These were the first sitcoms set in the country, with characters that spoke in Southern accents, and the program couldn't have been more different from, for instance, I Love Lucy with its glamorous showbiz setting and main characters in what we would now call a multicultural marriage.Īndy Griffith's Indelible Legacy: That Whistled Theme SongĪndy, though, was just simply better than the shows that tried to imitate it. So was a wave of shows that followed, including The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction.
#Watch the andy griffith show tv
People in rural America were getting TV for the first time, and Andy was meant to tap that audience. That storyline-of the urbanite who is taught, often unwillingly, to appreciate the joys of country life, would become the overarching narrative for eight years of the series. That role would evolve into the iconic Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, which debuted in 1960. In 1960, Griffith guest-starred on an episode of Make Room for Daddy, playing a country sheriff who catches city slicker Danny Thomas speeding in his fancy car. (A few years later, reprising the role on film, he would meet a short, gangly, bugged-eyed budding comic genius named Don Knotts.) More TV followed. Griffith jumped to TV, debuting in No Time for Sergeants. The routine, released as a single in 1953, became a novelty hit. In it he portrayed a country bumpkin who stumbles upon a college football game and tries to figure out what he's seeing.
He first found fame with What it Was, Was Football. That image would define him, despite the occasional foray into playing against type. The actor began on stage as a comic storyteller-jovial, self-effacing, and filled with folksy wisdom. That's because Griffith's public persona was anything but dark. It's a dark, brooding, quietly scary performance.
In 1957's A Face in the Crowd, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg, Griffith-who died today at age 86-plays a backwoods drifter who becomes a TV host and uses the show to gain political power. Anyone who has seen Griffith's film début can attest to that.
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