Summary[]
It's the annual Church picnic, and when Andy invites Ellie to the event, he begins to suspect that she has marriage on her mind - so he hastily arranges for three of Mayberry's most eligible bachelors to lavish attention on her.
Plot[]
Ellie accepts a friendly invitation from Andy to the Church picnic and dance. Andy, with a bit of illogical reasoning, becomes convinced that Ellie and her uncle Fred are out to trap him into a convenient marriage. Aunt Bee asks him how he asked her to the dance while talking to her, he becomes convinced that she set him up for marriage. He believes that the best way to thwart this desperate female hunter is to put her on the scent of other game, and even tells Opie that as well.
Andy convinces some of the young bachelors in town that Ellie is interested in them and sends them to court Ellie, in hopes of shifting her affections and marriage aspirations to someone else. Opie, having overheard Andy's plan in detail, accidentally reveals the scheme to Ellie. After a hostile confrontation, where she puts castor Oil, mustard powder and milk of magnesia in his drink, Ellie tells Andy off and insists she will go to the picnic with the first eligible bachelor to walk through her door. In walks Barney. Andy realizes the error in his thinking and strives to make things right with Ellie. This is the only episode where both Ellie and her uncle Fred appear together. Ellie appears in most episodes without him and Fred appeared in one episode without Ellie: Those Gossipin' Men.
Notes/Trivia[]
- Andy compares Barney to Adolphe Menjou. Adolphe Menjou was an actor who was voted Best Dressed Man in America nine times.
- This was the first appearance of Barney's signature Salt and Pepper suit. He would wear it several times throughout the series and it would even show up in a number of Knott's feature films he made after he left the series.
- Barney mentions that he has been a deputy for a year and a half, but when he gets his watch on Barney's Physical, it was engraved with five years. Then, on the episode Goodbye, Sheriff Taylor, Andy says that he's been Sheriff of Mayberry for twelve years. The only real continuity problem was on the episode Citizen's Arrest when Barney says that he's been in for ten years. Perhaps it was somehow meant for Andy.
- Since Barney is going to the dance with Ellie, Andy mentions swearing-in Mayberrian Jeff Pritchett as a temporary deputy to help Andy with directing traffic and keeping law and order at the event.
- Mayberry has at least four different kinds of dances: Legion, Chamber of Commerce, Uplifters, and Church.
- Andy says that Jim Summers always wins the sack race at the church picnic and dance. Jim runs the meat market, but is never seen in the series.
- Ellie lives in the first house on Andy's street (known as house façade #1 on the 40-acre lot).
- This is the first episode to have the lake scenery on the right side of the end credits instead of the left side.