Why The Andy Griffith Show is important to popular cultural studies.

THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW IS A NOSTALGIC AMERICAN POPULAR cultural masterpiece valid for all time. Consistently ranked in the top ten television shows (and number one during its last season), The Andy Griffith Show ran on CBS from October 3, 1960, through the end of the 1967-68 season. It has had perpetual mass appeal in syndication, and since its debut, it has never been off the air. Learning its origins, revealing some behind-the-scenes aspects, and reviewing many of the episodes have led to the identification of specific factors that have contributed to the show's phenomenal success and endurance.

The Andy Griffith Show is not about reflecting or projecting reality. The producers and writers did not attempt to blend the real world and the fictional world. Although some of the episodes made references to real movies, real TV shows, the Korean War, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the scripts never alluded to current events, not even to the four Nixon-Kennedy debates taking place during the first few weeks of The Andy Griffith Show.

The serenity of Mayberry was seemingly uninfluenced by hard news. In this respect, Mayberry is like the eye of the hurricane, a place of tranquility in a world of anything but that. Mayberry's problems and stressors were anything but the problems and stressors that most faced in the 1960s: unemployment, overcoming obstacles to voter registration, the quest for civil rights as Americans, sons fighting in a no-cause war, the uneasiness over the risk of nuclear war--the list could go on. Had the writers reflected the happenings in the real world, the show would have likely bottomed out in the ratings. Instead, it offered an avenue of escape from life's vicissitudes by depicting the simple life with small, solvable problems.

In spite of the hard news, the simple life of Mayberry thrived. In all 249 episodes, there are no mentions of fallout shelters, Vietnam, Cuba, Castro, Khrushchev, President Kennedy, the racial and student riots of the 1960s, the civil rights movement, or the Reverend Martin Luther King. Mayberry is immune from hard news.

The Show's Origins

The Andy Griffith Show was a spin-off of The Danny Thomas Show. Sheldon Leonard, the executive producer for The Danny Thomas Show, was approached by the top echelon of the William Morris Agency to see if he could create a part for Griffith, who was performing in a Broadway musical called Destry Rides Again. Although intimidated by the thought of working in the new medium, Griffith had told the agency that he was willing to make himself available for TV roles. Therefore, Arthur Stander, a writer for The Danny Thomas Show, and Leonard came up with the idea of an episode in which city-slicker Danny gets a speeding ticket. Leonard came to Griffith to discuss the part; Griffith did not like the plot at first, but he very much liked Leonard (Kelly 15).

Living in Rye, New York, at the time, during a week off from Destry, Griffith flew to Los Angeles for filming of the pilot episode at Desilu Studios. Griffith later admitted being nervous around Thomas. When the filming began, several personnel became curious about why Griffith's advent to television had been heralded and why he had been sent for the part. Griffith later found out that many on the set had been second-guessing Leonard. Griffith recalled, "[They] were talking and wondering why they had me out here. 'What is this magic they're talking about? This will never work,' they said, because I was wooden, very wooden" (Kelly 16). As the filming progressed, Griffith became looser: "His diction, intonation, and down-home anecdotes were something refreshingly new on television, and the audience welcomed the change" (Kelly 17).