![]() On Gomer Pyle, both Gomer and Sergeant Carter change, because when it starts out, Gomer is pretty raw. So the audience was not robbed of the Gomer character.”ĭiffers Denny, “I think the character started to change while he was on Andy Griffith, but not to the extent he did on Gomer Pyle. Jim was wonderful at broad comedy, but George was an actor first and a comedian second. When they had to do pathos with Goober, George Lindsey might’ve been able to deliver more than Jim could have. He couldn’t sing, but maybe he was a better actor than Jim was. So they had the Goober character as a placeholder for Gomer and they had a good comedy actor. After Jim left the show, they changed his last name to Pyle and all of a sudden Goober had grown up with Andy and everybody had always known him. Goober was a cousin from his mother’s side of the family who had not been brought up in Mayberry. Eventually they rewrote history, because when Goober was introduced, Andy had never met him before. They wrote an episode introducing Goober, whose name was Beasley at first. And they were very wise in that they brought in his cousin, Goober, while he was still on the show. He wasn’t on as often as Floyd the Barber was or Aunt Bee. “The character of Gomer Pyle wasn’t on Andy Griffith from the beginning he doesn’t appear until the third season, so the audience had a chance to react to the character and like him, but he wasn’t there long enough for him to become a regular,” adds Geoffrey. Of course, watching him go off and join the Marine Corps was just out of character for what you would have thought Gomer Pyle would be doing.” The character drew you in to see what he was going to do and how he was going to behave in these different situations. It was a very strong character that people did like, and it’s not really a surprise that it was able to bounce off and become its own series and just continue on. “There was definitely an impact, but he had the talent and the ability to carry his own show, which was pretty evident as the series progressed. “I would not say Gomer leaving hurt The Andy Griffith Show, but a talent like Jim had with Gomer and in the strength of the character, it obviously impacted the stories and the things we got to see Gomer do from then on,” suggests Allan. One genuine question - especially considering that more people remember Gomer from The Andy Griffith Show than his own series - is whether or not his departure actually hurt the series. So Jim was another of Steve Allen’s discoveries like I was.” Andy said he was first, but my friend Steve Allen saw him and put him on his show. I know that Andy went and saw him, but also my friend Bill Dana claimed that he was the first one to see Jim do it. ![]() So that’s what Jim was doing: the hick act and then opening up his mouth and singing with that gorgeous voice of his. So the thing that got Andy noticed was the routine, ‘What it was, was football,’ approaching it as if a southerner doesn’t know what football is. ![]() Most people don’t know this about Andy, that originally what made him famous and brought him to national attention was where he did a stage act of a Southerner looking at something that most Americans think is ordinary, but seeing it through different eyes. He wanted to be a singer/actor kind of guy, and he put together an act kind of loosely based on a cabaret act Andy Griffith had done. ![]() Geoffrey Mark, an entertainment performer, author and pop culture historian, explains, “Jim wanted to do stage work.
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