The Andy Griffith Show remains timeless. While more than 60 years have passed since season one first aired in 1960, it's a series that continues to transcend generations.

With Andy, Barney, Opie and Aunt Bee, it doesn’t matter the decade — to many fans, they still feel like family.

Andy Taylor, played by Andy Griffith, was many things in the series: a kind and capable sheriff, a devoted father, a good man, and an even better citizen of Mayberry.

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But according to a 1960 interview with The Winston-Salem Journal, Griffith said the most important quality of the character was that he was "just a regular guy."

"In the series, I’m just an ordinary small-town type of fella," Griffith said. "I tell a joke once in a while. Kind of a rural character — not a rube, though. You won’t see a lot of action on the show. It’s a comedy. Every once in a while, I’ll even play guitar a little."

To Griffith, playing a relatable small-town guy helped the show connect with everyday viewers across the country. He gave them someone to laugh with, look up to and root for. While Andy Taylor may have only been the sheriff of a tiny fictional town, he took that role seriously.

As a rural-centered show, the cast often filmed on location one day a week at a stand-in for Mayberry’s iconic fishing hole — the Franklin Canyon Reservoir in Los Angeles. Since the reservoir didn’t contain any fish, production brought their own to use in scenes.

Mayberry itself was deliberately vague. Griffith explained that the show's creators never identified it as a real town on purpose. It was meant to be a dream-like, idealized place — not a location you could find on a map, but one you could imagine.

"If you look at the license plates on the cars, you can almost make out N.C., but not quite," Griffith said. "We’re not allowed to mention any specific place because the minute you pinpoint a locale in TV, somebody either sues or finds technical flaws. This way, we’re protected."

Griffith’s own simplicity and warmth carried into every aspect of the series — from the characters and setting to the show title itself.

"They just asked me, and I said fine," Griffith. "Maybe in a year or two, if they see the name often enough, people will connect my name with my face — or at least with Don Knotts."

A simple title for a simple man — but much like his character, the choice had lasting meaning.