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Nip it in the bud podcast · Nip It in the Bud!

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: And here we are for our first Andy Griffith podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is awesome.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: My name's Paul.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, and I'm Tim.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to be here with you, Paul.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Tim.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're in a Toastmasters group together, and um, you know, big fans of uh of uh classic TV and Andy Griffith and uh and uh we don't know if there's any of this type of thing out pray is somewhere out there but probably gives us the chance to talk about it.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and the um I guess some and I and I uh Tim and I before this were just talking, and I'm sort of the Cliff Clavin, if you know Cheers, I have all of this useless trivia, but I had listened to Ron Howard's audiobook and um just some general info about Andy Griffith too, but the uh you know Andy Griffith was a uh you know at this point uh uh for this uh pilot episode that we're gonna talk about today, was uh already uh you know uh up and coming uh comic and uh even uh um a serious acting star.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so yeah, yeah, I think his career.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have you seen those early movies he did, the uh No Time for Sergeants and Face in the Crowd or something like that?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, face in the Crowd, I know I know that's a serious role.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I never really I don't think I've seen all of that, but um Onion Head and uh No Time for Sergeants, because Don Knott's was in the No Time.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that was great.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, it's it's funny you mentioned cheers too, Paul, because uh when I was watching the pilot episode yesterday to get kind of warmed up for today, I was I was thinking how light cheers, so much of the Andy Griffith show took place in the courthouse where Andy and Barney and anybody who happens to wander in uh does.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that that was kind of like their one of their main locations, if you want to call it that.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's right, yes.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and Andy had um um also was a stand-up comedian, had a like an album out where he talked about uh football, where he was uh um like uh almost like an evangelist preacher who uh is just stumbles upon a football game and does a hilarious.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think they called it uh he was a monologuist.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the term they used in those Oh really?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, yeah.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So uh uh makes me think of Bob Newhart because I remember some of his early albums, and I wouldn't I guess he was doing stand-up maybe too, or maybe they didn't call it that then.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: He was Bob Newhart was uh he was originally uh CPA and accountant, and uh left to do that.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad he did.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, really.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's uh always one of my favorites, kind of that low-key humor.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but yeah, I'll have to see if I can find that Andy Griffith comedy album or whatever it was.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: The Danny Thomas at the time, he was a big star.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know how many people remember the great Danny Thomas, an entertainer.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: He kind of did it all.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: He was uh an actor, uh uh comedian, uh, an entertainer.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, if you ever watched his Dean Martin roast, he was all you know, he was very religious, he was very into his Catholic faith, and he always they would tease him a lot about his religion.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, the story with Danny is that when he was struggling uh to to become successful, he prayed to Saint Jude every day, a patron saint of lost causes.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, and he did that for uh and he always made a promise to St.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Jude that if he did in fact become successful, which he did, he would in turn um you know build like a shrine to Saint Jude, which he did do, which is amazing.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't aren't too many uh stars that do that, like they have foundations and things, but just the idea that the St.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Jude Children's Hospital with founder Danny Thomas, and uh maybe a lot of the folks that go there don't realize who he was now, but uh yeah, or even his daughter Marlo is kind of followed in his footsteps, but she's getting up there in years now, too.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yep.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but the last time I saw her, probably on a commercial or some plug for St.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Jude, she's she still looked good, yeah.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Still plugging along.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he had a successful TV show, Make Room for Daddy, which they re kind of retooled to be called the Daddy Thomas Show.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh for a lot of years, then it became Make Room for Granddaddy, so it was very popular.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And Sheldon Leonard, who was an actor, probably most known uh listeners for uh It's a Wonderful Life, being the bartender Nick.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: He was an actor, but he's also a director, and he he uh was a producer.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: He guy was an amazing guy, did it all, but he him and Danny uh were producing shows together, and um and he was really good at identifying talent, and um and he was developing uh you know they both wanted to develop something with Andy Griffiths since Andy was they just Andy was interested in that too, getting into um television and and um okay uh and that led to what what I guess is called a backdoor pilot, which most pilots are where they they they pitch a uh a uh story and and maybe even um you know film it and then show it and uh it either gets picked up as a series, sometimes doesn't get shown, but it's shown to like the network people, but but a backdoor pilot, it's already a done deal.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like they just it's mainly to introduce the characters.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So Andy Griffith that show was going on whether or not the pilot was did good or not.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was a definite.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's that's interesting.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting, and and it kind of makes sense because or or for me, it wasn't until probably 10 or 15 years ago that I actually saw that pilot episode.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh, it wasn't really an Andy Griffiths show episode, it was a Danny Thomas show episode.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I don't know, well, nobody's gonna see this, I guess, but uh I around the yeah, it was the this is the 50th anniversary Andy Griffiths show box set.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's one DVD or one collection with a bunch of episodes, and as one of the extras, it had the pilot episode.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so as soon as I saw that, I said, I've got to watch that.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and it was it was great.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was great.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now it was great to see it again yesterday when I watched it.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now on the um Ron Howard says that uh unbeknownst to him, um, Sheldon Leonard saw him doing some other things because he had done uh you know, had uh had done movies and had been in a lot of uh uh things and and he um called uh Ronnie's uh he went by Ronnie Howard then, he called his agent and said I wanted to put a hold on Ronnie, meaning that he wanted to use him for something.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: But uh the agent let Sheldon know that that Ronnie had just done a pilot and it's called Mr.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Barnaby, and it starred Bert Laur.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: If anybody knows Bert Laur from the Laws.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the cowardly lion, right?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I guess it's like uh uh Ronnie said it was uh ahead of its time because it was sort of a fantasy type show, and um he played Barnaby uh and he uh and he um yeah you know it was just like a a fantasy with this uh Burt Larr character.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, um if that show got picked up for series, then he quitn't he he couldn't do the Andy Griffith show.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: So uh the agent told Sheldon Leonard that, and he said Sheldon Leonard said Mr.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Barnaby's not going anywhere.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um right.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: But Ronnie Howard says like he always likes to this day, thinks, what if well how would his life have been different if Mr.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Barnaby would have become a series and he couldn't do the and somebody else did it?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it was just amazing, but you know, how your life, all these little things.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: But but you know, so the the pilot um the backdoor pilot is uh Danny, you know, all you can see is kind of set up to make Danny look bad, which was nice of him.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Introduced Andy as Andy kind of walks away looking like a great guy.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: But uh he gets a ticket uh for going through a stop sign in Mayberry.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: And uh in the and interesting the the characters in it, which is interesting too, is when he's in that jail, is you have um the uh the town drunk character is yes, is Frank Cady, who was uh end up being Mr.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Drucker on the uh Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and even sometimes Beverly Hillbillies.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: So oh, right, right, yeah.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he was in rear window too, Alfred Hitchcock's rear window.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: He was the top apartment with his wife, who it was in the heat wave, they slept out on the mattress, and um and then it started raining.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: So they added some comic relief to that movie because uh uh the I guess the story goes that Hitchcock spoke to them with direction from a he built an actual apartment complex, so he was in the Jimmy Stewart apartment given direction, and they uh each had um earpieces in so they could hear each other.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: He would talk to to the Frank Katie and to the woman, and he told like her, your character, wants to stay outside.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, and then he told Frank Katie, you want to pull that mattress in because it's raining.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that created like that scene where they're fighting over that mattress, which makes it very funny, and they don't know each other.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like he didn't tell them that's supposed to happen, which probably would have ruined it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, right.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it was it was interesting to see him in that role of uh of the town drunk.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had forgotten he was in that that pilot, but he comes in uh and like he slams some money down on the desk uh at Andy's desk, and then he goes and locks himself in the um cell and and swaps on the bed and he's passed out, I guess.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but um I I thought I didn't ever remember Otis paying any fine or anything like that.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: He would just come in singing a song or whatever and and just go lock himself up.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um but and uh I I thought uh Frank Cady had a lot more energy as a town drunk.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: He came in pretty hot.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, he did that pilot episode.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Notice is usually just kind of shuffling in and uh singing, I'm sorry, I broke your heart, mother.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think notice was better at that role.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh it's hard to imagine uh again somebody else in that role.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, since you know we we saw them both in in their respective shows that they came on to later, or at least Hal Smith Otis stuck with Andy Griffith's show, and yeah, it just seemed like all the casting was perfect.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then the you know, the Andy would reference his Aunt Lucy, who was the or their or Opie's Aunt Lucy, so which I guess must have been his Andy's sister or sister-in-law, and never really said, but Aunt Lucy cleaned the jail, he would tell Dan, because Danny was criticizing the the food and the jail, and Aunt Lucy made it, which is interesting, and um um, and then he told Opie to go home and see Aunt Lucy, and she'd give him a big pop.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he was all excited about that, yeah.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: So and Ronnie Hour mentioned so on in the um in that pilot, and so Danny refuses to he's with his wife, and he gets this ticket and uh finds five dollars, but uh um at first doesn't want to pay it because out of principle, because there was a stop sign, and I guess no, it didn't go anywhere.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: The road there's no road, so there's no reason to stop.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh then he um I think he increased it to ten and he so I guess he pulled out a w a lot of money.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: So so Andy realized that you know money wasn't an issue with this guy, so he made it a hundred.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then that their way was Danny Paya that.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that really set him off.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Then and then he's like, um, didn't he I guess he made a phone call.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he got his phone call and he called uh the show that he was on.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Was it called face to face?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he called it.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Face to face and uh and they're talking you're hearing his side of the conversation, and he's he's getting all excited that they're going to come and film him at the at the jailhouse, at the courthouse.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I'm gonna get you, Andy, for pulling this on me.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and and then he um you know the aunt Aunt B, who is an Aunt B then, I think she's a different, like a neighbor woman comes in and she hasn't paid her taxes.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so even back then that was a bad thing.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And uh they um uh and then it turned out that the uh there's the the fella in town who sold a suit.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you realize that that that guy, that older man who kind of was ripping off Aunt B, who wasn't Aunt B then, but uh he's he played uh he was on a couple episodes.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: He played Ben later on the and yeah in the seven years Andy Griffith, there's only one Christmas episode, and Ben was in that.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: That was the only oh so so memorable in that he was just a good actor.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: He was good in that episode too.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very angry, cantankerous, like grumpy guy.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I don't know if that was his usual shtick, but he he definitely had that down.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he could play the cantankerous, uh grumpy kind of guy really well, and he had the face for it, too.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: He did have the face for it, and and then they um yeah, I think the I mean you could see the whole episode really.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was just surprised Danny allowed himself to look bad.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like and um you ended up the TV crew came and filmed them, and he was acting like it was he was wearing a blanket and he was freezing, bad conditions, and uh and uh and then and then Andy started wasn't gonna speak on camera, but then he did, and he just came across as just a really nice guy.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then Danny also got kind of swayed seeing his interactions with Opie.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: He thought that's a nice way he's talking to his son, and maybe this guy's okay.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, and then they kind of get into it again, though, where Danny gets Danny flies off the handle and gets mad and goes locks himself up again.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, like you said, he kind of softened seeing Opie come in because what did that oh yeah, somebody had stepped on his turtle, yeah.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and he was feeling bad about that.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that was something I wanted to bring up because that was, as far as I can remember, the only time I can remember any discussion about Andy's wife, yeah, and how she had passed away.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Ronnie said that that whole turtle thing was an opportunity to let the audience know that he was a widower and that uh and a single dad.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's kind of what that story set up.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh yeah, I agree.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: I never really mentioned uh that much of uh uh you know his wife and you know, and Opie saying you didn't remarry, or you know, kind of the way he didn't say it that way, but he re-word, yeah, he worded it in a way the audience knew this guy's single.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, right, yeah, yeah.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: But uh it was kind of interesting to see how that pilot was compared to some of the later episodes, in that it almost seemed like there were these little set pieces, right?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Where the town drunk comes in, yeah, and then uh the woman who was later Aunt B comes in with her story about not paying her taxes, and Opie comes in, and so they're just little almost like little mini episodes or little pieces for each of those characters, and you get to know something about the whole uh backstory, I guess.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh whereas I think once the the show sort of hit its stride and really got going, um, you know, it wasn't quite as or it was a lot more fluid.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: But what was happening in that episode seemed like no, okay, here's another person who comes in, another person comes in.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: But that that's what I always found interesting, or it finally dawned on me.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Shows like Cheers or Bob Newhart when he's uh running the hotel or the Bed and Breakfast in Vermont, the New Heart show.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: That some of the premises of these different shows are that there are always going to be characters coming in from could be anywhere, right?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's what makes it a show.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not just sitting around rehashing whatever's going on uh at home, although although I guess that could be a show, but it gives you that opportunity to have outside characters, guest stars, whatever it might be, uh coming in and and having a role just for one episode, even.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's so true.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, Don Knott's who they were Andy and and uh Don were friends and he had watched this episode and um reached out to Andy and said you need a deputy, and uh which I'm glad he did that.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh really?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: He said there there's a lot of videos of him on YouTube, different interviews, and he he made a good um observation that and it was done intentionally, he said, that in these early up, and you know you saw it in the pilot, and then and maybe uh I'm not sure what season it changed, but it was all heavy on Andy.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like Andy was the committee, the whole comic, everything.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: He it was all about him, and these other people were minor characters.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he said that Andy made the decision, uh Don said, that he would be the straight man, and he felt that the other people were were actually it would be funnier if you built their characters up, which was really genius because he's so right.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Those other him being And sort of like uh even on the show Green Acres, where Mr.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Douglas is the only one with it has a sane.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's what was funny was that you got the sheriff who's uh you know a good guy and uh and kind of keep everybody on the right path, but he allowed all these others to steal the laughs.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't that way at all.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's all Andy, and he's doing the jokes, he's he I mean he dominated that uh, you know, um and understandably, because it was it was uh you know going to be a new show, but uh he had to know who he was.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, right.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah, yeah.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: So true.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and I do remember some of those early episodes, like you're saying, now put it put it in that light that yeah, he was he had more funny lines, I think, in those earlier episodes, and and yeah, the focus was really on him and you know, whatever girlfriend like Ellie at the drugstore was one of the early girlfriends, and so he's a lot of the comic interaction was with him, yeah.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he was doing funny things or or funnier things, but yeah, and uh after must have been after they made that decision, or he made that decision, but yeah, the he was kind of the the straight man, he was he was the normal one, right?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody else is is pretty a real character, put it that way.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that uh but yeah, that and that this was done in front of a live audience when the Andy Griffith show was not, it was filmed, and and and and Ronnie Howard said how you know it didn't really faze him, even though he had never done anything in front of a big audience like that, but um, and how well the director um kind of coached him along with the um told him to cover his hands so you couldn't see it wasn't really a turtle, things like that.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: But he said, even though um you know then they went and did the show and they never did it in front of a live audience, but Danny Thomas, that's the way he did his show, and uh so you hear so much applause and laughter and everything.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: These are real people got the luck of watching that.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how about that to be there for that very first episode?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how historic.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is and and that was something I noticed from the pilot episode a little bit too was uh the set where uh the outside facade.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I don't think it was it looked a little like the one that you saw in the Andy Griffiths show itself, but it looked like there was this little hardware store next to it.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you you couldn't really see a whole lot of anything else, but there were on the Andy Griffiths show, there were things happening on the sidewalk too, outside the courthouse.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: But this didn't really look like there was uh you know an actual outside physical outdoor set.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: The the area where the jail was and where where Danny winds up and and when the town drunk comes in in one of the cells, that looked pretty similar to what I remember from the show, but it seemed like all the characters were coming in what what later was the back door, yeah.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Where I I think Barney would go back there to take naps and things like that, but the front door was actually to the left of Andy's desk, yeah.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: The door from outside into the courthouse was there, and they usually had that little bit of chairs set up on the side of Andy's desk, and there was a little I guess you'd call it like the bar from uh what you'd see uh in a courtroom somewhere.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I I guess I do remember a couple episodes where they actually took advantage of those chairs that were always over there.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, you know, you'd see uh the woman who was Aunt B coming in from what was what we would think of as the back room.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there wasn't the gun rack.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: I always as a little kid saw that that whole rack of guns over there.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, wow, look at all those guns.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh hardly ever used, but they were uh they were always there, they're always there.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh my gosh.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's it's so cool to see how that kind of evolved to see that pilot episode.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it really was.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, just uh, you know, to see where, you know, how it's just interesting, like with these um pilots, and then they go to the series and they you just change things and just it doesn't matter if you remember, hey, it wasn't that whatever happened to Aunt Lucy, like none of that matters.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: It just kind of, you know, sh I think the first episode, and we'll be um, you know, talking about that one next, is is called the new housekeeper, and that's Aunt B.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: So she, you know, anybody remembering this episode would from Danny Thomas would say, Well, that's Mrs.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Hennessy.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: And her husband had a husband and he died, and she didn't have money for a suit, and she, you know, what that but oh how'd that happen?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: But um Yeah.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that what we're talking about as the next episode was what I always thought of as the the first or the pilot episode, and only years later found out it wasn't.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but yeah, that that's one of my all-time favorite episodes, too, because uh Opie has a big role in that one.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he's kind of the uh the plot sort of revolves around his reaction to losing the the housekeeper that they have, and but it's not Aunt Lucy.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not Aunt Lucy.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Run Ronnie Howard, um, I don't recommend.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh you know the book he did was with his brother Clint.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: And uh but I started out with the book, but you know, when I found out they both do the audio book, I'd rather hear their voices, you know, and uh oh yeah it's it's uh really good and he's very you know uh you know very complimentary of uh Andy and um Sheldon, like every everybody actually like there's he's just a good guy the way he talks about his parents, you know, he had a great parents, his both both actors oh that's his dad, yeah, who who did appear in the pilot.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: He was the guy who was like the TV guy on oh yes, on set there, and I I forget whether he yells cut or something like that, but you just get a little glimpse of his face and you think, wow, that guy looks kind of like adult Ron Howard.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that oh, that was his dad.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, family affair there, yeah.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: His dad was off and on, Andy Griffith driving a bus or doing but he uh probably best known on Seinfeld for the guy with the the playing a blind man with glasses that pinched his nose that George got to swap for uh female glasses in uh episode.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: But but um yeah, but he talks about um uh you know he had done the show uh the movie Courtship of Eddie's father, what became a TV series, but um Glenn Ford, who was a major, major star, um uh and Shirley Jones from Shirley Jones, yeah.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I just watched that a few years ago.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh really good in that.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's uh you really see for a young kid, I mean, uh there there's not too many uh even today that could he had a real really wide range of skills there.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: You could see that he's hard to believe he doesn't act now, you know, like he's yeah, isn't that interesting?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he never wanted to.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's funny.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to go behind the cameras, but he was so good in front of them.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: When we go through the series to talk about how his dad wrote episodes of uh the Flintstones, and uh really and Ronnie actually helped us, he would bounce his ideas off of Ronnie one well, not all the time, but one time, and um and Ronnie helped uh develop the storyline, and uh and Ronnie actually got paid.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like they actually threw his name up in the writing credits for that.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he's only like six years old.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: How about that?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think he got like 500 bucks, like he got good about you know for that time.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's still a lot of money, but back then even more.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so his dad is dad really talented, both his parents, the new housekeeper, will be our next venture.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I'm looking forward to it.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, let us know your if you're anybody's listening, let us know your comments and your your thoughts on this episode or on the series.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's been great to be here with you on this, Paul.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for inviting me.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: You too, Tim, and uh we'll see you next time.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, buddy.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.