The Mayberry Effect

I was expecting to see a documentary on how the show changed our perception of history and the idyllic era in which it took place. I assumed we were going to hear interviews from more cast members than were actually shown or more about the intent of the creators. I had hoped for something a bit more in-depth the show's effects on several generations. Instead, we see an hour plus of folks who just walked off the set of Hee Haw enjoying an annual Mayberry festival (and one too many pies). More time is spent talking to novice collector fan good ol boys than really discussing the psychological impact of the show. Most of the film is devoted to a handful of impersonators who do individual characters from the show at various Mayberry festivities. Not going to lie, seeing all of those obese fans waddling around the festival who struggled to form coherent sentences made me ashamed of my southern cousins.

This documentary focuses on Mayberry Festivals in Mount Airy, N. C., and other small towns, as told through the experiences of those who have re-created characters from the Andy Griffith Show and attend the festivals. Two academics are brought in from time to time to remind us about the meaning of nostalgia, but their comments, however interesting, seem to be from another movie. There are also brief comments from business-owners in Mount Airy and attendees at the festivals, but for the most part, this is the story of those in the Mayberry Industrial Complex.

The appeal of the show in 2021, and the reason for the nostalgia, seems to be longing for a time where neighbors looked out after neighbors and all the quirky neighbors were accepted. Everyone wants to live in Mayberry. Except for Andy Griffith, of course, who says in an interview in the film that when he was growing up in Mount Airy all he wanted to do was get out.

The film does briefly address one group of people excluded from the series, namely Mayberry's Black citizens. Although Black actors appeared as extras in some scenes, the only Black actor with a speaking part was Rockne Tarkington, who played a football coach in one episode in 1967. The documentary explains the lack of Black actors as a nod to realism of 1960s small-town southern life. But realism is really the last thing on the Andy Griffith Show's mind, as its many fans tell us over and over. It's not realism the show is selling us but fantasy and that fantasy does not include Black people who talk or have difficulties with the way society is structured--unlike many Black people when the show was being filmed.

This film nods at interesting issues raised by nostalgia for Mayberry, but assures us that we can ignore these and settle back into the world that never existed.