Someone has posted all of seasons one of Mayberry, R.F.D. on Youtube.
Finally great to see it someplace since it's apparently not commercially
available on DVD or on higher quality streaming. These episodes were recorded,
apparently on VHS, from a TV Land marathon several years ago.
Some observations:
Andy and Helen's wedding (specifically, Barney's role in it) still cracks me
up. If that were to happen now, it would have been a two-part series finale
for TAGS during ratings sweeps.
Opie sure was a good kid. Mike seems to get into trouble a lot more often and
doesn't seem to be as smart.
The Aunt Bee in the wedding episode is more liberated than the one in the TAGS
pilot, even though the script appears to be a remake.
We've talked alot about African Americans in Mayberry; R.F.D. seems to show
even more diversity. Sam has an African-American neighbor, Ralph, who has a
son slightly older than Mike and a daughter Goober taught in driver's ed.
Some of us have complained about the scripts on Mayberry R.F.D and
specifically, how the writing doesn't fit the characters. One example I saw in
season one: Clara Edwards is a lot meaner than she was on TAGS, and pointedly,
she doesn't seem to have any scenes with Aunt Bee anymore. I wonder if the two
actresses had some kind of falling out and one refused to work with the other?
Another example: Howard suddenly caving in too much during a debate, certainly
not the guy we saw take Aunt Bee apart in another debate when they were running
for town council.
There are some good moments throughout season one, and one episode (The
Camper) actually made me laugh out loud repeatedly. I honestly think that one
could've worked with Barney and Gomer years earlier, it was that funny.
At least one of Andy's appearances, the one in the episode where Mike loses his
wristwatch, didn't seem necessary at all to the plot. It was still good to see
him (and the squad car, and the inside of the sheriff's office) again.
And some of the episodes could've played just as well with Andy in Sam's role,
which made me wonder if they used any leftover scripts that were intended for
Andy. (On the other hand, some of the episodes obviously could only be done
with Sam and Millie, like for instance the one about Sam's bean crop failing
while Millie grows a bumper crop in her back yard.)
Car nuts will notice Mayberry went from being a Ford town to a Mopar city, and
Sam drives a new Dodge truck every year (as opposed to the older Ford truck he
drove on The Andy Griffith Show). We even get a brief glimpse of Andy
driving a Dodge Coronet in the Mayberry Sheriff's Office striping package. Sam
also has a new Plymouth sedan every year, compared to Andy, who only had his
one work vehicle.
Two episodes feature a then-unknown Jodie Foster, and in one of them, she
doesn't speak and isn't even credited!
I sure wish they would release this series on DVD. What are they waiting for?
It has a ready made audience.
Dixon
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