MartinHafer I am about to say something that no-doubt will annoy many. While "The Andy Griffith Show" was one of the best shows in television history, after a while it really outlived its usefulness. Without Barney as a series regular, the show tried a variety of either annoying replacements (Warren!!!) or insipid ones (Howard and Emmett)--none of which gave the show the wonderful comedic balance it once had. To make matters worse, after the show limped through three mediocre such seasons, the powers that be at CBS decided to continue the show even when Andy left!!! The 'clever' plan was to introduce a widower, Sam (Ken Berry), who would move to town with his son AND apparently buy Aunt Bee! Talk about a contrived premise--and a poor copy of the original. So now without either leading man, the show was nothing but insipid characters...period. That, in a nutshell, is "Mayberry R.F.D."--like the original show but with none of the humor or interesting characters. Now this isn't to say that the show was bad--it just was bland and inoffensive and that still made it better than some shows. But who wants to live on a steady diet of bland toast--which is, metaphorically speaking, "Mayberry R.F.D.".

kwo_bubba Mayberry RFD was a pretty good follow up to The Andy Griffith Show. A lot of newer generation TAGS fans aren't even aware of Mayberry RFD's existence. Hopefully one day it will finally make it to DVD. As with TAGS, I haven't watched an episode that I didn't enjoy. Yes, many of the episodes are rehashes of TAGS episodes. The thing that makes it still work though, is it's still Mayberry. It's still the wholesome fantasy world that we loved in TAGS. The main thing that I wished they would have done of this show was include more of the TAGS guest stars like Otis, The Darlings, and Ernest T Bass. The best episode of the show is by far the first one. Andy and Helen finally get married, and Don Knotts makes his final appearance as Barney Fife until Return to Mayberry. Andy makes several appearances as Sheriff Taylor in the first season until he just disappears and is no longer mentioned until in mid season 2 he returns to Mayberry with Helen and their new baby. I always wondered why in TAGS they never did any farewell episodes to outgoing characters. Usually they just disappear, and occasionally they're mentioned later on such as "Otis started doing his drinking in another town." Sheriff Taylor himself disappears in RFD, never to be heard from again after the "Andy's Baby" episode for the rest of the series. Anyway, if you've never seen it, its worth checking out if you can find it.

evolbaby I grew up on the Mayberry shows. They're along the best shows ever created for television and everything since has been pale in comparison to warmth, charm, and responsibility.The Andy Griffith Show was a hard act to follow but Ken Berry and company followed through just fine.It's the cast and the stories that taught morals and responsibility like it's predecessor that makes this show remarkable. CBS should run it again just to set our moral compass right.Buddy Foster did a great job. Same with everyone on the cast who are now legendary and beloved. The scripts, the directing and storytelling just what the doctor ordered.When the rural shows were pulled off television our country took a moral nosedive.We need more shows like this.

Brian Washington As many people know this show is essentially a sequel to the Andy Griffith Show. The producers decided that instead of canceling the show all together, they would continue it with essentially the same cast except for the leads. Ken Berry and Arlene Golonka were okay replacements for Andy Griffith and Aneta Corsaut, but Sam and Millie were no Andy and Helen. Also, even though this show was still popular at the time of the rural purge of 1971, I don't think that its cancellation hit people as hard as the cancellations of The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres.