The World Needs More 'Mayberry' and Less 'Jersey Shore' ... When has Mayberry ever existed?

The Hooterville Trilogy:
The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and Petticoat Junction

http://www.poobala.com/hooterville.html


The restaurant chain has more mountains.

We even gots sane Republicans. Old School, good people.

premise is wrong. Mayberry probably did exist in the 1950s to some degree.

However, I do agree with the second point - or more precisely - people need to watch better TV: real educational programming as opposed to superficial educational programs.

...until you found out what was going on behind closed doors.

especially after sundown.

I want to tell you all a story 'bout a Harper Valley widowed wife
Who had a teenage daughter who attended Harper Valley Junior High
Well her daughter came home one afternoon and didn't even stop to play
She said, "Mama, I got a note here from the Harper Valley P.T.A."

The note said, "Mrs. Johnson, you're wearing your dresses way too high
It's reported you've been drinking and a-runnin' 'round with men and going wild
And we don't believe you ought to be bringing up your little girl this way"
It was signed by the secretary, Harper Valley P.T.A.

Well, it happened that the P.T.A. was gonna meet that very afternoon
They were sure surprised when Mrs. Johnson wore her mini-skirt into the room
And as she walked up to the blackboard, I still recall the words she had to say
She said, "I'd like to address this meeting of the Harper Valley P.T.A."

Well, there's Bobby Taylor sittin' there and seven times he's asked me for a date
And Mrs. Taylor sure seems to use a lot of ice whenever he's away
And Mr. Baker, can you tell us why your secretary had to leave this town?
And shouldn't Widow Jones be told to keep her window shades all pulled completely down?

Well, Mr. Harper couldn't be here 'cause he stayed too long at Kelly's Bar again
And if you smell Shirley Thompson's breath, you'll find she's had a little nip of gin
Then you have the nerve to tell me you think that as a mother I'm not fit
Well, this is just a little Peyton Place and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites

No I wouldn't put you on because it really did, it happened just this way
The day my Mama socked it to the Harper Valley P.T.A.
The day my Mama socked it to the Harper Valley P.T.A.

sadly i think jersey whore is more common .

Even if there were naughty things going on in the background, so were they in Mayberry.

http://billiedoux.blogspot.com/2008/02/pleasantville.html
But what I love most is the books. When Jen and David arrive in Pleasantville, all of the books are blank. When David tells the fictional characters what is actually in one of the books (probably my favorite scene), the pages start to magically fill in. People start reading. There is suddenly a run on the library, quickly followed by a book burning. (Nearly every book mentioned in this movie was once a banned book, like Huckleberry Finn and Lady Chatterley's Lover.) The mural that Jeff Daniels' character creates on a wall has burning books floating into the sky. New ideas are dangerous. Change is dangerous. But the end of innocence, change, brings rewards as well.

Yeah, it dabbled in Babyboomer worship, but it makes up for it in story, character and insight

Mount Airy, North Carolina is Andy's hometown. It looks just like Mayberry.

Going out in the country can still be a very sweet thing (on a good day I mean lol)

there were things in that idyllic world that just didn't quite jibe with reality and couldn't be represented on American TV.

I luckily was born post "whites only" being legal and have never seen one of those signs in person but a few years ago during my city's 50th anniversary I was looking at some old pictures of the city from day one. One struck my eye, it was the city swimming club, what was amazing was it looked exactly the same with two slight differences. It was subtle but I did notices something was different, then I realized the name was now "Somewhere Swimming Club" then it was "Somewhere Swimming Pool". Then I looked closer and noticed the "Members Only" sign was then "Whites Only".
I asked someone about that and I was told when it became illegal for a city owned pool to exclude blacks a group of citizens purchased the pool from the city, created a club where you purchase a "bond" and paid yearly due's. As a club they could exclude non members and to be a member even if you had cash in hand or was purchasing the bond from another member, your admittance had to be approved by the board.

That was the day I realized I didn't grow up in "Mayberry"

However, I know the point you are making: it never existed. What is "dark" now was even darker then.

see the message for what it is--a statement that a kinder and more civil society would benefit us all.

However, a lot of us didn't grow up in a Mayberry. Our dads weren't like Andy Griffith. I'm sure there were moments that Andy Griffith wasn't like Andy Griffith. I wish the world was like the Brady Bunch but it's not.

Sorry.

This one

He's mad, too.

In the psychiatric sense, I mean.





Before you flag me on this, I have a psychologist and psychiatrist, so don't even.

People paying taxes to maintain a police department, parks, schools, roads, etc. Clean lakes to fish. Clean forest to walk and whistle in. Sounds like a liberal paradise.

People who were different, were accepted. When your neighbor was sick, Aunt Bee would show up with an apple pie.
Education was a good thing. Trust. Love. Purity.

Compare that to the constant cussing and f-ing someone over just because you are pissed at them.

I'd take Aunt Bee over Snookie anyday!

in the 1960's when I grew up. Back then it was mostly orange & apple groves, hardly any LE, and everyone knew everyone else and helped each other out. Good times and good memories. And then off to war I went.

but people tend to focus on the charm of this small town not the negatives of that same town. When you watch the show and take note of the overall tone it shows small mindedness, gossiping that ruins reputations, cruel ridiculing bullying (especially toward Barney), coldness toward strangers, being a busybody, sexism etc etc. It's not a place I would ever want to have lived in. Andy was the one that brought people around in the end to do the decent thing. If not for Andy's influence Mayberry would've been a totally cruel evil little town.