3 Facts About ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ You May Not Know

Few sitcoms have had the staying power and cultural impact of The Andy Griffith Show.

Throughout its run from 1960 to 1968, The Andy Griffith Show was regularly one of the most-watched shows of its time, offering a nostalgic portrayal of the slow, sleepy town of Mayberry, North Carolina, and its eccentric townsfolk.

And while the show has cemented characters like Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith), Opie (Ron Howard), Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier), Barney Fife (Don Knotts), and Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors) in pop culture history, you may not know these three fun facts from behind the scenes of Mayberry.

1. Andy Griffith Pushed Back on a Live Audience

Unlike many sitcoms at the time, The Andy Griffith Show did not film the majority of its episodes in front of a live studio audience — something Griffith himself pushed for with the studio.

“With a three-camera show, you’re doing it with an audience, you understand,” Griffith told PBS’ Pioneers of Television. “So, it’s written with the audience in mind. That is, jokes spaced around, so that you get that reaction from the audience.”

“With one camera, you don’t have to do that,” he continued of the single-camera setup he preferred. “We don’t have an audience. So, Don and I could do these little quiet scenes or me and Ronny or me and Aunt Bee or Floyd the Barber, any of us, we could do these long, little, nice scenes without having to go for a joke. Some of them didn’t have any jokes at all, some of them did.”

2. A Laugh Track Experiment

Griffith also wasn’t a fan of canned laughter, which many sitcoms at the time featured due to their use of a laugh track.

After facing pressure from producers to add a laugh track to The Andy Griffith Show, Griffith asked that one episode be screened to a live audience, whose laughter would then be used as the show’s laugh track, according to Daniel de Vise, author of Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show.

While producers did give the idea a chance with a few early episodes, the live laugh track proved to be a costly experiment. Ultimately, Griffith and the producers reached a compromise, where the series would use a laugh track — “sparingly.”

3. About That Theme Song…

The Andy Griffith Show‘s iconic theme, “The Fishin’ Hole,” may be best known for its instrumental whistling, but the song does, in fact, have lyrics.

Griffith even recorded a version of the song with lyrics, which include the lines, “What a fine day to take a stroll and wander by The Fishin’ Hole / I can’t think of a better way to pass the time o’ day.”

Ultimately, producers chose to go with the instrumental version, and it went on to become one of the most identifiable TV theme songs ever.