Trouble in the house of Fife

In addition to discussing this week's TV highlights, Paul and I today discussed the strange case of the Barney Fife statue CBS doesn't want built.

Link: Paul Harris Online: TV Barn Radio.

You may have heard the story: Enterprising guy moves to Mt. Airy, the town in North Carolina synonymous with "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Mayberry RFD." They've got shops galore there named Mayberry Country Flowers & Gifts and Mayberry Alarm and Mayberry Consignments ... so why not a Mayberry Kountry Kitchen?

So Tom Hellebrand opened shop last December. Two months later, Don Knotts, aka Barney Fife, passes. Hellebrand has a great idea: Raise money and put a statue of Barney in Mt. Airy.  He gets the blessing of a descendant of Knotts, a daughter, and the CBS network.  And off he goes.

He puts down eight grand, some his money and some raised on donknottsstatue.com, for a down payment on a statue. A sculpting company in Utah starts work on the life-sized monument to Fife, uh, Knotts.

And then CBS puts the hammer down. What happened?  Apparently the "actor's estate and business associates of Andy Griffith" wanted nothing to do with the statue.

Why?  Well, we know why Griffith wouldn't approve of such a thing.  When's the last time he even visited the town that inspired the show that made him rich and famous?  But the change of heart among Knotts' descendants is a puzzle.

I was on WBAL this morning with Chip Franklin and Hellebrand, who was phoning in from a truck stop somewhere (lotta background noise). I said it sounded like, with him in Mt. Airy for such a short time, CBS could be rightly suspicious that he was trying to capitalize on the death of Don Knotts to advance his business. But Hellebrand said the statue isn't going anywhere near his Kountry Kitchen, and anyway, the whole town's in favor of it and it will belong to the city of Mt. Airy.

He checks out in my book. So what's CBS's problem?  Hellebrand said he was ready to tell Utah to melt down Barney.  I think they should hold their fire. CBS has some 'splainin' to do.

Comments

[tom]

Well, the elephant in the room you're not seeing is ... what's being planned in Mt. Airy is not an official TVLand Statue.

If anyone's going to exploit Barny Fife with a half hour unveiling special (like with the Ralph Kramden or Mary Richards statues) they want it to be profitable to Viacom/CBS.

[Mark Jeffries]

And let it be noted that TV Land has already erected an Andy-and-Opie-at-the-fishing-hole statue elsewhere in North Carolina.

[Michael Zavala]

Tom was on my show a couple of weeks ago so I know all about this story. We tried to reach Andy for an interview but he didn't want to do it. CBS Evening news is going to run a story about this soon. Thats what Tom is telling me.