RIP Andy Griffith

Somebody's a-puttin' the make on Aunt Bee! VIDEO

Why was his character in Mayberry RFD single? Was the character divorced or a widower?

widower.

Nulifies the Myth that only the good die young.

The characters that he played always seemed to make him appear as a nice person.

"Although the cause or event was never discussed, it was established that Opie’s mom—Andy Taylor’s wife—was deceased in the 1960 pilot episode when an unsuspecting Mayberry citizen, Mrs. Balford, accidentally steps on Opie’s pet turtle and kills it. Angry and heartbroken, little Opie demands that his sheriff father arrest Mrs. Balford. Trying to soothe his son, Andy gently tells him that sometimes bad, unexpected things happen, using the death of Opie’s mom as an example. This seems to register with Opie—who then asks, “Who stepped on Ma?”"

Answers.yahoo.com 4/20/2008"

Actually, Andy wasn't the star of Mayberry RFD, that was Ken Berry and it was a spinoff of the Andy Griffith show, which coinsidentally, Andy Griffith did star in. His character was a widower, but there was never much mention of her, her cause of death or when she died. Maybe some Mayberry buff out there can tell us.

BTW, my favorite Andy Griffith character was Will in No Time for Sargents. Don Knots was also in that film.

Good Luck!
Ric at Joes

I love Matlock -I watch it every morning. I think the funniest movie I saw him in was Rustlers Rhapsody. He was hilarious as the cattle baron. I also loved his cameo in Brad Paisley's 'Waiting On A Woman'. He will be missed.

Kim

So Opie WAS legitimate.

Of course. Mayberry was a proper, God-fearing town.

The Andy Griffith show was one of the truly iconic sitcoms ever made, I still watch reruns on tvland and have a 2 disc dvd best of collection. I've seen all the episodes so many times, I could probably come close to reciting the scripts for most shows, yet I still find them really entertaining. One of the shows from a different era when comedy was such a different creature than what almost all the crap they try to pass off as comedy today.

A few years ago on one of our east coast coaster vacations we were traveling through NC we stopped at some little town not too far from Mt Airy(mt pilot on the show) and they were having a 100 yr town celebration which consisted of crafts, food, some small rides, typical small town fair. While not officially a Mayberry fair, a lot of it had ties to mayberry and the characters in the show. I had a Barney Fife chili dog that was quite tasty while everyone else got somethings similar. One lady was really cool and I had a great conversation with her. She was from Mt Airy and she told me about how they do a "mayberry celebration" every year and what a great time it was, typical small town reason to throw a party and everyone gather to eat, drink and be merry sorta thing. Sounded like fun. I was really glad we stopped, we all had a fun afternoon. On of the good things about a family car vacation with no strict time schedule to keep.

One last BTW about the AG show. Andy was originally slated to be the dopey slapstick character(similar to the goofy soldier he played in the army movie that I can't remember the name of) when they were creating the show but then Don Knotts came into the picture and the whole concept of andy being the intelligent,level-headed character changed that.

Anyway, RIP Andy.

J