As “The Andy Griffith Show” turns 50, a new museum opens in Mount Airy, N.C.
It’s big, as Barney Fife would say – really big: Mount Airy, N.C., is celebrating 50 years of “The Andy Griffith Show” with a new museum.
The handsome structure honors native son Griffith, star of stage, screen and song, who began his portrayal of Sheriff Andy Taylor on an episode of “The Danny Thomas Show” in 1960 and later received his own series, which ran on CBS from 1960 to 1968.
Inside Mount Airy’s new museum, check out a costume worn by Hal Smith, the late actor who portrayed fun-loving drunkard Otis Campbell; an eagle and a gavel that both sat on Andy’s desk; plus the salt-and-pepper suit worn by Don Knotts, the actor who played bumbling Barney Fife.
Visitors might also sometimes meet Betty Lynn, the actress who played Fife’s girlfriend, Thelma Lou. Lynn relocated to Mount Airy a couple of years ago, leaving Los Angeles for the foothills of the Blue Ridge along the Virginia-North Carolina town. “I had been here for the Mayberry Days,” Lynn says. “And I had such a good time. I had been here for about five days. And fans would come from all over.”
To many, Mount Airy is Mayberry. It’s Griffith’s hometown and host to the annual Mayberry Days festival (Sept. 23-26 in 2010). According to Emmett Forrest, another town native, Mount Airy is also the place Griffith used as inspiration to construct the make-believe town of Mayberry on “The Andy Griffith Show.”
All of the museum’s memorabilia comes from the collection of Forrest, one of Griffith’s childhood buddies. “We were just two little, runny-nosed boys down on the poor end of town,” he remembers.
Now retired, Forrest has kept in contact with Griffith. And, largely, that’s how he’s obtained such relics as the actual “SHERIFF” and “JUSTICE OF THE PEACE” signs seen by millions on TV. “Every piece in here is like a baby to me, because I collected it one at a time,” says Forrest. “And each piece has a personality.”
Andy Griffith Museum, 336-786-7998, surryarts.org and mayberrydays.org.
