-The series finale of The Andy Griffith Show focused on newcomer Sam Jones and his family, leaving out beloved characters Opie and Barney Fife.
-The final episode served as a backdoor pilot for the spinoff series Mayberry R.F.D., which featured Sam Jones and many returning characters.
-Andy Griffith returned to Mayberry in the made-for-TV reunion feature Return to Mayberry, providing a more heartwarming and satisfying ending for the series.
Everybody knows that familiar whistling tune that opened up each episode of The Andy Griffith Show, which has far outlived the series itself. From 1960 until 1968, the Andy Griffith-led sitcom aired on CBS, in black-and-white originally and later in color with the sixth season. But how did this television giant end? You might think that the show would’ve concluded as triumphantly as it began, complete with the return of fan favorites and plenty of laughs to go around. Well, the way that Andy Taylor (Griffith) and the town of Mayberry said goodbye was less of a strong farewell and more of a “we’ll see you next time!” Here’s how the show ended.
Widower Sheriff Andy Taylor, and his son Opie, live with Andy’s Aunt Bee in Mayberry, North Carolina. With virtually no crimes to solve, most of Andy’s time is spent philosophizing and calming down his cousin Deputy Barney Fife.
After eight seasons and 250 episodes (if you include the original “pilot” that aired as part of The Dan Thomas Show), The Andy Griffith Show ended pretty strangely compared to how other longtime sitcoms bowed out. In Season 8, the series introduced newcomer Sam Jones (played by Ken Berry) to the community. A widowed farmer with a young son named Mike (Buddy Foster), effectively echoing Andy and his boy Opie’s (Ron Howard) dynamic, the Jones boys slowly took over The Andy Griffith Show, with the titular star taking a back seat throughout the final season. Longtime characters such as Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier), Helen Crump (Aneta Corsaut), Goober Pyle (George Lindsey), Howard Sprague (Jack Dodson), and even Deputy Barney Fife (Don Knotts, who had left the main cast after the fifth season), continued to appear. Still, the Jones boys were the rising stars.
The series finale, entitled “Mayberry R.F.D.,” follows Sam as he invites a friend of his from Italy to the United States to help him work on his farm. But when Mario Vincente (Gabriele Tinti) arrives, he brings with him his sister Sophia (Letícia Román) and his father (Bruno Della Santina), unbeknownst to Sam. Though Sam isn’t sure at first, he eventually lets all three Vincentes stay, only for it to become something of a disaster. Yet, despite the troubles they face, the Vincentes are beloved by the town and welcomed with open arms, including by Helen and Aunt Bee. While recurring characters like Goober and Howard show up here, noticeably absent from the series finale are Opie and Barney Fife, the two characters who fans wanted to see send off The Andy Griffith Show with its star.
Of course, Andy himself doesn’t appear much in this episode, and when he does, it’s only to guide Sam as he decides whether to keep the Vincentes around. At the very end, it’s Andy who brings Sam to the town hall meeting, officially inducting the Vincentes into the community. In the series’ final moments, it’s not Andy, Opie, and Aunt Bee we’re left with, but Sam, Mike, and their new house guests, which doesn’t particularly sit well with fans. Not unlike Gunsmoke’s anticlimactic series finale, The Andy Griffith Show’s final half-hour wasn’t so much a testament to the show’s impressive run but rather a vehicle for the network to push audiences into the future.
