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Andy Griffith said that television was often misleading
"The man who can't put himself over on TV is just lost," Griffith said.
With a lengthy career in show business and an impressive acting resume to boot, we'd trust nearly anything that Andy Griffith said about television because he had the experience to back up the claims. But in a 1966 article, it seemed that Griffith had a bone to pick with many television shows of the period.
In an interview with the Detroit Free Press, Griffith revealed that there was a bit of a disconnect between the actors on the television screen and the viewers watching their performance. However, Griffith believed that many viewers took an actor's on-screen persona as fact, and believed that an actor's behavior on screen was what they were like in everyday life.
"People insist they know what a man is really like when they see him on TV," said Griffith. "This isn't true at all. TV actually is more misleading than anything else. The politicians play it for all its worth and it's all just put on. The man who can't put himself over on TV is just lost."
Of course, while many tend to use the camouflage that television provides to their advantage, Griffith maintained that on The Andy Griffith Show, the cast and crew worked hard to convey a series setting that viewers were able to recognize.
"There was a scene we did not long ago, with a church scene," he said. "It was strange, how real it seemed. We sat there and the preacher preached and we sang the hymns like it really mattered. It was as if we had all reached back in our minds to do something like it in real life."
Indeed, one of the most inviting parts of The Andy Griffith Show is its ability to make the viewer feel right at home in Mayberry, as if they too, are a town resident. To know that there were times that the cast felt the very same way says something very special about the series as a whole.
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4 Comments
I was so excited because I also thought that I was going to meet the rest of the Cleaver Clan as well.
Then It was explained to me the June, Ward and Wally was Jerry's "TV Family" and not his real family.
Talk about a reality check for this 6 year old. It was right up there with Santa Claus not being real (at 72, I'm still on the face about that one).
SHAME on you MeTV people, you should have noted it.
