don Knotts, as the sheriff, to test whether history really was Barney’s favorite subject, asks his deputy what the Emancipation Proclamation was (not a bad question to ask at the time of its centennial, amid rising civil-rights activism—or in our own time, come to think of it);

*It kicks off the relationship between between the Sheriff of Mayberry and Opie’s teacher, Miss Crump, as Andy, with his sunbeam smile, changes her from antagonistic to—well, more friendly; and

*It piques interest in American history in an unusual way, as Andy has Opie and his pals—previously uninterested in history, much to Miss Crump's dismay—hanging on his every word as he relates what happened at the outbreak of the American Revolution. He does it without any dates (the closest thing: “a long time ago,” which, in his Southern twang, is the equivalent of “once upon a time” for boys), but with a good deal more content than Jeff Spicoli expressed about the Declaration of Independence in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (i.e., Jefferson called for “some cool rules ourselves, pronto”)

This, folks, is why Southerners are such excellent storytellers.

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ As Barney Recalls Reading in Childhood)

Deputy Barney Fife [played by Don Knotts]: “I read all them childish classics. I was an avaricious reader.” —The Andy Griffith Show, Season 4, Episode 12, “Opie and His Merry Men,” original air date Dec. 30, 1963, teleplay by John Whedon, directed by Richard Crenna

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ As the Sheriff Plays a Joke on His Deputy)

[Deputy Barney Fife has just been on the phone in the Mayberry jail, using as much charm as he possesses to get a date with Juanita. After hanging up, he tests out a cologne when Sheriff Andy Taylor enters, surprising him. Despite Barney’s frantic efforts, Andy sniffs out the source of the scent, then picks up and reads the bottle label before his squirming deputy.]

Sheriff Andy Taylor [played by Andy Griffith]: “‘Nuits de Paris—or—Paris Nights.’”

Deputy Barney Fife [played by Don Knotts] [sheepishly]: “Well, it's famous stuff. A lot of celebrities use that... radio announcers and everything.”

Andy [continuing to read]: “Capturing the fragrance of Riviera rose-petals and the passion of the Mediterranean moon in a rugged, he-man scent.” [Pausing slightly] “Caution: user should wear gloves.”

Barney [grabs bottle and checks label for that last part, as Andy laughs hysterically]: “You're funny, aren't you, boy? You're really funny. Give you a hundred on the laugh meter!”— The Andy Griffith Show, Season 3, Episode 3, "Andy and the New Mayor,” original air date Oct. 15, 1962, teleplay by Harvey Bullock and R.S. Allen, directed by Bob Sweeney

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ In Which Barney Practices Law and Order)

Deputy Barney Fife [played by Don Knotts]: [addressing three new deputies]: “Now listen, men, and listen good! There’s liable to be trouble out there today. We’re liable to have folks among us who are here for more than just a good time, if you know what I mean! Now the minute there looks like there’s gonna be trouble, we got to NIP IT! Nip it in the Bud! You got that? Let’s hear it!”—The Andy Griffith Show, Season 2, Episode 21, “Guest of Honor,” original air date Feb. 26, 1962, teleplay by Jack Elinson and Charles Stewart, directed by Bob Sweeney 

Sixty years ago today, hoping to capitalize on a character that had been a big hit in a guest appearance on The Danny Thomas Show, CBS aired The Andy Griffith Show for the first time.  In 249 episodes over eight seasons, viewers became used to Sheriff Andy Taylor dispensing justice in the kind of commonsensical fashion they could only wish for in their own communities.

I was too young to watch the show in its initial, and I must confess that, Faithful Reader, that when I first got wind of it in reruns, a certain variety of rural-based series (Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hee Haw) had so come to dominate the prime-time schedule that I had formed a stereotype into which I slotted The Andy Griffith Show. As far as I was concerned, Mayberry may as well have been called Hicksville, U.S.A.

How wrong I was!

As I have discovered over the last year in COVID-19 isolation, the people of Mayberry may not have fancy educations but they’re not stupid. They may be quirky, but they’re also recognizably human—one of the reasons, oddly enough, that the Farrelly Brothers of gross-out comedy fame (There’s Something About Mary, Shallow Hal), have looked to this classic sitcom as their model for humor that, when all is said and done, leaves viewers valuing kindness.

(“I remember watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show, and that's the thing we like, where you're laughing or giggling at stuff but also you're feeling something,” director Peter Farrelly said in an interview for the Website “Sound and Vision.” “There's something always a little heartfelt in the Andy Griffith shows that we aspire to get. We try to make you have some laughs, but you've also got to feel something for our movies to work.”)

That community (based loosely on Andy Griffith’s hometown, Mount Airy, NC) was what he had in mind years later when he said the star of the show was Mayberry. 

And it is true that this group gave Griffith and the two other chief creator forces behind the sitcom, producers Sheldon Leonard and Aaron Ruben, endless comic fodder, along with characters (Aunt Bee, Goober and Gomer, Floyd the Barber, Howard Sprague, Ernest T. Bass, and Otis the town drunk) that viewers looked forward to.

But I think that Griffith deflected attention from his own shrewd evolution of Andy into the sensible, compassionate center of this small town. 

It’s also easy to forget from the statement that he was able to shift attention in later seasons to Andy’s relationship with son Opie because of the remarkable development of Ron Howard (who, actress Elinor Donahue—Andy’s first girlfriend, Ellie—recalled in an interview for The Archive of American Television, was “the best child actor I had ever worked with up to that point”).

Most of all, though he was at pains to credit his friend’s contribution virtually every time he had the chance, Griffith in this instance didn’t acknowledge that there was a first among equals in this supporting cast, a partner with whom he enjoyed terrific creative synergy: Don Knotts.

As I mentioned in a prior post, Knotts won five of the five times he was nominated for an Emmy in the role. He was such a hard act to follow that, when he left the comedy after the fifth season, the show’s writers couldn’t figure out how to use Jack Burns, who took over as Deputy Warren Ferguson, so they wrote him out after 11 episodes and didn’t bother to get a permanent replacement in the last 2½ seasons.

Knotts’ departure was not optimal for anyone connected with the show. When Griffith decided to continue after the expiration of his original five-year contract, Knotts had already signed another five-year deal with Universal Pictures.

A friend tells me that one of Knotts’ big-screen movies, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, is, in fact, great fun. But his popularity at the box office never matched what he had achieved on TV, and his contract wasn’t renewed.

In the meantime, once he lost the services of his friend, Griffith also lost a terrific comic foil, and over the last couple of seasons viewers came to look forward to Knotts’ occasional guest appearances.

Over the years, when writers try to evoke a seemingly ideal small town with few or no problems, the name they immediately summon is “Mayberry.” In this year of lockdown and isolating in place, Americans have missed the chance to walk around their own “Mayberries” without fear.

They miss the days when the biggest issue on their TV screen was how Andy would persuade Opie to get over his crush on Helen Crump, the sweet schoolteacher who also happened to be the sheriff’s girlfriend. 

As they reimagine the notion of a community, they will have to make do with black-and-white images of Andy rescuing the good-hearted but hapless Barney from another self-created mess involving firearms and an overly rigid exercise of authority.

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ As Barney Explains the Oedipus Complex)

Deputy Barney Fife [played by Don Knotts]: “It’s the old mother figure bit: he loves her like a mother. Sigmund Frood wrote a lot about that.” —The Andy Griffith Show, Season 5, Episode 4, “The Education of Ernest T. Bass,” original air date Oct. 12, 1964, teleplay by Everett Greenbaum and James Fritzell, directed by Alan Rafkin

I’ve always thought that no TV character could fracture the English language so often, effortlessly and hilariously as All in the Family’s Archie Bunker. But I must say, after watching numerous episodes of The Andy Griffith Show in this year of social distancing, that Barney Fife comes in a close second.

Sheriff Andy Taylor’s lovable but flummoxed deputy brings to mind nothing so much as the couplet from Alexander Pope: “A little learning is a dangerous thing/Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.” (Of course, Barney is more likely to think of the creator of those lines as a religious leader than as an English poet.)

Barney applies the principles of psychology far more broadly than simply to substitute mother figures. He is also a student of the criminal mind, concerned that any show of leniency is liable to be interpreted as a sign of weakness. Firearm use is a necessity, he believes. “There's Andy, and there's me, and baby makes three," he says, patting his gun.

Is it really his fault, then, that his gun goes off as soon as it’s placed in his holster?

The physical aspects of Barney Fife—the sneer and strut in front of no-account occupants of the Mayberry jail that inevitably precede his bulging, saucer eyes and sweating forehead—overshadow his extensive resort to malapropisms. But his misuse of the mother tongue also makes him one of the great subsidiary characters in sitcom history.

For his performance in this role—including his dexterity in mangling language in so many sidesplitting ways—Don Knotts was nominated five times for an Emmy, winning each one. By the end of that extraordinary streak, I’m not sure why the Television Academy didn’t simply throw up its hands and rename its Best Supporting Actor Award in his honor.

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ As Andy Explains to Barbara Eden Her Relationship to Nature)

Sheriff Andy Taylor [played by Andy Griffith], to new Mayberry manicurist Ellen Brown [played by Barbara Eden]: “Nature's been good to you. I mean real, real, real good. I—I can't remember when I've seen nature spend as much time on any one person.”— The Andy Griffith Show, Season 2, Episode 16, “The Manicurist,” original air date Jan. 22, 1962, teleplay by Charles Stewart and Jack Elinson, directed by Bob Sweeney

When I have turned on the evening news after my commute home from work, the acrimony and inertia of the political scene invariably, to borrow a phrase from pitching legend Satchel Paige, “angries up the blood.” Frequently, in search of relief, I have sought out The Andy Griffith Show on MeTV. Though I hardly ever caught the show in its original Sixties run or even in reruns in the subsequent half century, I now take refuge in its many pleasures.

One unexpected delight of the series a few minutes ago was discovering a star in embryo: Barbara Eden, in a guest appearance, before she shot to fame a few years later in I Dream of Jeannie.

In this episode, Ms. Eden, who—I am still trying to wrap my brain around this concept!—celebrates her 88^th birthday today, played an out-of-town manicurist in flight from her no-good fiancé. She spots a sign promoting Mayberry’s “friendly” reputation and promptly decides to get off the bus and stay.

In no time, she finds how friendly the locals can be. In reality, the friendly ones are only half the population—the menfolk—and the correct word to describe their attitude in the orbit of this lissome young blonde is not “friendly” but “goofy.” (To my way of thinking, Deputy Barney Fyfe may be the goofiest guy—but contrary to what you may think, it’s by no means a runaway contest.)

Meanwhile, the women of Mayberry are highly annoyed by the inordinate attention their menfolk are paying Ellen Brown, and they express their disapproval in all sorts of not-very-subtle ways. Once again, the unenviable task of keeping order falls to Sheriff Andy, who must explain to the young woman why it might be best for all concerned if she left town.

Andy segues into that unpleasant chore with the above quote, nervously, even circuitously. But there’s another way to say those words—with that syrup-on-waffles smile that eventually won the heart of son Opie’s teacher, Helen Crump.

But back to Ms. Eden…In this episode, she was already, in a sense, molding the fantasy figure who would keep popping out of the bottle to astronaut Tony Nelson on I Dream of Jeannie.  

Tony would find her so lovely, so close but painfully unavailable, and so disruptive through most of the five-season run of the Sidney Sheldon-created sitcom, and so, obviously, did the confused but happy men of Mayberry, for an all-too-short time.