Andy Griffith

from the Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Television

Andy Griffith is one of television's most personable and enduring star performers. He is perhaps best known as Andy Taylor, the central character in The Andy Griffith Show, which aired on CBS from 1960-1968 and consistently ranked among the top ten shows in each of its eight seasons. As a "down home" attorney in the even longer running Matlock, Griffith continued to make a unique contribution to television Americana.

The Andy Griffith Show began as a "star vehicle" for Griffith, who had achieved his initial success with recordings of humorous monologues based on a "hillbilly" persona ("What It Was Was Football," "Romeo and Juliet"), which led to an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. He next played the leading role in the Broadway production of No Time For Sergeants as well as in the film and TV versions. His film debut was in the critically-acclaimed A Face In the Crowd (1957), directed by Elia Kazan, followed by Onionhead and the film version of Sergeants (both in 1958).

Having informed the William Morris Agency that he was ready to try television, Griffith was put in contact with Sheldon Leonard, producer of The Danny Thomas Show. A Danny Thomas episode was built around Thomas getting stopped for speeding by Griffith, and this show served as the pilot episode for the Griffith show. Astutely, Griffith negotiated for 50% ownership of the new program, which enabled him to be a major player in the program's creative development. Griffith's creative vision took a very different approach to TV comedy, in which place, pace and character were equal and essential contributors to the overall effect. Scenes were allowed to play out with almost leisurely timing, with character development occurring alongside the humor. Another key element to the program's success was the casting of Don Knotts as deputy Barney Fife. As the inept but lovable sidekick, Knotts took on the key comic role, enabling Griffith to play a more interesting and useful "straight-man" role. In this capacity Griffith's "Lincolnesque" character was allowed to develop--a character more appropriate to the role of single-parent father, and by extension, father to the small town of Mayberry. The Griffith-Knotts team became the driving comic relationship of the show, and the writers built most of the humorous situations around it.

Griffith left the show in 1968, feeling that he had contributed all he could to the character of Andy Taylor. Ironically, the program reached the number one position that year. The show's sponsor, General Foods, was not ready to relinquish the successful vehicle however, and a transitional program aired introducing a new lead character and a new name: Mayberry, RFD. Griffith remained as a producer, and the ratings strength continued as several of the supporting characters stayed on. The program was canceled in 1971, however, when CBS decided to abandon its rural programming for more "relevant" shows targeted at younger viewers.

Griffith's career subsequently stalled. Two series attempts, The Headmaster and The New Andy Griffith Show did not make it past their initial runs. A number of made-for-TV movies followed, many of which involved crime scenarios (and some in which he even played the villain). In 1981 Griffith received an Emmy nomination for Murder in Texas, in which he played a father who presses a court case against the son-in-law accused of murdering his daughter. Griffith played a prosecuting attorney in the miniseries Fatal Vision (1984), a performance which so impressed NBC's Brandon Tartikoff that a series was proposed utilizing an attorney as the main character. A pilot film for the show, Diary of a Perfect Murder, aired on NBC on 3 March 1986, and Matlock began airing in September 1986. Griffith plays Ben Matlock in the hour crime drama, a criminal defense lawyer whose folksy demeanor belies his considerable investigative and courtroom abilities. Many of the regulars from The Andy Griffith Show make appearances on Matlock, continuing a Mayberry legacy spanning over thirty years.

-Jerry Haggins