Monday, May 1, 2017

Color my world


The post you’re reading now was composed on Wednesday evening of the previous week—and before I begin, I apologize to everyone who may have already been clued into this news (I talked about it on Facebook…but not everyone in the TDOY faithful is into the whole [anti]social media thing); an article that I read at the MeTV website sort of planted the seed of inspiration, and I knew I needed to cobble together something fast and economical because of the weekend busyness.

Back about this same time last year, I mentioned that our DISH network system started carrying WGTA (channel 32), a local TV station in Toccoa (the “GTA” stands for “Greenville to Atlanta”) …and because WGTA’s programming consisted of the substations Heroes & Icons (32.1), Decades (32.2), and Movies! (32.3), our DISH had the full Heroes & Icons lineup—a rarity in the world of DISH, since they don’t usually carry substations.  In January of this year, there was an announcement that MeTV would be available on our DISH Channel 32 starting March 25, because WSB-TV—which originally carried MeTV as a substation—had dropped it, switching to Escape.  (And not the good kind—“designed to free you from the four walls of today.”)  The addition of MeTV as a WGTA substation meant all the other substations moved down a peg in terms of OTA (off the air)—Heroes & Icons is now 32.2, Decades 32.3, and so on.

The news that MeTV would once again be available in the House of Yesteryear was, as you may have guessed, warmly welcomed; sure, I experienced a small amount of initial disappointment (I was only a handful of episodes from a complete collection of Broken Arrow) that gave way to me being extremely jazzed because MeTV offers a good deal more variety in their classic TV programming.  (Also, too; I would gain access to reruns of Our Miss Brooks and 77 Sunset Strip—two series not yet released to DVD.)  I’m not happy that these shows are heavily edited in order to cram in the commercials my father constantly bitches about…but a thirsty man never turns down a glass of water.  I’m not joking about the ads on MeTV, by the way; I tried to persuade His Lairdship to start watching Gunsmoke on MeTV at 1pm EDT weekdays because they show two of the half-hour episodes back-to-back and he’s seen all of the color hour-long episodes they run on TVLand at that same hour.  (He claims he hasn’t…but this is incorrect, because I’m usually in the living room with him and I know I have.)  He gave up after one thirty-minute episode.  “Too many commercials,” he griped.  (I’ve been away from TVLand too long—I was not aware they were now ad-free.)

The amusing thing about MeTV is that on their current schedule, they run back-to-back episodes of The Andy Griffith Show at 8pm EDT weekdays (7pm EDT Sundays)—but only in selected areas.  If they’re running TAGS on another station in your viewing area, MeTV substitutes those reruns with…wait for itMayberry R.F.D.  (“Every time I think I’m outthey pull me back in!”)  Now comes an announcement that the network is going to work the TAGS episodes from 1965-68 into the rotation.  That’s right.  The color episodes.  The Mayberrys That Dare Not Speak Their Name.

I know many people—I think we even heard from them in the comments section when I was doing the Mayberry Mondays posts—who will not only refuse to watch The Andy Griffith Show in color…they vehemently deny the period ever existed.  And I get this—I really do.  There are a lot of TAGS episodes from the color era—a lot of episodes—that clearly illustrate that sitcom was running on fumes once Don Knotts said “I’m off like a prom dress.”  I think Don’s departure is the chief explanation for the hostility toward the Mayberry color era—replacing the Barney Fife character (even though Knotts returned on several occasions in a guest-star capacity) with that doofus played by Jack Burns was an idiotic decision that would not be equaled until they rolled out New Coke.  And I say this as a guy who likes Jack Burns…I just believe his "Warren Ferguson" was not a good fit where Mayberry was concerned, and in the MeTV article (“The Color Seasons of ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ are Great and Here’s Why”) the author amusingly notes “the character only appears in 11 episodes before mysteriously vanishing to wherever Chuck Cunningham went.”

The article makes some good arguments…and some not-so-good.  Their first bullet point, “Howard Sprague is a wonderfully milquetoast character,” is the strongest argument they could make (I’m going to assume that’s why it was first); it’s no accident that, as I have stated in the past, Howard is usually at the center of the one laugh-out-loud moment in every episode of Mayberry R.F.D.…and the subject of that show’s funnier episodes (“The Panel Show,” “The Caper,” “The Mynah Bird,” etc.).  My fellow Facebook denizens and I discussed this article a bit, with many of MeTV's points greeted with all the enthusiasm of drinking warm beer.  I believe it was Andrew “Grover” Leal who had his flabber gasted at #4, “Road Trips”—personally, I didn’t have a problem when Andy, Opie, and Aunt Bee made the trek to Hollywood…because if it was good enough for Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, it was good enough for the Taylors.

The only item on the MeTV list that found me searching for where in my skull my eyes had rolled to was #7, “Aunt Bee Gets to Do a Lot More.”  Mr. Leal persuasively argues: “[They] were trying too hard to fill the ‘Barney does something wacky’ gap,” and I have to agree (while at the same time believing “The Mayberry Chef” to be one of the stronger final season episodes).  I might be persuaded to side with MeTV if I stopped to consider that with every “wacky” Aunt Bee installment that meant less time spent with Mayberry’s resident fix-it savant and wife-batterer, Emmett Clark.  As I told Facebook chum Jason Beard: “…I have stared into the R.F.D. abyss, and I know that even on its worst color-saturated day TAGS was better.”

I think that last part might be the number one reason I’m not as filled with revulsion with a color Mayberry as some.  You see (this is the portion of the blog where I tell a sad childhood story—please, no tears), we didn’t get a color TV set until 1976.  Mayberry was always in black-and-white when I was a kid.  Sure, some of town’s residents either vanished (Otis, Ernest T.) or moved away (Barney, Floyd), but for the younger Ivan, that sleepy little North Carolina hamlet remained in its monochromatic state until the day my father decided that color TV was no longer a fad and was here to stay.  (Yes, he never misses an opportunity to ride me about my love of black-and-white TV shows and movies—completely missing the irony that my childhood might have had something to do with that.)

So bring on the color episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, MeTV.  The channel is also running announcements of the return of Rhoda (yay!) and Remington Steele (snore) …I just hope this isn’t going to interfere with my burgeoning Our Miss Brooks collection.

9 comments:

hobbyfan said...

I remember the Jack Burns era. He tried to use his usual schtick that he did with Avery Schreiber, subbing Andy or anyone else for Schreiber, and it didn't fit. Weigel, the parent company of Me-TV AND Heroes & Icons, mind you, had to tip some seriously extra coin to CBS to get the color episodes.

Also, Me-TV is adding the original Battlestar Galactica this summer, maybe as early as this month. Thought ya should know, Ivan.

Ivan G Shreve Jr said...

hobbyfan presented some startling facts:

He tried to use his usual schtick that he did with Avery Schreiber, subbing Andy or anyone else for Schreiber, and it didn't fit.

I caught a rerun of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir a while back with Burns as guest, and he even did the "Yeah...huh?" bit with Hope Lange, which greatly amused me for some reason. I remember Burns and Schreiber's summer TV series with great fondness, but Burns just didn't belong in Mayberry.

Also, Me-TV is adding the original Battlestar Galactica this summer, maybe as early as this month. Thought ya should know, Ivan.

I appreciate the heads-up. During my years in exile in Morgantown, I grabbed the original series in its entirety for a friend of mine because the local cable outfit didn't carry SciFi and I had a satellite system. Nice memories.

ClassicBecky said...

Nice article, as usual! My little brother and I have talked about the color episodes of TAGS for a long time. When some channel shows TAGS in chronological order, we always groan and stop watching when it turns to color...it's a family joke now. What I really wanted to comment on was your memories of TAGS as black and white even after it turned to color. I had a similar experience with The Wizard of Oz. We watched it every year, of course, but we kids had no idea it turned to color after Dorothy opens the door to Munchkin Land. My folks never said anything, deliberately ... when we finally got a color TV, quite a while after it was available (my Mom and Dad had 7 kids and the idiot box, as my Dad called it, wasn't a big priority!) I'll never forget seeing it for the first time with the color TV. One of those childhood memories that last forever ........

Ivan G Shreve Jr said...

Becky made a dramatic entrance:

I had a similar experience with The Wizard of Oz. We watched it every year, of course, but we kids had no idea it turned to color after Dorothy opens the door to Munchkin Land. My folks never said anything, deliberately ... when we finally got a color TV, quite a while after it was available (my Mom and Dad had 7 kids and the idiot box, as my Dad called it, wasn't a big priority!) I'll never forget seeing it for the first time with the color TV.

My grandparents in Savannah had a color set, and I'll always remember watching Get Smart in Peacock Color.

Andrew Leal said...

Important note: the Burns and Allen summer series OUR PLACE was emceed (more or less) by Rowlf the Dog. Just noting how my obsessions overlap.

The general consensus, that Burns' style was too big city for Mayberry, seems accurate (and the writing for the character didn't help).

The road trips weren't the worst episodes (well, some of them; the Hollywood ones failed to interest me outside of letting Goober do his Cary Grant again, although the young actress as a shotgun wielding Aunt Bee was pretty funny). Episodes also echoed a previous b&w where the same thing happened, only it was a con (and now it's real), so that bugged a tad too. But I don't see them as the strongest argument for the color episodes.

And it's probably fair to say that some of the more sincere color episodes ("Opie's Job") worked better than the wacky ones (especially when the wackiness was Aunt Bee or Goober-centric; "Goober grows a beard and thinks he's smart now" is dumb even by the Goob's standards, while "Howard the Beachcomber" is genuinely funny).

Also, note how MeTV completely failed to mention Elmo.

ClassicBecky said...

LOVED "Get Smart" !!!!

glynis37 said...

Just returned from house-sitting for my sister, where I actually got to watch a little TV. I was delighted to see MeTV available, even if it was a bit heavy on the McGyver/Diagnosis Murder stuff. Saw a few old TAGS episodes, a Bonanza (my favorite show as a wee tot) and some others. All I can say is...Dang, was The Rifleman really that awful?

I believe 1976 was the year my family bought their first color TV, too. I had already left for college, didn't get a color set of my own until 1983. Yes, I am a serious anachronism!

Andrew Leal said...

Off-topic: Hi, glynis! (Recognized your username from Comics Kingdom, and for a moment thought I was on Disqus instead; Frances Bavier certainly could have played a mean Mary Worth, in every sense of the word).

Scott said...

I remain firm in my belief that there is nary a chuckle to be wrung from the entire post-Barney canon, and do not regard "the existence of Howard Sprague" as a persuasive counter-argument. (When a friend and I snuck into a showing of Peckinpaugh's The Getaway at our scummy dollar theater, I was both astonished and delighted by Jack Dodson's presence in the cast -- astonished to see Howard Sprague in this grim revenge drama, and delighted to see him hang himself [Oops. Spoilers].)

I agree the character of Warren was a lazy and ineffective solution to the problem of "How do we justify our existence without Don Knotts, especially since Andy seems increasingly bored with the whole enterprise?" I've always thought they should have gone, not with a Barney Lite like Warren, but a Barney Dark. Real dark. Have Andy hire some former big city cop who's seen too much and moved to Mayberry for his nerves, but who can't break old law enforcement habits, so he's always busting Floyd for running a numbers racket out of his barber shop (there's always one in every neighborhood); beating confessions out of suspects in the back cell and counting on Otis to drown out the cries for help as he shrieks with the D.T.s; responding to a rock flung by Ernest T. Bass not with homespun wisdom, but a shotgun blast - you get the idea.

Basically, I think the color episodes of TAGS were a gateway drug, a low dosage of mediocrity designed to prepare audiences for the harder, uncut junk the producers would eventually be pushing with Mayberry RFD.

P.S. I'm very impressed that Ivan could respond to my bitchfest on Twitter by immediately summoning up the name (and photo!) of the one black actor who ever appeared on the show. That's some Computer Wore Tennis Shoes stuff right there.