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The Andy Griffith Show
In The Andy Griffith Show, Americans got a chance to lose themselves in a
depiction of home and small town, that was both comfortingly idealized and caricatured for
its comic value. Andy Griffith plays Andy Taylor, a well-adjusted guy with a well-adjusted
son and an endearing aunt, surrounded by a town of very strange characters. On the surface, Andy is sheriff of Mayberry in North Carolina. But he is really a
young version of an old wise man and a benevolent helper who always knows how to make
things right. He's an all-purpose peace-maker, self-esteem builder, and social
problem-solver who sometimes works his magic without letting people know it was him. He is
one of many characters in popular fiction who use their position as a base of operations
to do good and keep society together, the most extreme example being Clark Kent, another
mask-wearer who is forever saving the world as Superman.* Andy's deputy, Barney Fife, played by Don Knotts, is the 90-pound weakling whose
visions of grandiosity hide a vulnerable, brittle, soul. In this, he has a certain amount
in common with Lucy. Like her, he is desperate to get some recognition and often engages
in charades to do it, although most of his pretenses are in the nature of bragging,
swaggering, and putting on airs. Inevitably, his efforts go awry, (like Lucy's) as he gets
carried away with his grandiose fantasies. At times, Andy helps him succeed in pretending
to be what he isn't, to boost his self-esteem. Andy is the opposite of Barney, as the man who is comfortable being himself and
content to let other people take the credit for things. Both engage in petty deceptions,
one out of insecurity, one out of altruism. The cast also includes the late Frances Bavier as Aunt Bee. Just as Andy makes the
town a safe haven, so Aunt Bee creates a comfortable nest for her two bachelors: Andy, and
his son, Opie, played by Ron Howard. Meanwhile, Andy provides a secure holding environment
for Opie, offering him a combination of love and firmness, along with moral lessons that
will ultimately turn Opie into another version of Andy. In offering us this depiction, the show allows viewers to enjoy a sense of
home and small-town wholesomeness, a commodity that is all the more precious today when
social stability seems in short supply. By identifying with Andy, the audience derives a
sense of what it is like to be a well-integrated, compassionate adult, who is at peace
with himself and content to sit on the front porch and eat homemade ice cream. At the same
time, it gets the sense of security he provides to others. By identifying with Barney,
they get an idea what it is like to be vulnerable, constantly trying to not be a victim of
one's own inadequacies. In addition, they get to laugh at the parade of crazies, (with a
few other sane people thrown in): Floyd, the spaced out barber; Goober and Gomer, who
embody friendly country bumpkin stupidity; the old-lady gossips; and the drunk who enjoys
the accommodations provided by the town jail. But The Andy Griffith Show never lets things go too far into farce, lest it
interfere with the viewer's sense of security and good feeling. As in many sitcoms, things
are always made right in the end, although given the sheriff's altruistic cons, the truth
isn't always revealed to all the characters, so that appearance doesn't always conform to
reality. But disruptions to the order of things are always restored; and people's self
esteem and their relationships with each other are protected. What could not be corrected
was the fact that most of town acted like it was out on a weekend pass -- from The
Twilight Zone. Addenda: 1. A more desperate variation on Barney's character reappears in Fawlty Towers in the
guise of a hotel proprietor, Basil Fawlty, who similarly tries to appear more impressive
than he is, (and is convinced he is more impressive than he is) and also tries to hide his
inadequacies, as his charades collapse around him. Fawlty Towers is about humiliation:
utter, total, and constant humiliation. It lets us take sadistic pleasure in watching
Fawlty suffer and in looking down on him with disdain, as we identify with his disdainful
wife, (played by Prunella Scales), even as we also sympathize with him and vicariously act
out our own charades. Basil Fawlty is so funny because we know he is us, even as we take
pleasure in knowing (hoping) we are never that pathetic. 2. One episode in The Andy Griffith Show has an interesting place in history. It played
in 1960 and guest starred Susan Oliver as a seductress trying to use her wiles to trick
her way out of the town jail. In the mid-60s, she went on to play Vina, another seductress
using her wiles in another prison -- the underground world of illusions on the planet
Talos IV -- in the pilot, The Cage, that launched the original Star Trek television
series. The pilot aired sometime after the series actually started. It was incorporated
into a two-part episode titled The Menagerie. Andy Griffith and Comedy's
Healers - - - - - - - - Creative Commons
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