Who was Opies Mother? She is never mentioned and I can't find any information online either. A require field is missing- yeah, just like a political poll. You people are not nice. You probably don't have the answer anyway, just like the republicans.

Due to the almost simple-minded nature of the humor in The Andy Griffith Show, I found this early-1960s Sit-Com only marginally entertaining and, often enough, I actually thought that it pushed the cuteness of down-home, country-fied wholesomeness to the point of being quite irritating.I know that a helluva lot of people really dig this show, but, I basically found it to be just "ok" and only once in a while did it ever rise above being more than just a run-of-the-mill comedy show.Set in North Carolina in the quaint, little town of Mayberry (where crime appears to be almost non-existent), the wide-grinning, bumpkin-of-a-sheriff, Andy Taylor, and his bungling, over-reactive deputy, Barney Fife, take care of the business of law-enforcement where there really is no business of this sort to speak of.This show's episodes are really quite unrealistic. They nostalgically hanker, with a great longing, for a time-gone-by where people implicitly trusted one another and no one thought anything of leaving their doors unlocked even when they weren't at home.Please, don't get me wrong here - I don't completely condemn this show. But, from my perspective (being so jaded by the police shows of today) this program's episodes certainly did leave a whole lot to be desired when it came to taking an occasional reality check.Filmed in b&w, The Andy Griffith Show first aired on television in 1960 and, until its appeal finally petered out, it continued to run quite successfully for 8 solid seasons.

When "The Andy Griffith Show" was at its best, it was a perfect or near-perfect show. It is because of this I give the show a score of 10. I loved how unlike most sitcoms, the characters were much more important. Cheap laughs and silly situations were rarely seen in the show and showing a character grow and connect with the viewer were what set this show apart. However, it would also be unfair to mention that the show slipped dramatically in quality once Don Knotts left the show. As for me, I really wish they had just stopped the show then, as replacements such as Goober, Emmett and Howard just weren't up to filling Barney's shoes. Part of this was because Barney was such a great character, but these three were also just very dull characters--particularly Emmett and Howard. Blocks of wood would have been as interesting! And, Barney's short-term replacement (Avery Shriber) was annoying and Barney's special appearances painful. My advice is watch the original Barney episodes...then stop. Why mess with perfection?!

Listen to the extremely appropriate, fun and inventive incidental music played in each episode--particularly in the black and white episodes, not so much so in the later color episodes.And a couple of corrections to the main review. I believe the theme song is "The Fishing Hole," not "The Fishing Pole." Also, Don Knotts left the series not because he preferred to go off and do movies full-time, but because he truly believed that Griffith was pulling the plug on the series. So Knotts signed other contracts, only to learn that the series was continuing, until Griffith finally did pull the plug in 1968.