Aired: 1960-68
DAD: Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) / Widower
DAD’S JOB: Sheriff of Mayberry, NC
KIDS: Opie (7)(Ronnie Howard)
WHERE’S MOM?: Dead for quite some time – unknown.
STAND-IN “MOM”: Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier)
A comedic take on The Rifleman, The Andy Griffith Show relied on a formula pioneered in the series this show was spun off from: Danny Thomas’s Make Room for Daddy. The formula was in this format: Dad sits down and has a heart-to-heart talk with the child; then, the child improperly applies the “lesson” of the talk to a comedic predicament, wherein Dad gets upset, but then realizes that the child was just trying to be obedient.