Family Friendly Wholesome Entertainment
/I’m showing my age here, so bear with me. :) When I was little we weren’t allowed to watch TV very much. However one show I always loved was the “Andy Griffith Show” starring Andy Griffith as Andy Taylor, Don Knotts as Barney Fife, Ron Howard as Opie Taylor and Frances Bavier as Aunt Bee. These were the days of black and white television, and I can still whistle the opening song to this day!
The Andy Griffith show was broadcast on CBS Television from October 1960 to September 1968 with a total of 249 episodes, making it one of the most enduring and influential shows in American television history. These were the days when we only had three television stations here in Utah – Channel 5 (KSL) - NBC, Channel 4 - ABC, and Channel 2 - CBS. And they went off the air every night around midnight. They came back on in the morning in time for the morning news report before work and school. There were no remote controls back then either. If you wanted to change the station you had to get up off the couch and change it manually using a knob on the television set. We also didn’t have huge flat screen televisions like we do today. Our first television was probably only 20”, and it was black and white. It was the shape of a cardboard box and sat on a TV stand. We had to use a “rabbit ear antenna” which sat on top of the television set. It consisted of two long telescoping metal rods that had to be adjusted every single time we watched television in order to get the picture to come in clear and not be all fuzzy.
Andy Taylor is a widower raising his young son, Opie, in addition to being the sheriff of Mayberry, a tiny little town in North Carolina. Aunt Bee lives with them and helps take care of the home as well as Andy and Opie. Barney Fife is Andy’s cousin in addition to working with Andy as a deputy sheriff. Our kids quote Barney’s one-liners to this day, and we all get a good laugh out of them!!! :)
I love this series because of the moral values it teaches. Kids are taught to have good manners, be responsible for their choices and actions, complete their chores each day before they can play, be respectful especially to adults, serve others, and be kind. Structure is part of daily life in Mayberry, and things run smoothly most of the time because people obey the laws and are good neighbors. Even when Opie needs to be disciplined, his pa Andy, does so with firmness, but also with love and kindness.
One thing Ron and I have in common is our love for the “Andy Griffith Show”! When our kids were young, I found the DVD’s of this series at Costco! I was so excited to get them for Ron for Christmas. Our kids grew up loving this series as well, and on sick days would binge watch every episode as they laid on the couch sipping warm Sprite. When they got married, they all wanted to borrow our DVD’s. A few years ago, I found three more copies of this series at Costco again. I bought all three and gave them to our married kids for Christmas! Seriously one of the best gifts I think we could have ever bought for them! They are now passing the love for this series on to their own children! We are now three generation lovers of the “Andy Griffith Show”!!!! So if you’re looking for some clean, wholesome, laugh-out-loud funny entertainment with moral values, this is the series you’ll actually want to let your entire family binge watch!!! The early seasons are black and white, but when color television became available, the later seasons are in color. It is filled with “LIGHT”, love and laughter.
This is a great activity for lazy summer days, or movie night outside projecting it on the side of your house! Check it out, you won’t regret it – and don’t be surprised when you start whistling the song that gets stuck in your head!!!
Have a great week! Love Ya, Les :)