Ron Howard on ‘The Andy Griffith Show’: ”For Andy, the show was never the same after…”

“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything,” heavyweight boxer Muhammed Ali once stated.

Andy Griffith and Don Knotts’ friendship may have been difficult to explain, but it always came easily to them. In his book Andy and Don, The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show, author Daniel de Visé writes that Griffith and Knotts were “drawn to each other instantly.” The two actors had similar upbringings: difficult childhoods in sleepy Southern towns too small for their big-time aspirations. They knew how to make each other laugh and brought out the best in each other. “The five years we worked together were the best five years of my life,” Griffith once stated in an interview in 2000.

It should come as no surprise that Griffith didn’t handle Knotts’ departure from the show all that well.

“An inevitable graduation…”

Ron Howard, former child star-turned-acclaimed director, explained the effect that Knotts’ absence had on Griffith in further detail. “It was just a decision that [Don] had to make and that Andy understood. It always kind of felt more like an inevitable graduation than any kind of abandonment and betrayal.”

While Griffith didn’t begrudge his friend for leaving the show, Howard points out the noticeable shift after he left the series. “I think, for Andy, the show was never the same after Don left,” he said. “He didn’t have that partner.”

Some viewers note that Griffith’s character seems grumpier in the later seasons of the show. Gone is the placid sheriff who views the antics of his fellow Mayberrians with twinkly-eyed amusement. In his place is a grizzled lawman with a nearly perpetual frown and a hair-trigger temper. He shows his annoyance easily and more often. One has to wonder if Knotts’ absence had something to do with his metamorphosis.

Knotts returned to The Andy Griffith Show for a few guest appearances. Andy’s joy at working with his longtime friend again is almost palpable. “The absolute foundation of the show, and why it endures, is Andy-Barney,” Howard stated. “And yes, the feeling of what Mayberry was. But without the comedy that they generated, I don’t think the show ever would have endured.”

We couldn’t agree with him more!