Mayberry R.F.D.

1968

Seasons & Episodes

  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
5.9| 0h30m| en| More Info
Released: 23 September 1968 Ended
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Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Mayberry R.F.D. is an American television series produced as a spin-off and direct continuation of The Andy Griffith Show. When star Andy Griffith decided to leave his series, most of the supporting characters returned for the new program, which ran for three seasons on the CBS Television Network from 1968–1971. During the final season of The Andy Griffith Show, widower farmer Sam Jones and his young son Mike are introduced and gradually become the show's focus. Sheriff Andy Taylor takes a backseat in the storylines, establishing the sequel series. The show's first episode, "Andy and Helen's Wedding", had the highest ratings in recorded television history. Sheriff Taylor and newlywed wife Helen make guest appearances on RFD until late 1969, and then relocate with Opie. Mayberry R.F.D. was popular throughout its entire run, but was canceled after its third season in CBS's infamous "rural purge" of 1971. R.F.D. stands for "Rural Free Delivery", a quaint postal depiction of the rural Mayberry community.

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Reviews

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.
GamerTab That was an excellent one.
WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
bkoganbing Andy Griffith made an end to his TV show but the citizens of Mayberry still had a couple of years of life left in them with Mayberry, RFD.Sheriff Andy Taylor and school teacher Helen Crump married and moved away from Mayberry. To give the new show a central character Ken Berry fresh from F Troop plays Sam Jones, a farmer just elected to the Mayberry town council is brought in. He's a widower like Andy Taylor was and raising a small son Buddy Foster. He even hires Aunt Bea to be his housekeeper now that Frances Bavier no longer had to keep house for Andy and Opie.All the other Mayberry regulars and semi-regulars were retained and the show did well for two seasons. But at that point CBS pulled all its rural based shows to get a different market. And at that point those Mayberry characters like Paul Hartman, George Lindsey, Jack Dodson etc. all went to television Valhalla.Sad the show ran into CBS's determination to get younger viewers. It's the seniors who watched this and other rural type shows and the seniors least likely to respond to advertising pitches.Other than reunion movies this ended our look into Mayberry, North Carolina.
MartinHafer I am about to say something that no-doubt will annoy many. While "The Andy Griffith Show" was one of the best shows in television history, after a while it really outlived its usefulness. Without Barney as a series regular, the show tried a variety of either annoying replacements (Warren!!!) or insipid ones (Howard and Emmett)--none of which gave the show the wonderful comedic balance it once had. To make matters worse, after the show limped through three mediocre such seasons, the powers that be at CBS decided to continue the show even when Andy left!!! The 'clever' plan was to introduce a widower, Sam (Ken Berry), who would move to town with his son AND apparently buy Aunt Bee! Talk about a contrived premise--and a poor copy of the original. So now without either leading man, the show was nothing but insipid characters...period. That, in a nutshell, is "Mayberry R.F.D."--like the original show but with none of the humor or interesting characters. Now this isn't to say that the show was bad--it just was bland and inoffensive and that still made it better than some shows. But who wants to live on a steady diet of bland toast--which is, metaphorically speaking, "Mayberry R.F.D.".
bcolquho I remember watching this show in the early '80s. Good show. I barely remember watching it in the'60s. Back then, I was on the road a lot. I used to travel in the summer and I didn't watch that much TV. The show was about Howard Dodson, the newly elected city councilman of Mayberry, North Carolina, (Andy Griffith's home town of Mount Airy, North Carolina.) The series premiere had Andy Taylor married his long- time girlfriend Helen Crump. Howard has a son named Mike. Millie was the local waitress at the local diner and Emmett ran the local fix-it shop. He fixed everything. Unfortunately, it was cancelled by CBS because Fred Silverman, then the president of CBS, in his "infinite wisdom", thought that only old people in rural areas watched it.
tfrizzell "Mayberry R.F.D." is basically "The Andy Griffith Show" without the key performers, the direction, the writing or the story-lines. What we are left with are city councilman Ken Berry and a sparse group of holdovers (Frances Bavier, Paul Hartman and Jack Dodson). Surprisingly the public did not seem to care as the show ran the better part of four years and completed 78 episodes. By the late-1960s "The Andy Griffith Show" had become stale though (even Griffith admitted to this) and losses like Don Knotts, Ron Howard, Howard Morris, Denver Pyle, Betty Lynn and Hal Smith were way too much to overcome. CBS held on to the idea out of respect, good manners and consistently above-average ratings, but the writing had been on the wall for quite some time when "Mayberry R.F.D." went the way of the dodo in 1971. Personally, I think this detracts from the original program and I have ended up dismissing it. But that is just me. 2 stars out of 5.

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