Mayberry R.F.D.

So "Mayberry R.F.D." was to "The Andy Griffith Show." M-R.F.D. was a pale imitation of the original, merely an attempt to keep TAGS rolling without Griffith & Co., who made the show what it was. I disliked M-R.F.D., and felt that there was no reason (save sheer greed) for the TV Execs to prolong the format with this thing.

And Buddy Foster was no Ron Howard, blond hair and plaid shirt or no.

I was really happy to see that Mayberry RFD is back on the air. I have never really seen this show except for a few episodes but am anxious to start watching it. As a die-hard fan of The Andy Griffith Show I know this show isn't as good but It's interesting to watch the next generation of Mayberrian's. My favorite episode I've seen so far is the Wedding of Andy and Helen.

I've never seen more than a couple of episodes of the Andy Griffith Show. But for some reason, I saw probably the entire run of Mayberry RFD in reruns during the mid-70s. Mainly because it happened to be on after I got home from school, most likely.

What surprises me looking back is how good an actor Ken Berry was. Generally a comic actor (and a fine dancer to boot), as Sam Jones he was essentially a straight man and his performances here were always nicely understated (too much so for some people, judging from other comments here) and very believable. From time to time, he showed quite a bit of depth.

I'm thinking right now of a couple of episodes. 1) Sam's struggling with a mild depression after some of his crops fail. 2) He and Millie are in Los Angeles (don't remember why), they have a fight and make up. Something about the emotion Ken Berry delivered in these - not too much, always knowing just how far to step outside his character's ordinary range - made then unexpectedly powerful.

I also remember an episode in which Sam does a very funny eccentric dance as part of a talent show of some kind.

The secret to a really good sit-com is that it convinces us we're watching real people, even when some of the characters are a bit outlandish. Ken Berry in this show always kept me believing I was watching real people.

Andy Griffith made an end to his TV show but the citizens of Mayberry still had a couple of years of life left in them with Mayberry, RFD.

Sheriff Andy Taylor and school teacher Helen Crump married and moved away from Mayberry. To give the new show a central character Ken Berry fresh from F Troop plays Sam Jones, a farmer just elected to the Mayberry town council is brought in. He's a widower like Andy Taylor was and raising a small son Buddy Foster. He even hires Aunt Bea to be his housekeeper now that Frances Bavier no longer had to keep house for Andy and Opie.

All the other Mayberry regulars and semi-regulars were retained and the show did well for two seasons. But at that point CBS pulled all its rural based shows to get a different market. And at that point those Mayberry characters like Paul Hartman, George Lindsey, Jack Dodson etc. all went to television Valhalla.

Sad the show ran into CBS's determination to get younger viewers. It's the seniors who watched this and other rural type shows and the seniors least likely to respond to advertising pitches.

Other than reunion movies this ended our look into Mayberry, North Carolina.

As many people know this show is essentially a sequel to the Andy Griffith Show. The producers decided that instead of canceling the show all together, they would continue it with essentially the same cast except for the leads. Ken Berry and Arlene Golonka were okay replacements for Andy Griffith and Aneta Corsaut, but Sam and Millie were no Andy and Helen. Also, even though this show was still popular at the time of the rural purge of 1971, I don't think that its cancellation hit people as hard as the cancellations of The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres.