In the mid 90's while working as a tv lighting tech in Nashville I was sent to Wilmington NC to shoot an interview special between Andy Griffith and Ralph Emery for the Nashville Network (TNN). You would have thought we were doing an interview with the President of the US. Security was over the top and everything was "hush...hush". When Mr Griffith made his arrival to the set we were told by his people not to go near him, talk to him, or make unnecessary eye contact. Everyone on the crew was nervous and no one knew what to expect but when it came time to shoot the interview he came off as kind and warm as the character we all came to know and love from his tv series.
I'm sure someone with his stature found it extremely difficult to go anywhere and not be hounded for autographs, pictures, small talk, etc so I couldn't blame him for distancing himself from the public. After the interview was over he was kind enough to take a crew picture though.
Im glad andy came out in support of the affordable health care act...being a prostate cancer survivor,I was told that I was uninsurable...thankfully now I am insured as I have 3 years before I go on medicare
On a harp instrumental I've played over the years, when I do a thing where I have the entire band drop out completely, I throw this tune in as well as a few other things in a medley and people get off on it. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I've always had a belief that there was a cover-up involved in Andy's life, and now that he's not around to deny it, I think it's time I go public!
There was an episode of the Andy Griffith show where Andy's had was in a bandage the whole show. I saw some snippet on why it was in a bandage. Apparently Mr. Griffith had hurt it for real, but I don't buy the official story. Why? Well, that particular episode featured someone trained in martial arts. It was even part of the plot. I can't prove this, but I suspect Andy was inspired to try to punch something! I bet it was a board or something and he was just too embarrassed to admit it really happened that way. Like all good conspiracy theories, there isn't really a way to disprove it.
@lynn, thanks for the info. I will have to check that out.
-------- @nacoran, Lmao I could see that happening to any one of us! We try to act cool and bust our hands. I don't think Fingers would have that problem though.
Like all good conspiracy theories, there isn't really a way to disprove it."
"That is because the claimant is responsible for supplying the evidence. Who wastes their time disproving wild claims that were presented with no evidence?
Last Edited by on Jul 05, 2012 12:51 PM
My mother put an addition on her house a couple years ago (my brother was still living at home at the time). We had to take out some old walls. It turns out that if you figure out where the studs are you can palm punch the drywall and break it pretty easily. Of course a sledge hammer works even better.
For some reason I can play a whole bunch of TV show theme songs. I can do the Brady Bunch, Mork & Mindy, Mash, and several others, as well as the Andy Griffith theme. I still can't figure out my favorite from my childhood, Hogan's Heroes. I don't think it's particularly difficult, but the way the drums play completely obliterates the melody from my brain when I go to try to play it. I think there is a conspiracy theory about Bob Crane's death, although I don't remember how it goes. I suspect the theme might even be an all blow pattern. A lot of military tunes are.
I spent a summer in a flop hotel in Binghamton, NY, laid up with heal spurs. I only got the broadcast networks. I think about the only thing I could get in the middle of the day was Matlock or Judge Judy. Andy Griffith may have saved my sanity that summer.
He was an incredible musician and could be a serious actor. Check this out, both for his acting prowess and his ability to sing some blues. His portrayal of Lonesome Rhodes was so dark, so incredible, he could have been a serious dramatic actor if he weren't so funny. "A Face in the Crowd" was an incredible movie.
Andy Griffith was a lot deeper than most realize. He was originally going to be a preacher, he wound up with a Bachelor's in Music - he was a bonafide formally-trained musician. The way he presents fine arts, whether it's Shakespeare or ballets, is pure genius. It represents a deep understanding of Shakespeare, deep enough that he is able to distance himself from it in a humorous way, while maintaining the essences of what's going on. Andy was a HUGE influence on me as a writer. Every thing I've ever written that has had some humor in it, draws deeply upon Andy Griffith - even more so than Lewis Grizzard. I often try to represent complex subjects in terms of rural simplicity - I do that very often in my column writings. It was that voice that won me the Best Lifestyle Columnist Award from the West Virginia Press Association in 2008. I learned that voice from Andy Griffith. Nobody could write about the South like Grizzard, but nobody could write about the world beyond the South and view it with Southern eyes and convey that experience like Andy Griffith.
His Shakespeare was from one of his first acts, it may have even been the first thing he started to write, he was going to do a show as a book salesman selling five plays by William Shakespeare. I know of his retellings of Hamlet, Anthony and Cleopatra and the famous Romeo and Juliet (he intended "What it Was Was Football" to be the "B" side for Romeo). I can only wonder - and wish I could hear - the other two. I've always wanted to write "MacBeth" and "King Henry IV, Part One" in that style - I never finished it. It is very, very hard to do.
When Andy does Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra (he doesn't mention Shakespeare when he does it, but his telling is based on the play)- one statement of his sums up everything I have tried to do as a writer, to take figures from boring history books and transform them into something human we can all understand:
Andy says: "Today I want to talk about Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile. Now you may have heard that she was a beautiful woman, but she wasn't a beautiful woman at all... I mean she was all right, but she wasn't beautiful. Now you're gonna ask me 'if she wasn't beautiful, then how come Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony and everybody went so crazy over her?' well you'll have to remember that Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony were soldiers, and overseas."
Who would have thought of representing Marc Anthony and Julius Ceasar as horny servicemen overseas chasing some bony hag in port? That casts them into relateable people for all of us. That joke says a lot about Andy Griffith. Pure brilliance.
His version of "Romeo and Juliet" is very famous, he even did it once on the show as a story to Opie, but I think his Hamlet was the most brilliant.
Andy was an incredibly talented human being. He could have been a blues singer, a bluegrass singer, a rock n' roll singer, a preacher, a comedian, a writer, anything that man wanted to do, he could have done it. He was that talented - and it was a talent so deep, we were never able to see it all. ---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne Elk River Institute for
Last Edited by on Jul 05, 2012 8:23 PM
It's a very underrated movie. Wonderful performance from Andy that would surprise many. ---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne Elk River Institute for Advanced Harmonica Studies
"I ain't gonna sing no 'Home on the Range.' No. sir. Not if it means I rot in here another month. I'm gonna sing what I'm a gonna be! A free man in the morning!" Andy Griffith (as Lonesome Rhodes, "A Face in the Crowd).
