THE SUPER SIX LIST: "THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW" CONNECTIONS

'The Andy Griffith Show' recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, and we're still celebrating here at Toobworld Central. In honor of this milestone, Inner Toob presents a Super Six List of six other TV shows with connections to 'The Andy Griffith Show' - some legitimate, some hypothetical.

1) 'Make Room For Daddy'
This is where it all started. On a family trip back north through North Carolina, Danny Williams got caught in Mayberry's speed trap. Because of his famed Lebanese temper, Danny ended up in the jail cell where he got a first-hand look at how Mayberry operated.

Only thing was, Aunt Bea wasn't Aunt Bea. Frances Bavier played an elderly widow who only looked like Aunt Bea. It could be that Aunt Bea's father (probably Andy Taylor's grandfather), taking a page from that scoundrel Seth Taylor's playbook, was tomcattin' around town back in the day. And as a result, he fathered another daughter out of wedlock. She grew up looking exactly like Aunt Bea, but folks in Mayberry were too polite to point that out.

2) 'Gomer Pyle, USMC' & 'Mayberry RFD'
Okay, we're cheating here, listing two shows instead of one - the heirs to the legacy, the spin-off and the sequel.

Gomer Pyle left Wally's Service Station to join the Marines in the first one; while 'Mayberry RFD' switched the focus to a local farmer who became a member of the town council. Most of the townsfolk from 'The Andy Griffith Show' were still around, and even Aunt Bea remained as a housekeeper for Sam Jones and his son Mike* for a time. In fact, Sam started dating Howard Sprague's ex-flame, Millie.

(She was Millie Hutchins when she dated Howard back on 'The Andy Griffith Show', and almost married him. But she was Millie Swanson when she started dating Sam Jones. Between those appearances, she did get married to a man called Swanson, who could have been related to Henrietta Swanson and her daughter Darlene. Either Millie was divorced or widowed not long after.)

Gomer Pyle, on the other hand, was pretty much on his own at Camp Henderson in California, but he did get visits from Andy, Opie, and Aunt Bea.
3) 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'
This connection is actually via 'Gomer Pyle, USMC' and is the first of our hypotheticals...... For Ted Baxter, it all started at a 5,000 watt radio station in Fresno, California, which must have been the city closest to Camp Henderson. Only he was using a stage name for his radio gig - "Don Mills". As Don Mills, Ted Baxter interviewed Gomer Pyle because of a heroic deed he allegedly performed. (In reality, it was Sgt. Carter who was "The Would-Be Hero".)
4) 'Fringe'
Inner Toob actually covered the story of Deputy Warren Ferguson's son earlier this year.....

5) 'The Twilight Zone' - "Hocus Pocus And Frisby"
Mr. Frisby lived in Pitchville Flats, in an extremely rural area of North Carolina, but probably not too far from Mayberry and Mt. Pilot. At least it was probably close enough for Floyd Lawson's father to visit another woman in that town, because Floyd had an identical twin named Mitchell (Mitchell Lawson?) who liked to hang around Frisby's general store and listen to Somerset Frisby spin his tall tales - even if he didn't believe them.

(Toobworld bloodlines are strong, so it could be that Floyd and Mitchell don't have the same father, but instead can trace their ancestry back to the area's first Indian agent, Daniel Lawson.)

6) 'Star Trek' - "Mira"
Those aliens who visited Mr. Frisby (and unsuccessfully tried to kidnap him) were so taken with the architecture of Mayberry that they recreated it on the planet FGC-347601 III. (By the time we got to see it, it was already at least 300 years old.)
Ya'll come back now, y'hear?

Oops.... wrong show.....

BCnU!

* AKA Mike The Idiot Boy as he's known in "Mayberry Mondays", a weekly feature by my blogging buddy down South, Ivan of "Thrilling Days Of Yesteryear" fame. (The link for which is to the left....)