Mabel Albertson

[C.Bogle]

I had forgotten some of the earlier posts about Floyd's last appearance and

the multiple roles some of the actors played. It is confusing enough the first

time around.

 

Yes, it was the ubiquity of that green and orange shirt that was so humorous

to me, though the colors did make it more distinctive. My remark about it as a

sign of Andy's modest salary was tongue in cheek, though he himself mentions

a number of times that everybody knows what he makes and it's not a fortune.

 

I was a pretty big baseball fan as a kid, and now I'm more of a casual fan, but

if anybody had made a **** like Howard did, we would have laughed him out

of the dugout, but it does fit in with his general nerdy character.

[C.Bogle]

That's for sure. If Gomer had seen her, it would have been Goollyyyyy or

Shazam or maybe both, if he was even able to speak.

[C.Bogle]

No, it wasn't, though I have forgotten some of the details since I haven't

seen The Getaway in many moons. Now if Mother Sprague had been there,

she would have stopped the marriage in the first place. Let's face it, Jack

Dodson and Sally Struthers weren't in the same league, or even the same

sport. I am enjoying the reruns of All in the Family that TV Land is showing

at 8 pm.

[C.Bogle]

I get a local station that shows it for an hour every Saturday evening. When

they come to the end of the bw episodes, they don't show the color ones, but

start again at the beginning. And unlike TV Land, they show the closing credits

in full screen, which is nice.

 

Taking the color out of the last three seasons is pretty weird, I've never heard

of that before. I know there used to be some fans who would only watch the

bw episodes and didn't like the color ones. I enjoy most of both bw and color,

though some of the early bw do seem really old old.

 

I remember a bit of the Matlock episode that Jack Dodson was in, and of course

Don Knotts as the neighbor. He was playing more or less Barney Fife, without

the gun, uniform, and gung-ho attitude. More laid back.

 

Good night Mabel/Mrs. Sprague, wherever you are.

[Hibi]

LOL. Maybe he'd have made a "Citizen's Arrest!"

 

Who would've thought a thread on Mabel Albertson would've grown to 6 pages???

 

I dont get any of the stations previously mentioned except TvLand. Wish I did! I'd love to watch Dobie Gillis again. I watched it as a child, but I'm sure a lot of it was over my head at the time......

[C.Bogle]

It's nice to see the supporting players get a bit of credit.

 

I watched a bit of Dobie Gillis many years ago when it was

in syndication on some station. Beyond the main characters,

I don't remember much about it.

[brackenhe]

Flipped over to Andy this afternoon and Opie was wearing the orange & green plaid shirt. I thought of this thread and whoever mentioned he wore it a lot. It was the episode where Aunt Bee has a TV cooking show.

[voranis]

>helenbaby wrote:

>Flipped over to Andy this afternoon and Opie was wearing the orange & green plaid shirt. I thought of this thread and whoever mentioned he wore it a lot. It was the episode where Aunt Bee has a TV cooking show.

 

That reminds me of another unusual thing about TAGS. There sure were a lot of people in Mayberry appearing on TV. Aunt Bee had a cooking show on TV; she appeared on a game show on TV when they were in Hollywood; she and Clara appeared on TV briefly to discuss their writing of the song that Keevy Hazelton sang (although in a different arrangement). Howard appeared on TV to tell his jokes.

 

Things were wild in the B&W episodes with Barney's antics, but somehow most of them seemed to fit in within Mayberry because they still seemed to fit within the parameters of a small town. With the color episodes, they began to do a lot of things that didn't seem to fit within the parameters of a small town. Aunt Bee learning to drive was believable but learning to fly a plane seemed a bit much. Howard leaving his job to go live on an island seemed a bit much.

 

Although the show was not as good after Barney left, I never felt it really "jumped the shark" as a whole, but there were some individual episodes that seemed to "jump the shark."

 

I saw Doris Packer on two shows on MeTV today. She played the widow Fenwick in an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies today, "Elly Starts to School," and she will appear again tomorrow in the followup episode "The Clampett Look."

 

I also saw Doris Packer in an episode of I Love Lucy today. She was one of the theater goers sitting behind the Ricardos and the Metzes in the box for the show The Most Happy Fella, in the episode "Lucy's Night in Town."

 

It's great seeing her in all these old shows. I'm glad I can see Dobie Gillis, The Patty Duke Show, I Love Lucy, and all the others on MeTV and THIS with the full closing credits. Now, if we could just get MyTV so I could watch TAGS during the week that way as well. Right now I can only watch TAGS on TV Land on the weekend and also on one local channel on the weekend, but usually those times are not good for me. At least the local channel shows TAGS with the full closing credits as well.

 

Robbie

[clore]

Nothing much to say except that I saw Mabel Albertson this afternoon on a *Burns and Allen* rerun on Antenna TV. I only recently discovered that my NYC Time-Warner system has added that channel and while I don't normally watch any sponsored programming, I've made an exception for George and Gracie.

 

It was the episode titled "Mortons Exchange Houses With the Gibsons From New York" and it's not on the IMDb at present for having Mabel. But I'll fix that.

[C.Bogle]

Yep, if any episodes from the last few seasons are being shown, you

can bet it won't be long before Opie's version of golden boy will show up.

[C.Bogle]

 

I always got a kick out of the episode when Howard went on the Colonel

Tim TV show to tell jokes about some of his Mayberry friends, especially

the one about how Clara's forefathers fought with various generals. Yep, her

family couldn't get along with anybody. They were all very mad at Howard

until strangers started to recognize them, and then they did a complete

180. That's human nature.

 

Some of the color episodes were a bit out of the usual, but the show mostly

kept to its small town concerns, and I enjoy most of them.

[Hibi]

****. I will have to start watching for the shirt now. I wonder if it was the same shirt in the B&W episodes? Guess we'll never know.

[Terrence1]

 

I don't think anyone has mentioned a long-forgotten TV series that Mabel Albertson starred in, along with Margaret

 

 

and Barbara Whiting. It was called Those Whiting Girls, and started out as a summer replacement. I don't remember how long it ran, but I do remember seeing a number of episodes. Mabel and Margaret were very believable as mother and daughter. It was almost like they really were related. Does anyone remember this show?

 

 

 

 

 

Terrence.

 

 

[voranis]

>C. Bogle wrote:

>Some of the color episodes were a bit out of the usual, but the show mostly kept to its small town concerns, and I enjoy most of them.

 

As I said, only some of the color episodes were a bit too much. I really don't care to watch the Howard on an island episode anymore. The Aunt Bee learning to drive episode was OK because the instructor was laid back which kept it from getting too crazy.

 

When I was a kid, I didn't like the color episodes at all--mostly because Barney was not there--and would stop watching until it wrapped back to the B&W episodes. As an adult, particularly since the show began running on TV Land, I find that I enjoy the color episodes a lot more than I did as a kid. In some ways, the color episodes, with the exception of a few wild ones like the ones I've mentioned, capture the small town flavor more realistically than the B&W episodes, because Barney's crazy antics aren't there. His high energy level often detracts from the easygoing pace one would expect in a small town (and I grew up in one).

 

I still think the B&W episodes tend to be funnier, however, because of Barney.

 

C. Bogle, do you like the color episodes better? I notice you cite far more from the color episodes than from the B&W episodes.

 

Robbie

[voranis]

TV Land showed the TAGS episode "Howard, the Bowler" today...

 

Robbie

[voranis]

TV Land is showing the TAGS episode "Opie Steps Up in Class" today. I always liked this episode. It had a nice moral lesson, but they don't hit you over the head with it.

 

The first time I saw this episode on TV Land, I thought the actress playing the mother in the wealthy family was a very young Swoosie Kurtz. But it turned out it wasn't. The actor who played the father was a character actor in a lot of TV shows. I used to get him mixed up with Ken Berry (who would play Sam on TAGS) at first before I learned to tell them apart.

 

And the actress who played the relative who was having relationship problems and came to stay with the Taylors...Andy is reluctant to have anything to do with her at first, but Aunt Bee and Helen nag him to be nice to her and do things with her...then they both get mad with him when he does. Anyway, I used to think the actress was Mariette Hartley, but it turned it out it wasn't.

 

A strange thing often happens to me...I see an actor or actress who I think is a certain person. It turns out they aren't, but then I see the person I was thinking of in another show or movie an hour or two later. Deja vu!

 

Robbie

[C.Bogle]

I think I've been mentioning the color episodes more frequently

because we started off with Mabel and that led to Howard. He's

probably my favorite comic character of the color years. Between

the bw and color episodes, I find it hard to decide which I like better,

because they're both very good. It seems I've seen the bw episodes

more often over the years and thus the color episodes seem fresher.

 

I always figured Barney was sort of the small town oddball or whatever

word you want to use, and so he fit into that environment for the

most part, though such characters usually aren't in law enforcement.

That's a bit scary.

 

I was out Saturday afternoon and watched the ball game when I got home.

I'll probably watch it today, along with Beaver, which makes a good

"double bill." Do they just repeat the episodes they ran on Saturday

or do they show different ones on Sunday?

 

 

Here's a minor contradiction. Before displaying his lack of baseball

knowledge in the Big Brother episode, Howard was assigned to cover

the baseball game where Andy made the unpopular out call on Opie.

I suppose he at least knew the name of the Mayberry team.

 

 

To paraphrase another of Howard's jokes. Aunt Bee's forefathers came

over on the Mayflower. Of course back then the immigration laws were

a lot less strict. I guess his jokes are kind of corny, but I get a laugh

out of them. Maybe it's partly from knowing how oversensitive the folks

being joked about are.

 

Andy was only on for a hour today. The Lady Lawyer episode and the

Fancy Pants episode. I can see where Helen got jealous, because Whitney

Blake was quite a looker. Most of the women figure out that Helen is

jealous and make themselves scarce. Lee Drake saw where it was going

and excused herself for a bite to eat before the Crump volcano erupted.

Smart move.

 

 

The other episode is a bit like the bw one where Andy and Barney are invited

to The Esquire Club, and Barney puts on a big front and just makes himself

look foolish. This time Andy doesn't follow his own advice to "be ourselves," but

finally realizes what he is doing and learns his lesson. I was waiting for the

green and orange number to show up, and in the last scene it did. Shazam. I

know I've seen the pipe smoking Dad (O boy, meatloaf) on other TV shows,

but I don't know his name. The mom looked familiar too.

[Hibi]

They never really developed Mabel's character or integrated her into the show, which was too bad. (Maybe she was too busy doing Bewitched?) She was always seen as an adjunct to Howard. You never saw her hanging out with Aunt Bea or Clara for example, or any rivalries with them that I can remember. Then they just wrote her out as getting married and moving (that wasnt developed at all)...........

[voranis]

Look for Betty Lynn (Thelma Lou from TAGS, credited as Betty Ann Lynn here) in her film debut in the TCM premiere of the first Mr. Belvedere film, Sitting Pretty, which is airing right now...

 

This movie aired several times on Fox Movie Channel back when TCM was airing the second and third Belvedere movies. It's good to see it again, though.

 

Robbie

[voranis]

>C. Bogle wrote:

>It seems I've seen the bw episodes more often over the years and thus the color episodes seem fresher.

 

I think that may have something to do with why I'm enjoying the color episodes now when I didn't watch them at all as a kid--because I've seen the B&W episodes so much, the color episodes seem a little "newer" to me. BTW, if you have the DVDs of the show, the first several seasons have the original commercials that were done by Andy and other cast members. Often they found some way to work something from the episode into the commercial. For instance, the commercial for "Aunt Bee, the Warden" included the four prisoners that were being housed at the jail while Otis was at Andy's house.

 

I really enjoyed watching these commercials. It was almost like watching some recently uncovered, never-before-aired episodes of TAGS. The commercials often had the same heart-warming feeling and humor of the episodes.

 

>I always figured Barney was sort of the small town oddball or whatever word you want to use, and so he fit into that environment for the most part, though such characters usually aren't in law enforcement. That's a bit scary.

 

I've lived in a number of small towns and I've never seen anyone as hyper or frenetic as Barney in any of them.

 

>I was out Saturday afternoon and watched the ball game when I got home. I'll probably watch it today, along with Beaver, which makes a good "double bill." Do they just repeat the episodes they ran on Saturday or do they show different ones on Sunday?

 

Sometimes they repeat some of Saturday's episodes on Sunday, but they didn't this Sunday, because the slot for TAGS was only an hour long. I think Leave It to Beaver and TAGS make a good combination. I usually am not able to watch on the weekends, but I was able to watch them last Saturday and Sunday. They showed different episodes on the two days this past weekend.

 

>Here's a minor contradiction. Before displaying his lack of baseball knowledge in the Big Brother episode, Howard was assigned to cover the baseball game where Andy made the unpopular out call on Opie. I suppose he at least knew the name of the Mayberry team.

 

Howard admitted at the beginning of the episode that it was odd he was covering the game because he didn't know much about sports. He also included that fact in the column he wrote about the game.

 

As I said before, I don't know much about sports. But when I was a kid, even though I didn't know the names of all the national teams, I did know the name of all the teams in my own town. Even now, as an adult, I probably could not name all the national teams or their locations, but I do know the names of the teams where I live. So Howard knowing the name of the Mayberry team does not seem like a contradiction to me.

 

>The other episode is a bit like the bw one where Andy and Barney are invited to The Esquire Club, and Barney puts on a big front and just makes himself look foolish. This time Andy doesn't follow his own advice to "be ourselves," but finally realizes what he is doing and learns his lesson. I was waiting for the green and orange number to show up, and in the last scene it did. Shazam. I know I've seen the pipe smoking Dad (O boy, meatloaf) on other TV shows, but I don't know his name. The mom looked familiar too.

 

As I wrote previously:

 

>voranis wrote:

>TV Land is showing the TAGS episode "Opie Steps Up in Class" today. I always liked this episode. It had a nice moral lesson, but they don't hit you over the head with it.

>

>The first time I saw this episode on TV Land, I thought the actress playing the mother in the wealthy family was a very young Swoosie Kurtz. But it turned out it wasn't. The actor who played the father was a character actor in a lot of TV shows. I used to get him mixed up with Ken Berry (who would play Sam on TAGS) at first before I learned to tell them apart.

 

Robbie

[voranis]

Look for Betty Lynn (Thelma Lou from TAGS, credited as Betty Ann Lynn here) in her film debut in the TCM premiere of the first Mr. Belvedere film, Sitting Pretty, which is airing right now...

 

This movie aired several times on Fox Movie Channel back when TCM was airing the second and third Belvedere movies. It's good to see it again, though.

 

Robbie

[C.Bogle]

I had guessed that Mabel was in about half a dozen episodes, but

according to imdb it was only four, so she was there for a very specific

role, which she was hilarious in. It would have been interesting to

see how she interacted with Aunt Bee or Clara. I imagine she would

have been as stubborn in other matters as she was with anything

concerning her boy Howie. It would have made an interesting what if.

[C.Bogle]

I had forgotten the details of the episode about Andy's bad call

and that Howard admitted he didn't know a whole lot about sports.

I guess it makes a difference if you're not trying to impress the

kid brother of a pretty dance hall employee.

 

I guess Barney was a bit hyper to fit into a small town, a little bit

of TV exaggeration. There were times he seemed to be on a natural

form of speed, though he dozed off quite a lot too.

 

They just happened to run the Aunt Bee the Warden episode on the

local station last Saturday. She really put the kibosh on Otis, though

his pledge to not drink again didn't take. I liked how Barney gave out

the work sets--wood working, metal working, leather working and--

a Mr. Potato Head set. Huh? I don't think that was of much help in

terms of future employment prospects. Of course they used the metal

working set to make a skeleton key and escape. Deputy Fife strikes again.

 

I don't have the DVD's, but I'll bet the commercials are fun to watch.

Are there any cigarette ones? Andy didn't smoke very often, but every

once in a while he'd light up. It seems he did it more in the bw episodes

than in the color ones.

 

I saw Sitting Pretty a year or so ago on FMC. I think I recognized Betty

Lynn as much by her voice as by her face. I've never caught any of

the sequels for whatever reason.

 

It doesn't help that there are now 32 baseball teams. so they're even

harder to remember. I was watching the national news last night and

they ran the story of the umpire who missed the call at home plate in

the Braves Pirates game. This one wasn't as close as Opie's slide into

home, so Andy needn't feel too bad, though it was still probably a good

idea for Helen and Aunt Bee to destroy the evidence.

 

I had brain lock on which actress was playing the role of the wife in the

episode where Opie meets all the rich kids. Then it hit me that it was

probably Joyce Van Patten. I'll have to check it out on imdb just to make

sure.

[Hibi]

Only 4??? Seems like it was more than that. It's too bad they didnt use her more. Her and the other old gals would have been hilarious together

[C.Bogle]

 

 

Yep, only four. I double-checked just to make sure. It does seem like more,

maybe because that character was just so perfect. She was in 18 episodes

of Bewitched, and in one episode of Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. She was also

in about every TV show of the period, at least it seems that way.

 

I think they would have had to tone down her orneriness a little bit if she ever

became a regular character. A little of Mrs. Sprague went a long way.

 

Oops. There are only 30 major league baseball teams. I got my MLB and NFL

mixed up.