1. Hal Smith: lovable kook?
When The Andy Griffith Show was being developed, producer Sheldon Leonard was determined to find “lovable-kook” characters to surround leading man Andy Griffith in Mayberry, according to Daniel de Vise, author of Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show.
“In each case, the actor was told it might be a one-off part, maybe lasting for only one or two episodes,” he says. “But when the chemistry worked, as it did with Barney Fife and Otis and Floyd the Barber, Sheldon or producer Aaron Ruben would sweep in and tell the actors that the part might just work out.”
That being said, it’s his feeling that Otis was a bit of a risky character. “Already in the 1960s,” de Vise muses, “Hollywood was starting to get sensitive about the idea of milking a person’s alcoholism for humor. Hal later recalled that someone from General Foods, the show’s sponsor, lobbied the studio to ‘fire’ the character, but the showrunners insisted on keeping him and stood up to the sponsor.”
2. A Background for Otis
In 1964, the Tampa Bay Times offered up a profile of Hal Smith, in which they provided a bit of history for the Otis character based on the actor’s point of view: “Otis is a picked-on kind of a guy who is not understood by his wife, hence he hits the bottle. TheMrs. didn’t allow Otis around the house when he’s sozzled, so the jail became his second home.”
3. Hal Smith felt Otis was a dignified drunk
“It’s the best kind of drunk a man can be. It pays well and you never get a hangover. I do a show on the average of once every three weeks and I think that’s good. The town drunk could get obnoxious.”
4. In one case, Hal Smith was apparently a negative influence
Allan Newsome is the host of the Mayberry podcast Two Chairs, No Waiting, and he did an episode that was focused on Hal Smith. The first thing he points out is that the actor was not a drinker beyond, perhaps, in a social situation.
“I wanted to mention that,” he explained, “because one of the stories I’m fixing to tell you about is actually related to that. There was a great book published called More Than Otis, No Bull!, A Salute to Hollywood Actor Hal J. Smith. It’s written by John Mashad III. It’s got some nice articles in here and I wanted to read just a little bit out of one of them. It’s called ‘The Price of Fame,’ where he had talked to Hal Smith and got this information.”
“Becoming a success in Hollywood can be a blessing or a curse to personalities portraying characters,” he reads from the book. “After Hal appeared in The Andy Griffith Show as lovable Otis Campbell, he discovered a world of typecasting and was sometimes irritated by people criticizing his character. ‘I was in a hardware store one time and my son Terry was there with me,’ he said. ‘There was a guy looking through some nuts and bolts and stuff and he looked up at me and said, ‘Oh, you’re the guy from The Andy Griffith Show. I hate you.’
“Hal said to him, ‘Wait a minute, what do you mean?’ He explained to Hal that his brother became an alcoholic after seeing Otis drunk on an episode of The Andy Griffith Show. ‘You caused my brother to drink. He saw you drinking and he wanted to do it, because of you.’”
Smith, he says, defending himself, emphasizing that Otis had never been filmed drinking out of a bottle of any sort. In fact, the only time the audience ever saw him drink anything was when they gave him something to sober him up.
5. Otis the Drunk had a negative impact on Hal Smith’s son
Newsome explains, “The character also affected the life of his only son, Terry. They used to call him ‘Little Otis’ at Brentwood Academy. ‘He never really liked that. When I took him to school, the other kids gave me funny looks. I didn’t know if they thought I was an actor or a drunk,’ said Hal Smith. ‘Finally, one day a kid asked Terry, ‘Is your dad Otis? Is he a method actor?’ Terry replied, ‘Yes, he practices every Saturday night.’”
