by Buddy Netter

Created on: January 14, 2009   Last Updated: September 07, 2009

Do Mayberry Values Work in Today's Society?

It may not be widely known, but the Andy Griffith Show was actually a spin-off of the Danny Thomas Show. On an episode of the Danny Thomas Show, Danny, a New York City night club entertainer, gets a ticket for failing to stop at a stop sign while traveling through the sleepy little town of Mayberry. Danny believes this is a bogus charge and points out that the stop sign is not visible with brush overgrown around it and decides to fight the ticket, calling it a speed trap. This results in Danny's spending a night in jail, where he observes Sheriff Andy and several of the town's inhabitants, including the town drunk Otis, who lets himself into his designated jail cell at a certain time every night. Danny, while still believing the trumped up charges against him are not right, reflects on the quiet, simple life and old-fashioned values of Mayberry compared to the hustle and bustle, dog-eat-dog world of the big city and leaves realizing that there is something to be said for Mayberry and its sheriff after all.

Whether or not a place like Mayberry ever existed, the writers of this particular episode managed to touch some heart-felt nostalgia in the TV viewing public, and people wanted to see more of Sheriff Andy and his little town, and a brand new situation comedy was born. People tuned in each week to watch ever-wise and patient Sheriff Andy teach valuable moral lessons to his son Opie, gently steer his bumbling and usually misguided Deputy Barney Fife to a better way, assist Aunt Bee with her community improvement projects, tip his hat to the ladies of the town, while always treating everyone, even those he has to arrest with the utmost dignity and respect. At the end of every episode, a problem has been solved and a moral lesson learned. What is wrong with that? I tuned in each week while this TV show ran current and went from childhood into my marriage before it aired its final episode. I loved the sweet simplicity of it and fervently wished that life could really be that way.

The Andy Griffith Show aired from 1960 through 1968. During this time period, I went from childhood into marriage. And while the loveable folks of Mayberry warmed the cockles of my heart, the evening news paralleled the real world of the 1960's each night in my living room in striking contrast. There I learned about the civil rights movement in the south of African-Americans, then referred to as "negroes." I watched Sheriff Jim and his German

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