I learned of the death of Andy Griffith Tuesday while I was driving back to the area where I grew up. I did not grow up in Mayberry; in fact my hometown is much smaller. As a kid, we didn't even have a Sheriff or any kind of police presence in our town. We did have a town drunk though.
The Andy Griffith Show (AGS) was based in the fictional southern town of Mayberry, NC; but it could have been any small town in the US. Debuting in 1960, it ran until 1968 and then gave way to Mayberry RFD (1968-1971). We purist will tell you that vintage AGS ended when it began being broadcast in color.
CBS had a host of sticoms that centered around small city or rural life: The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, Hee Haw and Gomer Pyles USMC (a spin-off of AGS), This homespun approached appealed to middle America but not so much to Madison Avenue. Despite the fact that overall ratings were still strong, the demographics were not what national advertisers were looking to reach. CBS, which stood for the Columbia Broadcasting System started being called the Country Broadcasting System among the advertising execs.
Not all that slowly, CBS began to cancel these shows; replacing them with more urban and "socially conscience" shows, i.e., All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda, Good Times, The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time and Maude.
The shows in the 60's did not match the real life of the 60's. Perhaps that is why they were so embraced by us "common folk". In Mayberry the biggest issues were Barney and Thelma Lou's relationship; Opie getting the wrong grade on a report card; Andy's dating life (he sure dated a lot of good looking women in such a small town*). Then, occasionally, there was some lawman's work where Barney's courage was always tested.
{*We purist think Helen was a b%^$# and Andy should have married Peggy the nurse. Much hotter!}
In real life the 60's were anything but what we saw in prime time. It all seemed to begin in November of 1963 with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. From that day on, all Hell broke loose: the assassinations of Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy; and the attempt on the life of George Wallace. There was Viet Nam, the Civil Rights race riots in L.A.and Detroit, waterhoses and police dogs in Birmingham, the Manson Family, and Richard Speck. No...Mayberry was not real life at all!
Even my tiny hometown was not immune. One of our own died in Viet Nam. The biggest battle Gomer Pyle ever faced was Sergeant Carter! Shows like AGS helped us escape, if for only 30 minutes at a time.
People will look back on those TV shows and think it was a quieter, easier time; but it wasn't. I do not long to return to those days at all. The events of that era, as CBS reporter Dan Rather once said, "...shook something loose from the American psyche". Some have said life has never been the same in this country since. We springboarded right into the 70's with more riots, Kent State, Watergate, the Munich Olympic tragedy, Iran hostages, gas shortages and double-digit inflation.
This is why we loved the AGS and shows of it's kind. It was life as it should be, how we wanted it to be. The fact that the show has never really left the airwaves, with syndication re-runs, tells us that we still wish it were that way.
Each generation and decade will have trials and tribulations. It is called life. Rarely can we solve any of our problems in 30 minutes (minus 8 minutes of commercials). We push on. We do the best we can. We dream of better days from the past and for our future.
The song MAYBERRY by Rascal Flatts, talks about "I miss Mayberry sitting on the front porch drinking ice cold Cherry Coke". Great song and great thoughts of a life most of us wish we had. But it is dream, a fantasy; and there is nothing wrong with that. But in reality, in real life, it is hard to miss what you never had.
The passing of Andy Griffith is just one more reminder that life and DEATH do happen. How grateful I am for the many hours of entertainment and escape that show has brought to me and millions of others. Rest in peace Andy. You made our world a better place because Mayberry could be everyone's hometown.
Yes, even though I never lived there...I MISS MAYBERRY!
Thanks for reading!
Jeff
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