NEED TO KNOW
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The Andy Griffith Show premiered 65 years ago on Oct. 3, 1960
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Back in 1986, Andy Griffith, Don Knotts, Ron Howard and the rest of the cast opened up to PEOPLE about the series when they reunited for a TV film Return to Mayberry
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Howard also reflected on the show’s legacy in a September interview with PEOPLE
On Oct. 3, 1960, The Andy Griffith Show aired its very first episode. The series followed Andy Griffith as Sheriff Andy Taylor, Don Knotts as his sleepy deputy Barney Fife and Ron Howard as Andy’s son Opie. The series, which also included Frances Bavier as Aunt Bee and Jim Nabors as Gomer Pyle, ran for eight seasons, ending in 1968 and spawning multiple spin-offs. During its run, it was a Top 10 hit every season, and the show has had a second life in syndication, as old fans revisit Mayberry and new ones fall in love with the wholesome town.
In 1986, the surviving cast from the show reunited for a TV film, Return to Mayberry. In it, Andy — who married Aneta Corsaut’s Helen Crump in the series finale — returns to Mayberry to run for sheriff against Barney. Opie, meanwhile, is married and the editor of the local paper. The only major players who didn’t return were Howard McNear, who played Floyd the barber, who died in 1967, and Bavier, who was too ill to leave her retirement home (she died in 1989 at 89 years old).
“I didn’t think the experience would live up to my expectations,” a then-32-year-old Howard told PEOPLE at the time about the reunion. “But the feelings are still there.” By then, the Happy Days alum had already found early success as a director, with movies like Splash, Cocoon and Gung Ho.
The original series was filmed on a Hollywood backlot that stood in for the fictional town of Mayberry, N.C., but for the reunion, Los Olivos, Calif., was transformed to look like the town. “It feels like old home week,” Nabors told PEOPLE about getting the gang back together.
George Lindsey, who played Goober Pyle, said, “This was a family that we all grew up with. They’re going to have to bury me in my Goober hat.” Still, he joked, “I couldn’t remember how to do Goober at first.”
The cast, PEOPLE reported, was quick to tease Howard on set. “I thought you had to be 50 to get your name on a director’s chair,” Griffith joked at one point.
The star explained that the idea for the reunion formed when he, Knotts and Howard presented an Emmy together in 1983. “I was surprised at the amount of audience laughter,” Griffith said. “We went out to dinner and talked about doing the reunion.”
Everyone agreed to come back. “I think everybody would have been disappointed not to be asked,” Howard said.
Griffith, who was 59 at the time, told PEOPLE that when the original show ended, he thought he was well-placed for a movie career. “I thought I was going to be hot stuff,” he said. “Instead, I sat around the house for several years.” He starred in the short-lived series 1970’s The Headmaster and 1979’s Salvage and appeared in made-for-TV films. He would ultimately find success again on Matlock, which premiered with a TV movie just a month before Return to Mayberry aired. “I’m working harder than ever,” he said.
But of his namesake show, he said, “Those were the best years of my life.”
