RIP Andy Griffith age 86 Ben Metlock/Andy Taylor

[oldiesfan2]

RIP ANDY GRIFFITH AGE 86

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2012/07/andy-griffith-dies-at-age-86/1#.T_MHUJFE4sc

[Braves2005]

Definitely a very sad day for fans of The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock. RIP Andy!!

[Bob1370]

Good guy, outstanding TV and film actor who could do everything from serious drama to light comedy. He'll be much missed.

[Mike Stroud]

Man, this has been a rough year for TV legends. Mike Wallace, Dick Clark, Don Cornelius, George "Goober" Lindsey, and now, one of the greatest of them all, albeit it appears that it was simply old age that claimed him.

I think only two main principals from the famed '60s sitcom are still around: Ron Howard and Jim Nabors, unless you count Ken Berry (I don't want to open up the controversy about whether Mayberry RFD should have ever happened, though). I'm sure we'll be hearing from Howard shortly; I'm not so sure about Nabors, who has lived in Hawaii for many years, largely out of the public spotlight.

[Ultimajock]

...coincidentially, Turner Classic Movies will be running A Face in the Crowd, which has Griffith playing a TV star from Hell (to put it mildly), Thursday night/Friday morning. TCM's "Guest Programmer" this week is Spike Lee, and it's one of his favourite movies, even going to the point of claiming it was an inspiration for his own picture Bamboozled (tho that picture doesn't come anywhere close in quality to the Griffith item). Director Elia Kazan was said to have patterned the Griffith character, Lonesome Rhodes, on the king of CBS at the time, Arthur Godfrey, while the film's writer, Budd Schulberg, claimed his inspiration for writing Rhodes was Will Rogers; in both cases, it'd be an unjust charicature. But it is a damned good movie, and Griffith put in one of the great villainous performances of Hollywood history...

[Mark]

Wasn't Jim Nabors really sick a long time ago. I know they were running speculation he had AIDS, but then they said it was something else?

[Joseph_Gallant]

"The Andy Griffith Show", contrary to popular belief, was not network TV's first "rural" sitcom.

"The Real McCoys" (starring Walter Brennan) was, premiering in 1957 (there years before "Griffith").

However, "Griffith" was enormously successful.

How successful??

According to historical lists from Nielsen Media Research of the top 30 prime-time TV shows for each season, as published in Tim Brooks' and Earl Marsh's The Complete Directory To Prime-Time Network TV and Cable Shows, 1946-Present, "The Andy Griffith Show" was among the ten most popular prime-time shows on network television in all eight seasons it ran.

Only one other sitcom has ever finished it's prime-time run having been in the Top Ten every season it had first-run episodes in prime-time: "I Love Lucy".

The success of "Griffith", on top of that of "McCoys", ushered in a wave of rural sitcoms throughout the 1960's, especially on CBS-TV.

"Griffith" ended in 1968 when it's star decided to "call it a series". However, a spin-off titled "Mayberry R.F.D.", starring Ken Berry and many of the "Griffith" supporting cast, premiered in September of 1968 on CBS, running for there years. "Mayberry" was canceled in 1971 not because of low ratings, but because then network president Bob Wood and then programming head Fred Silverman decided to dump all of CBS's "rural" shows, although several of them (like "Mayberry", "Hee-Haw", and "Beverly Hillbillies") were still quite popular and by the normal standards of network TV in the early 1970's, would have been easily renewed.

[only1moore]

I have to say that Griffith was a sport of poking fun at his self-titled TV show, especially in that "Saturday Night Live" skit and in that "Funny Or Die" parody, both featuring co-star Ron Howard.

[Al Timiter]

Betty Lynn ("Thelma Lou") is still alive and well. She resides in Mt. Airy, NC.

RIP, Andy Griffith.

[rnigma]

WCTV in Tallahassee has run "The Andy Griffith Show" weekdays at 9 am for years, and it usually wins in the local ratings.