A Brief Tribute To Andy Griffith – Television’s Best Sheriff and Dad

NAL andy Griffiths

(A note from NAL publisher Doug Draper – At the dawn of the 1960s, following all of the black listing and cold war bluster of the 1950s, television viewers were introduced to a magical little town called Mayberry, where the town drunk Otis let himself in and out of the jail cell and the worst crime might involve a kid riding his bike on the sidewalk or some hick up in the hills running a still.

My brother Dave and I watched the Andy Griffith Show religiously and like millions of others, we were warmed over by the sheriff who never needed a gun and who was about the best TV model ever of a father for a son named Opie.

When I heard the news this July 3 that Andy Griffith had died earlier that day in his native state of North Carolina, I immediately thought of Dave and our times watching the Andy Griffith Show together. So I asked my brother, who also once visited the lot where the show was filmed and has collected practically every episode aired on DVD, to write this brief tribute.)

By Dave Draper

Yesterday, a lot of people felt like they lost a neighbor.

Mayberry, North Carolina may not have been the place where those people actually lived, but it certainly was a place that a lot of them wanted to live, or wished the place that they actually lived was more like. And the lost friend was the sheriff, Andy Taylor, a man of gentle wisdom, guided by the golden rule, and a sheriff who never carried a gun. But what sheriff would need a gun… with a deputy like Barney Fife (played by the late, great Don Knotts) who could ‘turn his whole body into a weapon’ when confronted with danger!

More has been written about the Andy Griffith Show than any other show in television history. Andy helped create the show and definitely set the tone for it, both onscreen and off. You won’t read a bad word from a cast member or guest star about their experience on the set. The cast members, in fact, repeatedly declared that it was the best time of their professional careers. That was exactly the way Andy Griffith wanted it. The cast played baseball and just plain had a good time between takes. The atmosphere was not only relaxed, it was like a family having gotten together. Anyone watching the show was captivated by that same atmosphere. People truly cared about each other and treated each other with kindness both when the cameras were rolling and when they were not.

Is it any wonder that the show has had such endurance? And there are currently more than 1250 chapters of the international Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club, formed decades ago. As Ron Howard, who played Opie Taylor, said, Andy put his heart and soul into that show. The show had heart, and those who loved it have lost a good friend.

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