Andy Griffith Show (DVD)
Paramount : The Complete 2nd Season
APPROX. 782 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 1961 - MPA RATING: NR
" Mayberry is the kind of place where George Bailey would have found plenty of kindred spirits.
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14) "Keeper of the Flame"—Opie joins a secret club, but things go awry when a barn burns to the ground.
15) "Bailey's Bad Boy"—A classic episode starring Bill Bixby ("The Incredible Hulk") as a spoiled brat who threatens to have his influential dad make trouble for Andy and Barney unless charges against him are dropped.
16) "The Manicurist"—Barbara Eden ("I Dream of Jeannie") guests as a manicurist who arouses the Mayberry men but rouses the women to protest.
17) "The Jinx"—In this funny episode, after Barney declares Henry Bennett a jinx, Andy tries to prove him wrong.
18) "Jailbreak"—Barney allows a criminal to escape their temporary custody, and the state police are called in to assist in the manhunt.
19) "A Medal for Opie"—Barney tries to help Opie train for the annual Sheriff's Boys Day race.
20) "Barney and the Choir"—Another classic episode, as the one sour note coming from the Mayberry Choir is hypersensitive Barney's.
21) "Guest of Honor"—When Mayberry decides to give the key to the city to the first person entering town on Founder's Day, it's unfortunately a pickpocket.
22) "The Merchant of Mayberry"—Weaver's Department Store gets some competition, as Andy finds himself in the middle.
23) "Aunt Bee the Warden"—Another funny one, with overcrowing at the jail leading to the town drunk, Otis, being detained at the Taylor household.
24) "The Country Nurse"—When a county nurse arrives in town and needs to inoculate everyone against tetanus, it takes the sheriff to help her get moonshiner Rafe Hollister.
25) "Andy and Barney in the Big City"—Andy and Barney go to Raleigh, where they get involved in a cat-and-mouse game between a jewel thief and a hotel detective. Arte Johnson ("Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In") guests.
26) "Wedding Bells for Aunt Bee"—When Aunt Bee feels she's cramping Andy's style and keeping him from finding a wife, she invents a beau to get her out of the house and Andy's life.
27) "Three's a Crown"—Barney interferes when Andy tries to court county nurse Mary Simpson.
28) "The Bookie Barber"—Another funny episode that finds Floyd the barber expanding his haircutting business, with hair-raising results. His new barber is actually a bookie.
29) "Andy on Trial"—When a newspaper publisher is busted for speeding, he sends an undercover reporter to Mayberry to get the dirt on Andy and Barney.
30) "Cousin Virgil"—Michael J. Pollard ("Bonnie & Clyde") guests as Barney's awkward cousin whose every action seems to bring disaster.
31) "Deputy Otis"—When Otis gets a letter that his brother's planning to visit town, Andy and Barney have to put him to work because he's told his brother that he's a deputy, not the town drunk.
All-in-all, it's roughly 13 hours of homespun entertainment, with Griffith's easy manner and Solomon-like wisdom a kind of panacea for all that ails.
Video: Some of the episodes show their age, with occasional flickers of dust and dirt and graininess, but by and large the quality is quite good. The show was telecast in black and white, and this dvd preserves the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, and the episodes are cleaner and clearer than what was broadcast in reruns.
Audio: The soundtrack appears to be Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, but the quality is decent, even during Andy's frequent guitar-playing and singing interludes.
Extras: Usually on a Paramount disc there are no extras, and seldom even an annotated list of episodes, so it was a nice surprise to see some attention to detail for this set. The five discs come in three clear keep-cases with writing underneath each disc that gives the episodes, a brief summary, and original air dates. The discs themselves are pictures of pies in various states of "eatenness," and while there are no commentaries or making-of features, Paramount included original sponsor ads for each episode, with play-all or play-singly options. For those who weren't around to see them, these were little staged clips that ran as a postscript at the end of each show, where Andy and the other characters plugged products like Sanka coffee and Post cereals as they did a virtual epilogue to the episodes. It's great to have these as part of the package, because it gives a broader context to the show that links it to a time in American history that's as wholesome as the pies that decorate each disc label.
Bottom Line: "The Andy Griffith Show" remains solid entertainment 40 years after it aired, and the second season is as steady as any—and partly, it has to do with the gentle and wise tone. Mayberry is the kind of place where George Bailey would have found plenty of kindred spirits—even, in Barney Fife, one who every now and then wants to leave that "hick" town for more global adventures. And yet, it all comes back to values, and this show had them in spades.
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