Rant #2,774: My Little Town

Well, I found out late yesterday morning that any adult who wants the coronavirus booster shots can get them in New York City.
 
There is no resident requirement, so if one lives on Long Island, in Westchester, or New Jersey, they can get the shots if they want them at any New York City outlet.
 
Me, I am not hopping on the Long Island Railroad train just yet … at this point I would rather go to Mayberry, N.C., to be honest with you.
 
And lately, I am doing just that each day, as I get back into the series “Mayberry R.F.D.” on a new channel that we have just started to get as part of our Verizon TV package called MeTV+.
 
We began to get this offshoot of the very successful MeTV classic television franchise just a few weeks ago, and when I finally discovered that we now had it as part of our Verizon schedule, I surveyed the programming on this new channel, and it is mainly old police and action shows like “Cannon” and “Mod Squad” and shows like that.
 
But there are only two sitcoms on the schedule, the highly unwatchable “Mama’s Family”—at least to me it is unwatchable—and “Mayberry R.F.D.,” with the link being that Ken Berry appears on both shows, on the former as a supporting player and on the latter as the star of the show.
 
“Mayberry R.F.D.” has an interesting history, continuing the exploits of the fictional small-town Mayberry, N.C., that was originally introduced to viewers as a spinoff of "Make Room For Daddy” in the late 1950s.
 
That one episode—where Danny Thomas’ character gets caught for speeding through this sleepy town and has to go through hoops to extricate himself out of jail and out of the small town “city slicker” versus more conservative beliefs of the citizenry of this one stoplight town, set the course for more than a decade of the adventures of the citizens of fictional Mayberry on TV.
 
Broadway, movie and recording star Andy Griffith was Sheriff Andy Taylor, and Griffith’s star power led to his own show, “The Andy Griffith Show,” which ran for eight seasons on CBS and was one of the top shows of its time, propelled by not only Griffith but by a fine cast of character actors including Don Knotts and Jim Nabors.
 
Griffith was the small=town sheriff and the voice of reason on the show, but the supporting cast, Knotts, Pyle, Frances Bavier as Aunt Bee and Ronnie Howard as Opie, really propelled the comedy of the show, one of the first sitcoms to base the entire comedic backbone of the show on its characters’ nuances.
 
The viewing public absolutely loved the show, and Knotts, as Deputy Barney Fife, became the most popular character on the show, garnering several Emmy Awards and moving right into a semi-successful movie career and further supporting TV roles.
 
And Jim Nabors, as Gomer Pyle, also became very popular, jumping into his own classic series “Gomer Pyle USMC,” which managed to grab a huge audience even though it was a military show running during the Vietnam War period.
 
Anyway, by about 1967, Griffith had tired of the show, and wanted to leave it for good, but CBS executives came up with an ides: how about downplaying Griffith’s role in his own show, and move the emphasis onto a new leading character while Griffith remained at the helm of the show?
 
Ken Berry, the actor who was best known as Sgt. Parmenter on the slapstick-laden “F Troop” TV show on ABC, was the out-of-leftfield pick to basically replace Griffith as the show’s focus, and starting in 1967-1968, Berry appeared as Sam Jones, the gentleman corn farmer who doubled as the leader of the town council.
 
Griffith slowly stepped away from the series, and by the 1968-1969 season, the show had been renamed “Mayberry R.F.D.” with Berry basically taking over Griffith’s role as the voice of reason for the town, with a new and old cast helping him in the continuance of the Mayberry legend, including George Lindsey, as Goober Pyle.
 
A couple of characters were added, including Buddy Foster as Sam’s son Mike, and the show also was the launch pad for Jones’s girlfriend, Millie Swanson, played by Arlene Golonka, a pretty blond who went on to have a very successful Broadway, movie and TV career as a character actress.
 
The continuance of the life of Mayberry on the show—with Griffith as executive producer and occasional guest star—was a major hit for CBS, and during its three years on the air it was often in the Top 10 of most watched TV shows, sometimes hitting the top spot as its predecessor did.
 
But in 1971, with shows like “All in the Family” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” changing the landscape of TV comedy, rural shows like “Mayberry R.F.D.” were purged from CBS’s schedule, and the show really became nothing more than a footnote to the success that ‘The Andy Griffith Show” enjoyed, even though “Mayberry R.F.D.,” during its time on the air, was highly successful in and of itself.
 
I watched the show when it was originally in the air for its three seasons, and like with its predecessor, I loved the show.
 
Living in Queens at the time, I guess this kid "city slicker” loved the showed-down life depicted on the show, and this young teen absolutely loved Golonka, who I guess in my young mind I found to be pretty sexy in her small-town way.
 
I have seen a few episodes here and there as an adult—the classic TV networks have shown it off and on for decades, but mainly off—and when I discovered this new channel, I started to take in the show again, and like when I was a kid, I was just enchanted by the slower place, the characters, and yeah, Golonka, too.
 
The stories continue to be very slight, the comedy isn’t laugh out loud, but it has its moments, and yes, I guess there is Aunt Bee to keep everyone on their toes, including me.
 
So yes, I would much rather venture into Mayberry, N.C., than into New York City right now, and all I have to do is turn on my TV to do it.