This week, America lost a true television icon – Andy Griffith. The actor passed away suddenly – well, at least the news seemed sudden to me – July 3rd at the age of 86.
I guess when we lose someone like Andy Griffith, someone who lived such a long life; it is hard to be too sad. But certainly, if you are like me, you feel like part of your childhood died with him.
Griffith, a native North Carolinian, started his career back in the mid-fifties when he wrote “What it Was, Was Football.” If you’ve ever heard this monologue, you probably laughed. Griffith often played a simple country man and in this monologue, he talks about this game of football from a standpoint of someone who had never seen it played before. He mentions people sitting and looking at each other across a cow pasture and tossing a funny looking little pumpkin around.
But, it was in 1960 that we got to know the Andy Griffith we’d come to love. He played single dad Sheriff Andy Taylor in “The Andy Griffith Show.” The show featured a cast of beloved characters – the anxious deputy sheriff Barney Fife, barber Floyd, housekeeper Aunt Bee, son Opie (Ron Howard), and even a harmless town drunk, Otis. The show ran for eight years. Griffith called it quits while the show was still #1 in the ratings. A spin-off, “Mayberry, R.F.D.,” started in 1969 and Griffith showed up occasionally during the first year. He tried to resurrect the success of “The Andy Griffith Show” in 1971 with “The New Andy Griffith Show” but I guess times had changed too much and it was cancelled after only 13 episodes.
What I always found funny was that as adored a show as “The Andy Griffith Show” was, it won six Emmys, but none were for Griffith. Don Knotts won for his role as Barney Fife five times and Frances Bavier won once for her role as Aunt Bee.
What was really cool about Griffith was that he went on to further television success in 1986 when he began starring as Ben Matlock in “Matlock.” He played the role of a lawyer and once again relied on his North Carolina roots as Matlock was a former North Carolina deputy sheriff.