Andy the Matchmaker

Season 1 > • < Episode 7 >

Air Date

November 14, 1960

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Runaway Kid	Opie's Charity

Sequential Episode

7

Summary[]

When Barney's bumbling law enforcement techniques are questioned, Andy and Ellie decide to stage a fake robbery at Walker's Drugstore - a scheme which turns Barney into a real hero.

Plot[]

After being humiliated by a piece of humorous graffiti, Barney decides to turn in his badge because of Mayberry's lack of any real crime. He saw Opie with the piece of chalk in his hand, but he said that some bigger kids wrote it. When Opie claims that he wasn't the one who wrote it, Andy believes him, because Opie can't write. Unable to change Barney's mind,

S1E7-Fingerprints — Looking For Fingerprints.

Andy decides to stage a robbery at Walker's Drugstore in order to brighten Barney's mood and hopefully give him enough confidence to ask Miss Rosemary out on a date.

However, Barney messes up Andy's plan by making an actual arrest in the fake robbery. While stalling for time and trying to figure out what to do, Andy runs a background check on the suspect Barney arrested and finds out he's actually a wanted man. Having captured a real crook gives Barney the confidence to ask Miss Rosemary out.

Notes/Trivia[]

Barney tenders his resignation for the first time in this episode.
Miss Rosemary (Amzie Strickland) makes her one and only appearance in this episode. However, the same actress would appear later in the series as various characters.
Barney's First Love Interest

Miss Rosemary was Barney's first love interest. Old Barn would move on to Hilda Mae a few episodes later. By the end of the first season, he was keeping steady company with Thelma Lou and sometimes sneaking out with Juanita. Despite being pretty green with girls in this episode, Barney would soon transform into quite a ladies man. Well, in his own mind anyway.
This is the first time Aunt Bee doesn't appear.
If you look very closely in the courthouse´s second room, this episode was filmed in December 1959. You can very faintly see a ¨5¨ in the year on the calendar.
In this episode, Andy suggests that Barney take Miss Rosemary to the Snappy Lunch. The Snappy Lunch was and still is an actual diner in Andy Griffith's hometown of Mt. Airy, North Carolina and has the distinction of being the only Mt. Airy business to be mentioned on the show. They are famous for their porkchop sandwiches.
After Barney reads his poem Andy can be seen trying not to laugh.
We learn Andy's favorite kind of pie is Blueberry.

Goofs[]

Factual:

- Courthouse calendars don't match with the episode's release date (November 14, 1960). Inside one of the cells hangs a calendar month where the 1st falls on a Sunday. There's not a month in 1960 where the 1st falls on a Sunday. The closest would be January of 1961. Meanwhile, in the back room hangs a calendar where the 1st falls on a Tuesday. With the subsequent month having only twenty-eight days, this would make it January (not a leap year, as is 1960). The closest January's with firsts on a Tuesday (whether a leap year or not) would be in 1957 or 1963.

Music[]

Quotes[]

Barney:
"There once was a deputy called Fife
Who carried a gun and a knife
The gun was all dusty
The knife was all rusty
Cause he never caught a crook in his life."