more mayberry trivia (4CE reprint, aug 2010)

10 MORE Things You Didn't Know About Mayberry


(1) Where in North Carolina is Mayberry supposed to be located? That's the $64,000 question, and worthy of an entire column. For now, I'll tell you where Mayberry ISN'T. It isn't where Andy Griffith's home town of Mt. Airy is, near the northwest border with Virginia. He has said Mayberry IS NOT meant to be Mt. Airy, although he acknowledges that most people think it is. Yes, there is a nearby town called Pilot Mountain. Yes, several times Andy is reading a Mt. Airy newspaper, although usually it's the Mayberry Gazette. Yes, a handful of real-life Mt Airy people and places are mentioned on the show. But there's one big problem.

Mayberry is time after time said to be SOUTH of Raleigh, the state capital, and Mt. Airy is NORTH. Sure, Mayberry is occasionally north of Raleigh, too; in at least one episode it's BOTH! But this is typical: not all the places mentioned on the show are real, and the real ones aren't always where they're supposed to be. Nobody kept track, it seems.



(2) But while we're on the subject, Mt. Airy is also the home town of singer Donna Fargo, and the adopted home of the original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker. Don't confuse Mt. Airy with Mt. Idy, the fictional town made famous by Cliff Arquette as "Charlie Weaver." The routine was inspired by a friend of his mother's, whose letters from Mount Ida, Arkansas she would read aloud to the family.



(3) "What did the mirror say to the dresser?"...Aunt Bee poses this riddle once, but doesn't give the answer. In an interview, the writer said that's because it was a little racy, at least for her: I DON'T MEAN TO CAST REFLECTIONS, BUT YOUR DRAWERS ARE OPEN.


(4) "Never Hit Your Grandma With a Great Big Stick"...Dud suggests this song for the Darlings to play, but it always makes Charlene cry. The title is no doubt inspired by a real Spike Jones song "Never Hit Your Grandma with a Shovel." Good advice, generally speaking. (I don't know your grandma.)


(5) "Gilligan's Island" connection...In the second season episode "The Farmer Takes a Wife," The Skipper, Alan Hale Jr., is a farmer who continually calls Barney "Li'l Buddy" (!!!) And on March 30, 1964 Bob Denver took over the role of Charlene's husband Dudley Wash. He would star as Gilligan in the fall, and the network wanted to remind viewers what Maynard G. Krebbs looked like without the beard.


(6) Opie's name?...The standard answer is it's from Opie Cates, a band-leader and radio actor born Opal Taft Cates, whom Andy & producer Sheldon Leonard are said to have listened to. But then there's Opie Lee Shelton, real-life boyhood friend of Andy Griffith. Also, on "Dennis the Menace," a year before "Andy Griffith Show" debuted, Dub Taylor played a handyman named Opie Swanson in 3 episodes. Another intriguing foreshadowing: Howard "Floyd" McNear as a barber on "Leave It to Beaver"...named ANDY!


(7) All in the family...Andy's then wife Barbara is in the choir in the episode "The Song Festers," and even has a speaking line. Don Knotts' daughter Karen played Opie's secretary in the TV-movie "Return to Mayberry." Ron Howard's dad Rance and brother Clint (as Leon) appeared in a number of episodes. And Bee's niece Martha was played by actress Candace Howard, but I checked: no relation.


(8) Malcolm Merriweather's paper tree...the one he made for Opie? It's a real thing, various websites have instructions, just Google it.


(9) Famous faces you'll see before they were famous: Lee Van Cleef, Rob Reiner, Jack Nicholson, Barbara Eden, Bill Bixby, Michael J. Pollard, Jamie Farr, Harry Dean Stanton, Arte Johnson, Keye Luke, Morgan Brittany (using her real name Suzanne Cupito), Terri Garr (look quick!), plus "Murray Slaughter," "Father Mulcahy," "Sam Drucker," and "Grandma Walton."


(10) Finally, as promised, Aunt Bee is Andy's WHAT?...After watching and enjoying the show all my life (I just turned 59), the pieces began to fall into place recently, triggered by something Andy said in the episode "Bee's Crowning Glory": "Family's lived in this county 3 generations, first time we didn't wear our own hair." He obviously meant adult generations, since Opie wouldn't wear a wig, so that would be Andy, his father, and his grandfather.

Curious, since counting Andy there are 6 generations, not 3, back to Mayberry hero Seth Taylor, Bee's great great grandfather. And if Bee grew up in West Virginia (episode: "Aunt Bee's Cousin"), her brother, Andy's father, grew up there too, right? And their father, Andy's grandfather, was in West Virginia as well. Yet the Taylors are a Mayberry clan. Something didn't compute. OK, what if Bee were Andy's father's 1st cousin, not sibling!

Andy's grandfather could have grown up in WV, with his siblings (Bee's father and cousin Bradford's father), then moved back to Mayberry as an adult, and there are your 3 generations. But playing the "fan logic" game, is there any evidence that Bee is Andy's father's cousin, not sister? Yes! The smoking gun is the episode "Baby in the House." Bee is on the phone with her niece Martha and Andy tells Helen: "My 2nd cousin." Bingo!

Your aunt's niece could be you, your sister, or your 1st cousin, but not your 2nd cousin. A 2nd cousin is the child of your parent's 1st cousin, and there it is. Bee has no children, but her siblings are Andy's father's 1st cousins, and their children are Andy's 2nd cousins. Sure enough, in another episode, Bee mentions "Opie's Uncle Todd," the wiper on the oil tanker, and once again Andy comments "My 2nd cousin," meaning the son of his father's 1st cousin, perhaps Bee's rum-cake-loving brother.

So there's your scoop. Andy's father is Bee's 1st cousin, and thus Andy and Bee are 1st cousins once removed. Those who assume Bee and Andy's father are siblings are indeed making an assumption, and not once in 249 shows does she, or anybody else, say that she is! Till next time, try to act like some-BODY, you little buzzard...and rock on!

PS: Lots of new ones since last time at stolfpod.podbean.com. Try it, you'll like it...and I wanna get my hit count up! Plus a spin-off: thewholething.podbean.com. And my new daily blog at stolf.wordpress.com.