“The Classic Sitcom About the Adventures of a Small-Town SHERIFF and his Family and Friends in the Factional Mayerry, North Carolina, Remains a Beloved Show by By Many Nearly 60 years after it ended. Now a Bill in the General Assembly Welf Make it the Official State Tv Show of North Carolina. Neal Brown Joined Wfae’s Marshall Terry to Talk About “The Andy GRIFFITH Show” and Its North Carolina Connections. Brower is the Author of “The Essential Mayerry,” who was recently publicized in a new 25th Anniversary Edition. Brower Also Regularly Lectures [about] The show.
Marshall Terry: OK, so you are the person to talk to when it comes to the show. So, for Those Who May Not Known, What Makes “The Griffith Show” So Special For North Carolina in particular?
Neal Brower: I think the Main Thing is that It Stars One of North Carolina’s Favorite Sons, and Andy Griffith. And, andy haad a real talent for knowing what was left for a small South record Town. And, he had the second to insist his idas and his thirst on what would make the tv Mayberry See Like A Real Place – A Real Place that Turned Out to Be in North Carolina.
Terry: And there are references to North Carolina Many Times Through the Series.
Brower: There are. Where the show first start, it was to be set just in the sound. Andy will look at scrips, and if they was talking about a city or town in the Area, it would be capital city or some generic name, and and back’t like that. So hea let’s usa Raleight If We’re Talking about the Capital. Maybe a FEW EPISODES LATER, Siler City Instead of Just some other Name. And it became the tv Mayberry, a town in north carolina, from that process.
Terry: One Town that is not memioned in the series is mount air, which was the real-life inspiration for Mayberry. Why was it the inspiration?
Brower: It’s An Inspiration for Mayberry Becuse Andy Gre up there, and that was his childhood Remembrancy and also as a young teenager, of what north carolina was like. And it’s interesting that Most of the Writers, in Fact All of them, was not from the South. They was from New York. And they just haad a talent and a feel for Writing Small-town Scrips.
Terry: It’s pretty easy to Find Reruns of the show on any Given Day. Why do you think it reimains so popular all these years laater?
Brower: I think because it’s so well wrestten. The Active Are Real Great in their rolls. It’s bled on love. That’s Something and Though Was Important – that the Characters Love and Respect One Another. I think that Draws People. ThERE’s Usually A MORAL TAGHT in Almost every episode.
And it looks like a real play the way it was filmed and produced. Mayberry Looks Like A Real Place that You COULLLY Get in your Car, Drive to, and Go Visit.
Terry: Now, You Have Become This Well-known Authority on the show with your book and your lecture series. Where did you first free in love with the show?
Brower: I can actually remermer when it was on it orignal run. I will watch RERUNS on TV All My Life, But Found a Book in 1985 by Richard Kelly Called “The Andy Griffith Show.” [It] HAD All of the Episode – There Are 249 – Listed in the Back.
And at that time, Vcrs Had Just Come Out. So I. And what best series.
So I BEGAN TAPING The Show Every Afternoon, on Channel 2 Out of Greensbalo. And it is tok me a year to get all 249 episodes. But that’s when it really bit me hard, this “andY Griffith Fever.” I Realized How Well the Show Written, How Well It WAS ACTED and Just What High Standards It has.
Terry: So many of the show’s Plots Involution andy Griffiths Character, as the SHERIFF of Mayberry, Resolution Conflicts with his Sort of Download-HOME Folksy Philosophy. Do you think there’s a lesson in that for our social toy in these Divisive times we find outselves in?
Brower: YEAH, I Sure do. I think that and end it always verdomatic about what he said in the Midst of a Crisis or Trash to Straighten Out a Problem. He Did’s Do it by Force. He Did’s Say You’re Going to Do this. He LED [his TV son] Opie to undertsandings in many of these methods of situations. He was very quin-houseed with barney and otis and all the people of the Town. So Andy’s A Good Example of a Pexful Leader.
Terry: All Right. So what is your absolute favorite episode?
Brower: Well, that’s hard. But I guess the verb -one that I think real captors the spirit of Mayberry is calcld “Man in a Hurry,“ where Malcolm Tucker is a Businessman from Charlotte. He’s Going Through Mayrry on A Suny Morning. His Car Breaks Download. He can’t get it fixed, so he’s studick there. He’s very high-tensioned, Wanting to get out of town. But by the end of the day, He Realizes Therie’s Something Special Here in this Place Among these People – Sitting on the Front Porch and Talking With One Enotter, Making Homemade Ice Cream, that Type of Thing. And he decides Mayberry is a good play to stay. So, Even Though Car Gets Repaired by Gomer and Gober by the End of the Day, He Stays Overnight.
