The Andy Griffith Show: Season 1/ Episode 9: A Feud Is A Feud: December 5, 1960. 2 1/2 STARS OUT OF 5 STARS:

The Carters and the Wakefields are the Mayberry area’s Hatfield’s and McCoy’s. When JoshWakefield and Hannah Carter come to Andy to get married- their father’s show up with their shotguns to object. Andy that night due to the threats of the fathers refuses to marry the couple. Andy the next morning gets the cold shoulder from Aunt Bee for not marrying the two. Andy then goes into his homespun long winded story explaining Romeo and Juliet to Opie at the breakfast table.

Andy decides the best way to settle it is to get to the root of the Carter-Wakefield feud. Turns out- no one knows the reason for the feud- on either side of the feud. Josh and Hannah are still determined to get married- Andy tries to talk some sense into them – as far as being patient. Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Carter are going to have a duel- which Andy acts like he is all for. Of course both Wakefield and Carter come up with excuses not to have the duel. When they are marching off their steps Andy fires his gun and both men run like the cowards they really are. The show ends at Andy’s house- with the men finally agreeing to let their children marry.

A little bit too much of that homespun hick Andy in this episode. A little bit too much over the top for me. This is not his strength in the show. Not a very good episode. The show at this point had yet to hit its stride. There are still these episodes like this one that seems like the show is a vehicle for Andy Griffith. Too many characters so far one and done and for some reason never developed. The great secondary characters in the show- have yet -other than a brief Otis Campbell in one episode have yet to appear.

• No Deputy Barney Fife in this episode either. His absence in the show is always felt. Also another episode without Ellie Walker.
• Andy again mentions having been in France during World War II. Again I note that there would be future references to both Andy and Barney graduating high school in 1946.
• This Romeo and Juliet talk he gave Opie at the breakfast table- was used in Andy’s stand-up routine and released on record in the late 1950’s. The episode was of course based around- the infamous Hatfield and McCoy feud.
• Mr. Wakefield played by character actor Arthur Hunnicutt- in 1952 received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in the movie The Big Sky. He is one of those actors whose name you may not know but face you certainly would. He also played a similar country folk character in The Twilight Zone episode called The Hunt.
• The Andy Griffith Show and The JFK Assassination? Hannah Carter was played by Karyn Kupcinet- the daughter of Chicago media personality Irv Kupcinet. Karyn Kupcinet was murdered in West Hollywood several weeks after the JFK Assassination. One of the JFK assassination conspiracy hunters back in the 1960’s tried to connect this murder to the JFK assassination- claiming that Jack Ruby had told Irv Kupcinet in advance of the assassination- and that he had told his daughter and the MAFIA had silenced Karyn. The murder of Karyn Kupcinet was never solved but this JFK theory seems like a lot of non-sense to me.
• The Wakefield’s and the Carter’s never appeared in another episode. One and done.

CAST-

Andy Griffith- Andy Taylor

Rony Howard- Opie Taylor

Frances Bavier- Aunt Bee Taylor

Arthur Hunnicutt- Jedidiah Wakefield

Chubby Johnson- Mr. Carter

Claude Johnson- Josh Wakefield

Karyn Kupcinet- Hannah Carter-Wakefield

Directed by Don Weis

Written by Frank Tarloff