Merchandise and Pop Culture
Dell Comics published two The Andy Griffith Show comic books during the show's first run. In 2004, copies in near-mint condition were priced in excess of $500 each. The show's enduring popularity has spawned considerable merchandise since its first run, including board games, bobblehead dolls, kitchenware, books, and other items. In 2007, a line of canned foods inspired by the series was made available in grocery stores across America. Griffith's hometown of Mount Airy, North Carolina annually hosts a week-long "Mayberry Days" celebration featuring concerts, parades, and appearances by the show's players.
In 1997, the episode "Opie the Birdman" was ranked No. 24 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. In 2009, TV Guide ranked The Andy Griffith Show ninth on its list of the 50 Best Shows of All Time. Bravo ranked Andy Taylor 63rd on their list of the 100 greatest TV characters.
A bronze statue of Andy and Opie was erected in both Pullen Park in Raleigh, and at the Andy Griffith Playhouse in Mount Airy.
The Taylor Home Inn in Clear Lake, Wisconsin, is a bed-and-breakfast modeled after the Taylor Home.
Read more about this topic: The Andy Griffith Show
Famous quotes containing the words pop culture, pop and/or culture:
“There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today’s pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.”
—Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)
“The children [on TV] are too well behaved and are reasonable beyond their years. All the children pop in with exceptional insights. On many of the shows the children’s insights are apt to be unexpectedly philosophical. The lesson seems to be, “Listen to little children carefully and you will learn great truths.””
—G. Weinberg. originally quoted in “What Is Television’s World of the Single Parent Doing to Your Family?” TV Guide (August 1970)
“The best hopes of any community rest upon that class of its gifted young men who are not encumbered with large possessions.... I now speak of extensive scholarship and ripe culture in science and art.... It is not large possessions, it is large expectations, or rather large hopes, that stimulate the ambition of the young.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)