July 8, 2010

Andy Taylor, Redux

I am in vacation mode for the next week or so. I thought this would be a good time to revisit my very first post at Single and Sane. I wish I hadn't wasted it on that first post, because it's one of my favorites but I think only about 5 people read it the first time around. It features a clip from an episode of The Andy Griffith Show that aired nearly 50 years ago. To put it in historical context, the President of the United States at the time was John F. Kennedy. (Wow. When did that start feeling like a really long time ago?)

Just to prove that some things are timeless, the clip below is from the 3rd season of The Andy Griffith Show, and originally aired in 1963. The episode is entitled A Wife for Andy. Barney decides it's time for Andy to settle down and get married again. About 3 minutes into this clip, Andy and Barney get into a discussion about Andy's marital status, ending with an irritated Andy telling Barney how he feels about being single. If you've reached a certain age, you have no doubt had this same discussion yourself. (As it turns out, this is also the episode where Andy and Helen have their first date. They didn't marry until the first episode of Mayberry RFD in 1968. Evidently the writers thought Andy was more interesting single than he would be married.)

(Apparently a show that's near 50 years old is not automatically public domain - the YouTube link won't work, so here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBurIl10Jmg)



Here's some trivia from the show. Nearly all of the characters on The Andy Griffith Show were single, and not young singles either. Andy was in his mid-thirties to early-forties during the run of the show and Aunt Bee was 58 when the show began. (Be honest. You thought she was older than that, didn't ya?)

Who was the only married character to regularly appear during the first 5 years of the show?

Otis, the Town Drunk.

Pretty funny, huh? ;-)

I'll be back in a few days!


Margaret

7 comments:

  1. Your video has disappeared!

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  2. HA HA HA HA HA HA! I guess marriage drives a man to drink, hey? At least, back when this show was aired!

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  3. It looks like youtube removed this link. I could not play the video.

    I used to watch these re-runs when I was a little girl.

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  4. Enjoy your vacation!
    And don't you hate how your early posts were "wasted" with no readers!

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  5. i can't think of a better first post than of
    "andy". i adored that show, too.

    hope you're having a super fun vacation!

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  6. In a way, though, wasn't it interesting that there were so many single characters on the show? I guess it left the plot line open for potential romances - but if nothing else, the characters weren't all looking for love in all the wrong places every episode, were they? Who says you have to be married to be happy (town drunk!)?

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  7. Darn! I'll edit the post to include this, but here's the link to the YouTube video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBurIl10Jmg

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