Andy in Color...No Thanks.

I hate the Andy Griffith Show in color, it’s a fact.

I love, I mean L-O-V-E, LOVE, the B&W Andy Griffith Show. No matter how many times I’ve seen a particular episode I am enthralled each time. I feel like I am there and I really care about those people and what happens to them.

BUT…after the fifth season when they started producing the show in color something happened…something bad.

Yes…you’ve read my mind…Howard Sprauge showed up.

And with the arrival of his namby pamby smarty pants attitude the charm of Mayberry left, in glorious color. I hate the coloreds.

I have a friend, Kera O’Bryon, she and her husband, Christian, are big fans of B&W Andy too…but they also hate the color Andys.

The Andy Griffith show premiered on CBS in October of 1960 when I was five years old. I don’t remember there never not being a Mayberry. In my memory Andy, Opie, Barney, “Aint” Bee, Gomer, Otis & Floyd have always been there.

And they are still there…in my dinning room hutch, top and center is Aunt Bee’s

Mayberry Cookbook, on the wall of my office is an autographed picture of Andy & Barney.

In my neighborhood when my neighbors Dawn, Danny, Misty or I call out to one another we do so with a loud refrain of, “Hooty….Whoooooooooo”, the call of the Red Crested Web Footed Lake Loon, from the episode Back to Nature when Barney is lost in the woods with Gomer.

I had a friend once who casually said to me, “My pant leg went all Andy Griffith on me.” I knew exactly what she was talking about, if you don’t understand… it’s a boot thing.

I live in the Carolinas, where each fall in Mt. Airy, NC (the real inspiration for Mayberry) hosts Mayberry Days, there is a Mayberry Sheriff’s car that patrols around my neighborhood sometimes.

To my delight and good fortune, I have met Don Knotts, Ron Howard, Howard Morris (Ernest T. Bass), Betty Lyn (Thelma Lou), Hal Smith (Otis) and Elinore Donahue (Miss Ellie).

You can spend hours on the web discovering Mayberry information, here’s one of the coolest things I’ve found. The actual outdoor set of Mayberry which was known as Forty Acres. Each link will take you to another and another…enjoy.

These characters will live with me as long as I do and I’m grateful for their

company, many laughs and a few tears.

I love the b&w Andy Griffith Show… But… well, you know the rest.

“And don’t the trees look fuller”

Andy Taylor

Opie the Birdman, Episode 101, aired September 30, 1963