CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Image via Wikipedia
Image via WikipediaOctober 3, 2010
…[It] may be the most recognizable television tune ever — the one that accompanies Mayberry sheriff Andy Taylor and his young son, Opie, as they amble on down to the local fishing hole with poles in hand.
Chances are you’re whistling it — out loud or in your head — right now.Image via Wikipedia
Image by Getty Images via @daylifeWritten by the late Chicago-born composer Earle Hagen — who died in 2008 …— the opening theme to “The Andy Griffith Show” immediately evokes a more innocent time and place where honesty, integrity, friendship and family were always paramount. It currently can be heard in a commercial for the Volkswagen Routan minivan …
Here, according to Hagen’s widow, Laura … is how it came to be. The charmingly unpolished version that played early on was reportedly the same version Hagen recorded in one take as a mere demo.
“Sheldon [Leonard, a producer and director] told Earle [the show] was set in a hometown, kind of a backwoods little quiet town called Mayberry, and they wanted something that would fit that. And Earle told me, ‘It just took me quite a while to decide on what to do. And then I realized it just had to be something really simple. Something you could whistle.’ And that’s when he came up with it. He said he penciled out the piano part, called up some musicians, went into the studio that night and recorded a demo. And he had his son, Deane, who was 11 at the time, do the snapping fingers. And Earle whistled it and these guys played it and he gave it to Sheldon, and Sheldon loved it and he said, ‘We’re just going to use that for the opening shot and we’ll have Andy and Opie walking down a little mountain road there by a stream with fishing poles over their shoulders.’ And it’s all history after that.”
Mike Thomas
