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Andy Griffith, Don Knotts and Jim Nabors made 'Return to Mayberry' with heart, not nostalgia
A testament to timeless humor and enduring friendship.
To read it in their 1986 profile in The Courier-News, by all accounts, Andy Griffith, Don Knotts, and Jim Nabors didn't need to do a reunion show. Instead, the three took their time ensuring this was unique in the TV landscape. So many actors come back together years later for a quick cash grab. But Return to Mayberry was different, as was everything else about The Andy Griffith Show.
"Jim has this ranch where he lives in Hawaii," said Griffith. "Mr. Jesse Donald Knotts has his own career. Ronnie Howard is releasing a $15 million movie."
So, it's not like any featured players relied on Return to Mayberry to revitalize their Hollywood clout. They were all doing pretty well for themselves in the wake of the beloved sitcoms.
So, why would they disrupt their lives with the inconvenience of a made-for-TV reunion movie? The answer, of course, was that The Andy Griffith Show stood apart from so many other television series. Its humor made it a hit, and its heart made it a classic.
"The reruns seem to be more popular than the show was in the beginning," said Griffith.
Nabors attributed the show's success to its title star.
"As I found out when I started doing my own show, as Andy says, the script is the most important thing. We used to sit around a table and Andy contributed more to the scripts than sometimes the writers did. And he'd just pound it out [...] and I guarantee you that script was good."
For his part, Griffith knew pretty quickly that he and the cast had something special.
"By the second show," said Griffith, "which featured the character Barney, I recognized something that was golden for us, that Barney should be the comic and Andy should be the straight man."
Don Knotts shared his costars' enthusiasm and could see clearly how a Return to Mayberry would stand out among the crowded TV lineup in 1986.
"Back in the days when they'd hand a production company a star like Andy and say 'Build a show around him,' a lot of care went into that —and time and effort," Knotts said.
"And they gave us the time. I think people cared more about their own show, about their own work...
"Almost everything they're doing today is what you would really have to label farce comedy. And so, there's too many farces around."
Griffith added, "So far as I'm concerned if you shoot comedy with one camera, then you develop character comedy, which does not depend on having a joke every few seconds. you can go for pages without a joke, I mean, a real joke."
The difference is clear, and Return to Mayberry was a fitting extension for this cherished sitcom.
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One of television's most warmly remembered comedies, 'The Andy Griffith Show' follows a small town sheriff and his bumbling but well-meaning deputy. It may be quiet and relatively crime free in Mayberry, and its sheriff's demeanor may appear easygoing, but Andy Taylor is always on the case. The warm stories and subtle humor of this universally adored television classic continue to charm and captivate audiences more than 50 years after its original airing.
The series originated from an episode of The Danny Thomas Show. It stars Andy Griffith as Andy Taylor, the widowed sheriff of Mayberry, North Carolina, a fictional community of roughly 2,000–5,000 people. Other major characters include Andy's lifelong friend, the well-meaning and enthusiastic but bumbling deputy, Barney Fife (Don Knotts), Andy's aunt and housekeeper, Bee Taylor (Frances Bavier) and Andy's young son, Opie (Ron Howard). The townspeople round out the regular cast
