«Starting To Hit Their Stride»
By season two, the characters are more established and their familiarity helps drive the storylines. Several episodes can be considered classics ("Jailbreak", "The Pickle Story", "Barney and the Choir"). Great entertainment that still holds up 50 years later.
[Thursday, May 13, 2010]
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«Classic television featuring kerosene pickles»
The second season of The Andy Griffith show is no disappointment. It is an enjoyable escape into a simpler world of black and white. It's wholesome, timeless comedy.
Opie and the Bully: Thirsty for milk, Opie hits on his loved ones for "protection money". Andy realizes his son's poor predicament and teaches him the solution comes with a clenched fist!
Barney's Replacement: Andy invites a young, go-getter to be groomed as deputy. Barney fights back by offering to clean up the town - but at a price.
Andy and the Woman Speeder: An attractive lady is arrested and asks for a public trial. Buying off her witnesses, she humiliates Andy and found not-guilty. Adding insult to injury, she exits Mayberry with a lead foot.
Mayberry Goes Bankrupt: Sometimes a man, who makes wax fruit for hats, deserves to lose his home.
Barney on the Rebound: Barney dates Thelma Lou. Barney proposes to another woman. Barney breaks his fiancee's heart and dreams. Thelma Lou forgives Barney.
Opie's Hobo Friend: A poor mountaineer grooms Opie in the fine art of hobos. Much to the chagrin of Andy.
Crime-Free Mayberry: J. Edger Hoover is so impressed with crime-free Mayberry, he sends a single representative to congratulate the Sheriff. The news spreads so fast, one photographer bothers to show up. Somehow, this complicated plot leads to the opening of the long, sealed vault of the Mayberry Bank. Where's Barney? He's too busy shopping for medals.
The Perfect Female: Ellie's out, a girl sharpshooter is in as the next candidate for Andy's squeeze. Boy, is she not interested!
Aunt Bee's Brief Encounter: Aunt Bee falls for a guy with soft hands, eating onion soup from the back of his truck. She invites him to live with the Taylors and Andy breaks out the shotgun.
The Clubmen: An exclusive club validates their reasoning for exclusivity. I am so embarrassed for Barney.
The Pickle Story: Aunt Bee's pickles are so bad, they can fuel rockets. They're so bad, it doubles as pesticide. Knowing its history of food poisoning, Andy and Barney distribute jars of them from Nova Scotia to Oregon. They reverse plans to fix the County Fair contest by eating all the evidence. My favorite!
Sheriff Barney: Charitable PR gives Barney the opportunity as Sheriff of crime-ridden Greendale. Andy makes him sheriff for a day and Barney fails at everything he touches. It takes a bribe of sweet potato pie, to a moonshiner, to keep Barney in Mayberry and spare the city of Greendale a disaster.
The Farmer Takes a Wife: An ogre drags his knuckles into Mayberry choosing Thelma Lou as a wife. After a failed courtship, rumors have it the brute relocated to Hawaii.
Keeper of the Flame: A secret society is blamed for leveling a barn in flames. Questionable Constitutionality of search and seizure costs a bitter man a jackpot. Meanwhile, Opie's college fund is saved.
Bailey's Bad Boy: A man in a hurry is unable to leave Mayberry until he understands the lessons offered by a small town.
The Manicurist: Like magic, a beautiful woman steps off a bus into Mayberry. She starts a business with questionable planning before it nearly collapses. Andy cheers her up with a proposal for marriage.
The Jinx: Henry Bennett is well known as far as Raleigh. A dark cloud looms over his head and bad luck shadows him and all near. Andy works hard to prove there is no jinx. He fails. 6 and 7/8th.
Jailbreak: When an SBI agent trusts Andy and Barney to keep a prisoner behind bars at the Mayberry jail, of course he escapes.
A Medal for Opie: When Opie's clairvoyant visions of glory betrays him, he becomes a jerk.
Barney and the Choir: The Mayberry choir is unable to hide from frog-mouth Barney Fife. They contrive a plan involving a high tech microphone that doesn't really exist.
Guest of Honor: Items mysteriously disappear during Founder's Day celebration. Even the chosen Guest of Honor is missing. Andy solves the mystery with a final cigarette.
The Merchant of Mayberry: The Sheriff's office promotes and endorses a new department store threatening Ben Weaver's monopoly. Evil Ben responds with a fire sale bringing an economic boom to Mayberry.
Aunt Bee the Warden: Otis is pushed out of his second home and sleeps over at the Taylor's. Aunt Bee sees chores needing done around the house and makes Otis sweat his booze off.
The County Nurse: The state sends a government agent to ensure all citizens are vaccinated against the Swine Flu. Hearing the horror stories, a lone farmer stands up against the machine and resists. This stance threatens legal action if not violence! (I may have embellished, a little)
Andy and Barney in the Big City: Don't stay at this hotel! It's security detail is easily outsmarted by Barney Fife and the locks on the door aren't worth spit!
Wedding Bells for Aunt Bee: Clara's busy body attitude almost breaks up the family. There was a reason no woman ever married Fred Goss.
Three's a Crowd: Mary is a hottie! Her eyes can melt platinum to a boil. Her voice could sooth song birds into an hypnotic trance. She was all Andy's until Barney enters her life. Bye-bye Mary.
The Bookie Barber: Floyd's business expands after decades of stagnation. This until, Sarah the phone operator listens in and shares confidential conversations with law enforcement.
Andy on Trial: Barney finally admits he has big mouth! But only after Andy's reputation is publicly tarnished in a newspaper article with Barney's quotes. Barney keeps his job, under undisclosed circumstances.
Cousin Virgil: Barney desperately wishes to show the good in Cousin Virgil. But he harbors danger and doom to all he comes near.
Deputy Otis: Drunk boozer Otis asks Andy to help fool his family by making him deputy. Why not?
[Wednesday, January 20, 2010]
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