No doubt, it can be difficult to leave a group like that behind after so much time, but thankfully, Andy Griffith was onto something when he said he’d be back down the road. See, the series finale, “Mayberry R.F.D.” (R.F.D. stands for “Rural Free Delivery”), was titled as such because it was meant to be a backdoor pilot for an Andy Griffith Show spin-off. The famous CBS series had already spun off before with Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (which starred Jim Nabors as Goober’s cousin Gomer, yes, the namesake of that Full Metal Jacket nickname), so ending the show with yet another series was an exciting prospect. Although many would’ve likely wanted to see Andy and Opie’s adventures continue into a new show, Sam and Mike were solid placeholders for the town of Mayberry.
The warm, kindly sheriff of Mayberry was a pleasant turnaround from his first film role as a vicious media personality.
Mayberry R.F.D. aired only five months after The Andy Griffith Show ended, centering on Sam Jones and his family. Strangely absent from the series was the Vincente family, who had been such a big part of the series finale that we thought they would be a shoo-in for the spin-off, but evidently, it proved too tiresome to bring them back to town . However, returning characters included Aunt Bee, Goober, Howard, and other Mayberry favorites, which helped make Mayberry R.F.D. feel like more of the same. In many ways, the Sam Jones-centered show was more of a sequel series than a traditional spin-off like Gomer Pyle, and that was to its benefit. Still centering the story in Mayberry helped bring in fans of the original series, and bringing back old-time favorites certainly didn’t hurt.
But no matter how much it wanted to be, Mayberry R.F.D. wasn’t The Andy Griffith Show. Sure, Andy Griffith returned as Andy Taylor in a handful of appearances in the first season (and only once more thereafter), but he and Opie were no longer the central focus of the town’s happenings. Bringing back cast members from the original series may have helped get Mayberry R.F.D. off the ground, but it also prevents the show from finding its own identity apart from the original. Of course, the series was successful in the ratings for its first two years, though it was ultimately canceled after its third season as another victim of CBS’s infamous “rural purge.” After that, we didn’t see much of Andy Taylor or his friends again. But what happened to Andy following The Andy Griffith Show?
