![]() Such a time never existed-rural America has always been plagued by social and economic strife-but the programs portrayed the relationships between family, friends, and neighbors so authentically that the setting around them seemed real as well. ![]() There was no violence and no sexuality only family and community. While the worlds of these rural comedies were contemporary, the major issues of the time never surfaced. How did these shows about rural rubes become such a beloved part of imagined American life in the 1960s and beyond? For one, fantasies the programs served up were wholesome and steeped in nostalgia-and many fans professed that they loved these shows exactly because they portrayed a (purportedly) simpler time. When most of CBS’s rural comedies finally left the airwaves in 1971, they were still consistent members of Nielsen’s top 10 performers. Still, they performed well throughout the country, from the South to the Northwest, in the city and in the country. Most Americans lived in suburban and urban areas, almost all of the denizens of rural comedy lived in places that were, well, rural.Ĭritics complained that the programs were too simplistic. Many popular shows in this genre, including Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies, featured multigenerational families living under one roof. The worlds depicted in these shows did not resemble the reality that most Americans lived in at the time. The Andy Griffith Show earned high ratings, so CBS kept it on the air, and ordered other comedies like it throughout the 1960s. Misunderstandings abounded, but there was a never a problem that couldn’t be solved with a little common sense, a heart-to-heart conversation, or maybe an impromptu sing-along on the front porch. ![]() Add to the mix a freckled urchin of a son, Opie motherly Aunt Bee and the bumbling deputy Barney Fife, and CBS had a wholesome hit with a refreshing lack of controversy. With a syrupy drawl and toothy grin, Sheriff Andy Taylor offered up the law-and-order masculinity so popular in Westerns while also oozing down-home, folksy charm. When producer Sheldon Leonard created The Andy Griffith Show in 1960, he hit upon a new way to offer succor to the stressed-out masses. Rural television comedies of the time, set in a not-so-real version of the American South, are a perfect example. The entertainers who most successfully created sunny visions for anxious Americans of that era-our “good old days”-responded to tough times with cheerful portrayals of their own, earlier “good old days.” In other words, the mid-century period many Americans pine nostalgically for now was itself defined by a profound cultural nostalgia. ![]() Today, when many Americans think of the “good old days”-when neighbors knew each other and the world seemed safer and simpler-they often conjure visions of the 1950s and early 1960s, as expressed in old TV comedies like The Andy Griffith Show.īut those times were not really simple: Americans were then gripped by Cold War fears and the Red Scare, and buffeted by new economic pressures. ![]()
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