Andy Griffith HATED Watching the First Season of ‘TAGS’ For THIS Reason

It’s hard to imagine an actor hating their own show. Yet throughout television history, actors have been critical of their work. From Mandy Patinkin of Criminal Minds fame to Brady Bunch dad Robert Reed, many actors and actresses have been vocal about their dislike of their sitcoms. Interestingly, Andy Griffith might’ve been a part of that list, were it not for Howard McNear.

McNear played Floyd the Barber on The Andy Griffith Show for several seasons. The character resonated strongly with audiences, due in no small part to McNear’s hilarious performance and undeniable talent. “What I’ve been hearing for many, many years is that after Andy and Opie and Aunt Bee and Barney, probably the most beloved character on the show was Floyd the Barber,” says noted pop culture historian Geoffrey Mark. “If you watch all the episodes like I have hundreds of times, Floyd the Barber really permeates Mayberry. A lot of Mayberry’s attitudes get revealed through him, because that barbershop was kind of the center of town for the men to gossip in. And there were almost as many scenes in the barbershop as there were in Andy’s office.” People just hung out there, so whenever anything happened in town, any storyline where something was going on, there was always a scene at Floyd’s where they discussed it.”

From Will Stockdale to Andy Taylor

Andy Griffith famously hated his performance in the first season of The Andy Griffith Show, feeling that he was a little too much like his character Will Stockdale in No Time for Sergeants. The actor’s minimal television experience probably led him to fall back on familiar characters. However, he soon discovered that the performance that worked so well in No Time for Sergeants wouldn’t work on The Andy Griffith Show.

It wasn’t until Howard McNear joined the cast as Floyd the Barber that Andy had his epiphany.

“Now in the ninth show we put in a barber, and the old gentleman was just scared to death—he couldn’t remember his lines and he wasn’t funny— so we reshot all of his scenes later with another man named Howard McNear, who played Floyd the barber. He was the second character we added. Over the years we added various other characters as we needed them, and our show became what it was— what it didn’t start out to be, but became what it was.”

Andy quickly realized that playing the straight man to more zany characters like platitude-spouting Floyd the Barber and high-energy Barney Fife was more his forte and found his footing in the second season. “So that’s what he did; he pulled the character way down, and just played it as a normal guy,” said his co-star and real-life best friend, Don Knotts. “He has a natural Southern accent, anyway. He didn’t have to put any more on.”