The Andy Griffith Show
1960 · 8 seasons · 249 episodes · Comedy, Family
Created by Sheldon Leonard, Danny Thomas
“Nip it in the bud!”
The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised on CBS between October 3, 1960 and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays the widowed sheriff of the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina. His life is complicated by an inept, but well-meaning deputy, Barney Fife, a spinster aunt and housekeeper, Aunt Bee, and a precocious young son, Opie. Local ne'er-do-wells, bumbling pals, and temperamental girlfriends further complicate his life. Andy Griffith stated in a Today Show interview, with respect to the time period of the show: "Well, though we never said it, and though it was shot in the '60s, it had a feeling of the '30s. It was when we were doing it, of a time gone by." The series never placed lower than seventh in the Nielsen ratings and ended its final season at number one. It has been ranked by TV Guide as the 9th-best show in American television history. Though neither Griffith nor the show won awards during its eight-season run, series co-stars Knotts and Bavier accumulated a combined total of six Emmy Awards. The show, a semi-spin-off from an episode of The Danny Thomas Show titled "Danny Meets Andy Griffith", spawned its own spin-off series, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., a sequel series, Mayberry R.F.D., and a reunion telemovie, Return to Mayberry. The show's enduring popularity has generated a good deal of show-related merchandise. Reruns currently air on TV Land, and the complete series is available on DVD. All eight seasons are also now available by streaming video services such as Netflix.
Why it's worth watching
The Andy Griffith Show is a heartwarming and wholesome sitcom that celebrates virtue, justice, and family values. Its portrayal of small-town life in the 1960s offers a nostalgic and morally uplifting experience.
What it praises
It holds up virtues such as integrity, community service, and the importance of family and friendship, making it a positive influence on viewers.
For discernment
The Andy Griffith Show remains one of the cleanest and most genuinely virtuous sitcoms ever made: Sheriff Andy's patient, unarmed wisdom, his gentle fathering of Opie, and Mayberry's assumed Christian moral order still model integrity, mercy, and neighborliness better than almost anything on television, and faith is treated with quiet reverence. The only things a discerning viewer might note are period-normal and minor: alcohol and tobacco appear as everyday 1960s life (the recurring town drunk Otis is played for gentle comedy rather than as a warning), a single brief bra-clad belly dance, and a rare fistfight. This is a rare case where the prior praise is basically deserved; it is edifying, restful, and genuinely formative viewing for a household.
- SubstancesEveryday 1960s alcohol and tobacco use; the recurring town drunk Otis is played for gentle laughs rather than as a caution.
- SexualityOne brief belly dance by a woman in a bra.
- ViolenceA rare brief fistfight and casual firearm handling; a bird is implied killed with a slingshot.
Cast
Andy Griffith
Andy Taylor
Ron Howard
Opie Taylor
Frances Bavier
Aunt Bee Taylor
Don Knotts
Barney Fife
George Lindsey
Goober
Howard McNear
Floyd Lawson
Aneta Corsaut
Helen Crump
Jack Dodson
Howard Sprague
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