The Untold Story of Hal Smith’s Otis on ‘Andy Griffith’: ‘People Would Treat Him Like He Really Was a Drunk’ md23

When it comes to The Andy Griffith Show , numerous characters have become permanently woven into American pop culture, and not just Sheriff Andy Taylor ( Andy Griffith ) or Deputy Barney Fife (Don Knotts), but also the unforgettable townspeople of Mayberry . Those include Floyd the Barber (Howard McNear), Gomer and Goober Pyle (Jim Nabors and George Lindsay, respectively) and, of course, Otis Campbell (Hal Smith), affectionately known as “Otis the Drunk.”

“Have you ever noticed that there are almost no spouses in The Andy Griffith Show ?” asks Daniel de Visé , author of Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show . “Almost everyone is single, widowed or unattached—including characters like Otis and Floyd. Some may technically have spouses, but you never see them. To some extent—and I can’t take credit for this idea, Ron Howard suggested it—the town functions like one big family. Andy is like the patriarch, while Barney and everyone else are like his children.”

While the heart of The Andy Griffith Show (which aired on CBS from 1960 to 1968) was the relationship between Sheriff Andy Taylor (Griffith) and Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife (Don Knotts), almost as important were the people of fictional Mayberry, North Carolina. And throughout the show’s 249 episodes, a wide variety of (oftentimes eccentric) characters were introduced, […]

As a storytelling technique, he says, the supporting characters are all essentially family members. At the same time, they’re also Southern archetypes. “But they weren’t just archetypes,” he suggests. “They were often based on real people from Andy Griffith and Don Knotts’ lives. They kind of scripted the show out of their memories. With Otis, both Andy and Don had alcoholics in their families. Andy’s father was a rolling drunk—there’s a story in my book where he staggers home and tells Andy, ‘Son, you’ve got to do something about your drinking,’ before collapsing on the floor. And Don had brothers who were heavy drinkers. They’d harass him, not sexually, just roughhousing when he was a boy sleeping on a cot in the kitchen. His family had a lot of drunken chaos.”

The writers of The Andy Griffith Show, he adds, were Jewish and from Brooklyn, New York, and they would bring in characters from their lives as well. “Everyone, whether you’re from a small town or Brooklyn, know people like the ones in Mayberry.

“One other interesting thing I found when researching was that [producers] Sheldon Leonard and Aaron Rubin would often bring in new characters as one-offs. They’d see how it went. If it worked, the actor might come back for a few more episodes and eventually got a contract and a parking space on the lot. If it didn’t work, they were gone.”

Hal Smith’s journey from radio to Hollywood

One character that undeniably did work was Otis the Drunk. What may be surprising is that actor Hal Smith only appeared in 32 out of the 249 episodes, though it feels like much more.

Born Harold John Smith on August 24, 1916, in Petoskey, Michigan, Smith grew up in Massena, New York. Entertainment was part of his upbringing: alongside his brother Glen and sisters Bernadine and Kathleen, he performed at amateur shows, eventually winning contests at the local theater. “We billed ourselves as Trade & Mark,” Smith shared with The Tennessean in a 1984 interview. “We did comedy, impressions, songs. We did all the amateur shows they had in those days till they told us to stop coming. They told us, ‘You aren’t amateurs anymore.'”

After graduating from Massena High School in 1936, Smith’s passion for performance led him to the world of radio. “In 1936, I went with a band in Utica, New York with 14 men and a girl singer,” he detailed. “The money was low, but we managed. Later, I bought the music and owned the band for a year-and-a-half. In 1938, I got into radio at station WIBX in Utica as a singer and ended up as an announcer and newsman. I did a little bit of everything.”

Andy Griffith young would seem to be best represented by The Andy Griffith Show, perhaps the most beloved and popular sitcoms from the 1960s and the one that turned people like Andy, Don Knotts, Jim Nabors and Ron Howard into stars. But in truth, the actor was building up a very different career before the 1960 […]

“Smith has been involved in virtually all aspects of show business except the circus,” concurred The Daily Herald of Utah in a 1970 profile of the actor. “He fronted his own orchestra in the 1930s, was a radio actor, appeared in burlesque in Los Angeles after his discharge from the Air Force and has been a familiar figure in television and films.”

He made his movie debut in 1946’s Stars Over Texas, which was followed by 17 others during the 1950s, usually in uncredited parts. His goals were simple: “I wanted to be a supporting actor and it’s been wonderful for me.”

Among his TV credits, there were 27 different parts on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet between 1953 and 1963 as well as recurring roles on The Ruggles (1949-1952), I Married Joan (1952-1955), the TV Western Jefferson Drum (1958-1959), Saints and Sinners (1962-1963) and Valentine’s Day (1965).

Meanwhile, his extensive background in radio proved invaluable, opening doors to voice work in animation. Smith brought characters to life on The Huckleberry Hound Show , Quick Draw McGraw , The Bugs Bunny Show , The Flintstones , The Yogi Bear Show , The Jetsons , The Magilla Gorilla Show and countless others.

While Otis may have been his most recognizable role, Hal Smith’s career stretched far beyond Mayberry. For Disney, he voiced Owl (and sometimes even Winnie) in Winnie the Pooh projects. He also made live-action appearances on The Odd Couple , Little House on the Prairie , Fantasy Island , The Brady Bunch , Sesame Street and Highway to Heaven, and became a familiar voice in advertising, providing characters and voices for companies like Bell Telephone, Green Giant, Pizza Hut and Hickory Farms.

When you watch reruns of The Andy Griffith Show—most notably its first five seasons—you can’t help but get taken in by the easy-going chemistry between Griffith’s role as Mayberry’s Sheriff Andy Taylor and Don Knotts as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife. At the same time, bring up the subject of the show to people, more often than […]

“In the 1970s and ’80s, you didn’t see him as much on television, at least not in live-action,” says Smith biographer John Michaud, author of More Than Otis: No Bull! A Salute to Hollywood Actor Hal J. Smith and admin of a Facebook group devoted to the actor , “but he was still there, doing little appearances everywhere. Just small extra parts sometimes, a few lines here and there. But he was busy; he never really stopped working.”

Finding his way to Mayberry

When The Andy Griffith Show was in development, producer Sheldon Leonard envisioned Mayberry filled with “lovable kooks” — vivid character types who would give the fictional town its memorable texture. The show’s pilot—aired within an episode of The Danny Thomas Show —featured Frank Cady (later known for playing general store owner Sam Drucker on Green Acres, Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies ) in the role of a drunken townsperson.

“That’s right, I was the first Otis Campbell,”  Cady told Michaud . “It was a very interesting thing for me. The role was not one of the highlights of my life by any means. I was hired as the original drunk and I thought, ‘I’m going to do a drunk a little differently.’ It wasn’t what the producers wanted. Whatever I did, they didn’t like it. Sheldon Leonard walked past me on the set with a scowling look on his face after a script reading: ‘You’re not the person we’re looking for to continue the character.'”

Adds Michaud, “Apparently the producers didn’t like Frank Cady in the role, so they started searching for a new Otis. They saw Hal Smith in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and said, ‘We want him !’ He came in, auditioned and became Otis Campbell.”

But the character of Otis was saddled with its own baggage, with  de Visé pointing out that even in the early 1960s, there was growing sensitivity about using alcoholism for humor.

“Hal later recalled that someone from General Foods, the show’s sponsor, lobbied the studio to ‘fire’ the character. Andy had to fight to keep him, but even then people felt it was a little weird to be laughing at a guy’s alcoholism. By later seasons, he was phased out. It might have been because it became harder to justify a comedic drunk character on TV. Then, when Return to Mayberry aired years later, they made a point of showing that Otis had sobered up.”

Generations of fans have continued tuning into The Andy Griffith Show in the 65 years since it began, attracted by its combination of regular characters like Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith), Barney Fife (Don Knotts), Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) and little Opie (Ron Howard, who would later go on to star in Happy Days); its perfect capturing […]

When Michaud interviewed Andy Griffith in 2003, the actor said of Smith, “He was always fun on the set. We played darts a lot on our breaks. Our set was very open, very warm and everybody was welcomed to say anything they wanted about the script. Hal was always very satisfied with everything. I loved it when Otis came in and was going to spend the night so he could rest and wash up his clothes. We asked him to lock up, answer the phone and he just wanted us to get out. Those memories are always wonderful for me.”

Michaud himself reflects, “Andy added that he still felt regret over an unexpected incident involving Hal during the filming of the ‘Rehabilitation of Otis’ episode in 1964. Smith had to ride a real bull-steer cow, but he had trouble maintaining his balance and injured his back, knee and ankle. Said Griffith, ‘He hurt himself and never got over it. I think of that so often because it was just a joke in the show, but the man hurt himself for the rest of his life.'”

Of course, there were unintended consequences of his success on the series. Despite his real-life reputation as almost a teetotaler, Smith often found himself typecast — and misunderstood. Explains de Visé, “Andy Griffith once commented that Hal didn’t drink. Andy himself drank a lot and a lot of the guys on the set drank heavily. Hal Smith maybe had a drink here or there, like a normal person, but he wasn’t a heavy drinker. Yet he got typecast. People would treat him like he really was a drunk. Like calling out to him, ‘Hey, Hal, want a drink?’ Much in the same way John Belushi would get harassed with ‘cheeseburger, cheeseburger’ jokes. I think it tormented him a little, being seen that way when he wasn’t a drunk at all.”

In a story recounted by Allan Newsome, host of the Two Chairs, No Waiting podcast and a Floyd the Barber cosplayer at the annual Mayberry Days celebration, Smith once shared, “I was in a hardware store one time and my son Terry was there with me. A guy looked up at me and said, ‘Oh, you’re the guy from The Andy Griffith Show. I hate you.” When Smith asked why, the man angrily explained that his brother had become an alcoholic after watching Otis’ onscreen antics. The actor defended himself, noting that Otis was never actually shown drinking—he might hold a bottle, but no scene depicted him consuming alcohol.

One generation of television watchers knows him as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show. Another recognizes him as landlord Ralph Furley on Three’s Company, with additional viewers meeting him for the first time in the recurring role of Les “Ace” Calhoun, the nosy neighbor of Andy Griffith’s Ben Matlock, on Matlock. But […]

Said Smith in 1991, “People were surprised to see me walking down the street, because they sometimes thought I was a real drunk. I don’t recall the last time I had a drink. And my son, Terry, was affected by it. 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. Finally, one day a kid asked Terry, ‘Is your dad Otis? Is he a method actor?’ Terry replied, ‘Yes, he practices every Saturday night.'”

Hal Smith Day

In 1964, Massena, New York celebrated their hometown hero with “Hal Smith Day,” a day-long festival which author and journalist Lawrence P. Gooley, who wrote a wonderful profile of Hal Smith that explores much of his early life, describes this way: “Virtually every business and every family in town became involved in the planning, with such crowds expected that tickets and reservations for many events were in hot demand.

“Included in the festivities were a group breakfast, lunch, and dinner; a royal welcome that featured a crown made of (what else?) aluminum from the local plant, a visit to the hospital, where he entertained patients; an autograph session at a vacant store transformed by area merchants into a replica of the Mayberry jail, all-day limousine service, band music at several venues the theater playing movies that Hal appeared in, autographs for each attendee, a reunion with old schoolmates, induction as a member of the St. Regis Indians and at the Highland Hotel that night, Hal appeared in the floor show,” he added.

It was the writer’s impression that it could well have been one of the greatest days in Smith’s life. Noted Gooley, “For a man who earned a wonderful living with his voice, he was left nearly speechless when several dignitaries and old friends spoke his praises early in the day. Deeply moved, he replied, ‘All that I can say is thank you. I can’t keep back the tears.'”

By the 1980s, Smith had come to grips with the typecasting that had followed his time on The Andy Griffith Show , and actually put it to good use. Says Newsome, “He started attending Mayberry reunions, did national Mothers Against Drunk Driving commercials, charity shows and signed autographs. Hal said, ‘It took some time for me to get away from playing a lot of drunk roles. I was paid good for them. People today love the character and the show. It’s unbelievable. They come up to you and they want to hug you. I enjoy making people happy as Otis.’”