Today, the town of Mayberry has lost one of its most beloved members. It was a man that would walk the streets and make you feel right at home. He had many names from Andy Taylor to Ben Matlock. But for millions of Americans he will always be known as Andy Griffith. Everyday when we would turn on our televisions and listen to that wistling theme song we always knew we were in for a great story as well as good times. From Aunt Bee serving one of her famous pies around the dinner table for desert to Opie telling Andy a life lesson he just learned today, Andy Griffith seemed to have an impact on us cause well....he is one of the last true American story Icons from television. It is amazing to think now that he is gone, how one man truly changed the american sitcom. In these times where we are trying to find a superhero in the form of a demi god, a metal man, an angry green monster and a super soldier, the true american hero was the one trying to get his family through a day while trying not break a sweat. Seems impossible right? Well somehow Andy Taylor (Griffith) was able to do such while playing the "pseudo" hero, a law enforcement officer in the town. He swore to protect and serve like the superheros we see in the movies today. And as we near the fourth of July, where we not only remember our day of Independence, we remember the men and women that fought to give us that independence. They are the heros. The people we look up to, the people we remember. Its funny, he played two people of law within his career. Not just Andy Taylor, but as Ben Matlock, a very unique lawyer that put away the criminals in the courtroom but had a unique way of putting a case together; along with solving it. Both men, played by one man, did such great work. So today on this Independence day remember the heros in the many possible forms and ways that they have changed the world and helped influence us.
As with all of my posts i like to place the facts in my blog posts so that way I can look back on the facts, read them and know that they are there. Yes, sometimes I have to remind myself that this has really happened and that not just you know the information but many other sites
around the internet. So here it is, straight off the presses:
Los Angles Times
Andy Griffith passing: TV's pioneers fading into history
By Rene LynchJuly 4, 2012, 8:28 a.m
With Andy Griffith's passing, America loses one of its last living links to the early days of television.
"This is a big one," pop culture expert Robert J. Thompson said. "Andy Griffith was just one person. But he's symbolic of that era. With his death, the early days of television have receded into history and the stuff of museums, and directors' commentary on DVD."
To be sure, there are a few icons left who can speak about the start of traditional commercial network programming back in 1948, such as Dick Van Dyke and Sid Caesar.
But that generation has pretty much disappeared now," said Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "If you want to learn about that time, you just can't call people up who were involved with it anymore."
Thompson said "The Andy Griffith Show," which ran from 1960 to 1968, is easily one of the best shows -- if not the single best -- ever on TV.
"If I were to make a list of the greatest shows on TV, you've got 'Your Show of Shows,' and 'I Love Lucy' and so on," he said. "But at the very top of that heap I would put 'The Andy Griffith Show.' That, to me, is one of the most exquisitely executed series of all time."
PHOTOS: Celebrities react to death of Andy Griffith
But the biggest compliment, Thompson said, is that the show stands the test of time.
"If you watch that show today, I swear that thing goes down as smoothly now as it went down half a century ago," he said. "If you watch one or two [episodes], it's really hard not to get sucked in."
Thompson suggests trying to seek out the first season of the show. Viewers might be surprised to find Griffith playing the role of a small town sheriff named Andy Taylor with more of a goofball bent. But it soon became clear that the show's ensemble cast was the perfect showcase for the comic genius of Don Knotts, who played Taylor's deputy, Barney Fife.
Now, Griffith could have tried to compete with Knotts -- after all, the show was called "The Andy Griffith Show." But, Thompson said, Griffith was wise enough to step back and let Knotts shine.
In the end, it served both men's careers handsomely.
"Andy became more of the straight man," Thompson said. "Andy had the modesty and the intelligence as an actor to adjust.... That made his character such a paternal, fatherly, likeable, warm, fuzzy character, and that's why people responded so much to that show and that role."
As with all of my posts i like to place the facts in my blog posts so that way I can look back on the facts, read them and know that they are there. Yes, sometimes I have to remind myself that this has really happened and that not just you know the information but many other sites
around the internet. So here it is, straight off the presses:
Los Angles Times
Andy Griffith passing: TV's pioneers fading into history
By Rene LynchJuly 4, 2012, 8:28 a.m
With Andy Griffith's passing, America loses one of its last living links to the early days of television.
"This is a big one," pop culture expert Robert J. Thompson said. "Andy Griffith was just one person. But he's symbolic of that era. With his death, the early days of television have receded into history and the stuff of museums, and directors' commentary on DVD."
To be sure, there are a few icons left who can speak about the start of traditional commercial network programming back in 1948, such as Dick Van Dyke and Sid Caesar.
But that generation has pretty much disappeared now," said Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "If you want to learn about that time, you just can't call people up who were involved with it anymore."
Thompson said "The Andy Griffith Show," which ran from 1960 to 1968, is easily one of the best shows -- if not the single best -- ever on TV.
"If I were to make a list of the greatest shows on TV, you've got 'Your Show of Shows,' and 'I Love Lucy' and so on," he said. "But at the very top of that heap I would put 'The Andy Griffith Show.' That, to me, is one of the most exquisitely executed series of all time."
PHOTOS: Celebrities react to death of Andy Griffith
But the biggest compliment, Thompson said, is that the show stands the test of time.
"If you watch that show today, I swear that thing goes down as smoothly now as it went down half a century ago," he said. "If you watch one or two [episodes], it's really hard not to get sucked in."
Thompson suggests trying to seek out the first season of the show. Viewers might be surprised to find Griffith playing the role of a small town sheriff named Andy Taylor with more of a goofball bent. But it soon became clear that the show's ensemble cast was the perfect showcase for the comic genius of Don Knotts, who played Taylor's deputy, Barney Fife.
Now, Griffith could have tried to compete with Knotts -- after all, the show was called "The Andy Griffith Show." But, Thompson said, Griffith was wise enough to step back and let Knotts shine.
In the end, it served both men's careers handsomely.
"Andy became more of the straight man," Thompson said. "Andy had the modesty and the intelligence as an actor to adjust.... That made his character such a paternal, fatherly, likeable, warm, fuzzy character, and that's why people responded so much to that show and that role."
RSS Feed