She always seemed miserable, nasty, controlling and always jealous of other women that Andy had any contact with. I've noticed this even more in the last 3 seasons. Andy should have said good by Helen and moved on!

I had never thought about it much but now that you mention it, you're right. She wasn't the most congenial person. I always liked Barney's Thelma Lou much better. It's a shame that Thelma Lou didn't stay on the show after Barney left.

They say love is blind so Andy must have been in love with Helen and not even noticed those charcateristics you mentioned.

I really liked Ellie (Eleanor Donahue) in the early episodes. I thought her and Andy had great chemistry.

Good point, Willbo. Ellie and Andy did have good chemistry and Ellie was so loveable to boot. Wish she had stayed on the show too.

Helen would've been my LAST choice. Number one would be Nurse Peggy, followed by Ellie, then that relative of Aunt Bee (the one that jealous Helen tried to set up with Goober). Everyone always asks why Andy was so miserable those last three seasons. The answer is spelled C-R-U-M-P.

I thought that the charecter of Andy was"off"in a few episodes and he wouldnt have behaved that way.1 episode was with Peggy when he found out her daddy had $ .The 2nd was with Ellie when he said she was giving opie icecream just so he would marry her!The 3rd was when he had to meet with the lady lawyer and got sunburned and was acting so stupid &sneaky about it.Any more ideas?Thanks he sure hd some ego in those shows!

I really liked Helen and maybe it was Andy who was the grumpy one. I always thought Helen was too pretty to be on that show. I can only picture Mayberry with the homely/schoolmarm types.

those are three great exampless when"Andy"acted out of charecter!I didnt know how to phrase it Thanks!

Aneta Corsaut (how to pronounce her name? I say Core-sought) was actually hot. Also, in the 1986 reunion film, she mellowed out a lot. She is probably the least liked character on the show. She got mad a lot because she was an outsider and she had to deal with the idiots in town.

My question is why Louanne Poovie was dating an asexual Gomer. Of all the Marines on the base, maybe she liked Gomer because he never made any moves on her.

Mayberry was a very small town. Andy knew that there was a very, very limited number of fine women available. If he had broke up with Helen, the next woman he went with would have her looks compared to Helen's and it would just look to everyone that he had down-graded.

She always seemed miserable, nasty, controlling and always jealous of other women that Andy had any contact with. I've noticed this even more in the last 3 seasons. Andy should have said good by Helen and moved on!

I think maybe the jealous and controlling ways sort of appealed to Andy (as opposed to a woman who "didn't care" what he did)... plus, like other posters have mentioned, she was pretty fine looking and was probably a tiger "behind closed doors".

She was rough to begin with, but she probably got worse for the same reason the others did too, they were trying to pick up the slack of Don not being there.

Ya know, as much as most of us find fault with Helen, we might miss her if she was gone. Just like with Barney, I don't who they'd replace her with. They couldn't bring back Peggy at that point. We might miss her arguing. And she could be charming at times.

I think the writers tried too hard to produce conflict between Helen and Andy. Helen is normally a very level-headed person, but they have her going too far in the directions of jealousy or spite when anything happens that should be a minor conflict, at best. And Andy connives at that by antagonizing the situation by trying to hide something from her, or just in his choice of words or something, which then makes Helen even bitchier. Ex.: when Andy, Helen, Barney, and Thelma Lou were all it with each other that time, Andy thinks he is objectively describing the situation by saying "...when a third party..." and Helen assumes he is talking about her and she angrily says, "My name-- is Helen!" in what seems to me is just an excuse to yell at him.

But the fact is that people can be ridiculous and fly off the handle on the slightest excuse; and if one is mad at somebody, one will-- anything they bring up, or however they say it, is 'fair game' when there's a rift. But since we, the viewers, are not in the conflict ourselves, it's seen as overreacting. But I'm sure that, in our own world, we find it hard not to verbally crack somebody that we think has done it to us; and if we don't think so, then we will use anything-- like something they said or did that has nothing to do with the present conflict-- as the excuse overreaching behavior.

She always seemed miserable, nasty, controlling and always jealous of other women that Andy had any contact with. I've noticed this even more in the last 3 seasons. Andy should have said good by Helen and moved on!
Yes you are right. Helen was very picky and controlling. She was my least favorite girlfriend of Andy's.

I liked Helen. I think that the last name of the actress is COR - se - cot.

I have a relative, however, who agrees with you. He says that he never cared for Helen and actually disliked her.

I know that Peggy, the nurse, was played by Joanna Moore (may have misspelled her first name). She would seem a good fit for the show in that she was Southern (from Georgia). The actress later was an alcoholic and not quite stable, so maybe there were professional reasons that the character of Peggy was not kept around. The actress could have been too demanding, or the early stages of her problems were beginning to be observed by the producers of The Andy Griffith Show. Perhaps she wanted more money or a guarantee of more episodes on which to appear. Also, Ms. Moore had two children (Tatum O'Neal and Griffin O'Neal), so it is possible that the producers wanted to show her in more episodes and she was not able to do so.

The character, though, could probably been recast (as in the case of Floyd and the Mayor).


Again, I did like Helen. I never cared for Eleanor Donohue on this show and hated Ellie and Andy together.

I liked Andy with Mary, the nurse (Sue Ane Langdon), although that relationship was short-lived and never really got off the ground (2-3 episodes?). I liked Ellie, although sometimes she came off as somewhat superior. I thought Peggy was TOO sweet; I just never warmed up to her. I did like Helen, although she seemed to have a short fuse and was jealous of any female around Andy except Thelma Lou. She was a classy, educated, lovely lady, a tough combination to beat. The temper and jealousy were obviously easy trade-offs for him. They sure made a nice couple!

I liked Thelma Lou most of all. I was sad when she left the series and then returned briefly, married to another guy. Not that I blamed her (a gal can't wait forever.....;) ) but I enjoyed watching her relationship with Barney. I thought they played well off each other.

I liked Andy with Mary, the nurse (Sue Ane Langdon), although that relationship was short-lived and never really got off the ground (2-3 episodes?). I liked Ellie, although sometimes she came off as somewhat superior. I thought Peggy was TOO sweet; I just never warmed up to her. I did like Helen, although she seemed to have a short fuse and was jealous of any female around Andy except Thelma Lou. She was a classy, educated, lovely lady, a tough combination to beat. The temper and jealousy were obviously easy trade-offs for him. They sure made a nice couple!

I liked Thelma Lou most of all. I was sad when she left the series and then returned briefly, married to another guy. Not that I blamed her (a gal can't wait forever.....;) ) but I enjoyed watching her relationship with Barney. I thought they played well off each other.

I totally agree. Thelma Lou and Barney had great chemistry. However, Helen was quite annoying and controlling. She had nothing on Thelma Lou.

I think tdr is on the right track about the writers:

Helen was an interesting character. Sometimes it seemed as though the writers weren't quite sure what to do with her. Sometimes she'd be a very progressive independent woman and other times she'd revert to an insecure jealous type which seemed like a very common plot device for women characters in shows from that time period. I remember in one later episode she instructed (I think it was her niece) to play down her superior athletic abilities in order to heal Opie's wounded ego. It also didn't make sense for Andy to try and hide events from Helen whenever he had to interact with another woman for purely innocent reasons. It was as though he was constantly having to defend himself when he'd done nothing wrong; why would anyone stay in a relationship under those circumstances?

[QUOTE=tdr]I think the writers tried too hard to produce conflict between Helen and Andy. Helen is normally a very level-headed person, but they have her going too far in the directions of jealousy or spite when anything happens that should be a minor conflict, at best. And Andy connives at that by antagonizing the situation by trying to hide something from her, or just in his choice of words or something, which then makes Helen even bitchier. Ex.: when Andy, Helen, Barney, and Thelma Lou were all it with each other that time, Andy thinks he is objectively describing the situation by saying "...when a third party..." and Helen assumes he is talking about her and she angrily says, "My name-- is Helen!" in what seems to me is just an excuse to yell at him.

That episode (Man in the Middle) always annoyed because Thelma Lou was out of character. Considering how long she's known Andy (four years at the time) You would think she would know he likes her and would only say something like that because Barney told him they broke up and was trying to help his friend out.

On another note Considering the chemistry that Andy and Thelma Lou had over the series run, and considering how Helen wasn't that well liked even at that time, I always thought they should have had Andy break up with Helen and start dating Thelma Lou.

A couple people have commented on Helen being good-looking or hot. I guess I'm not seeing that. Maybe it is her grating personality that has blinded me to her charms, but I doubt it. All a matter of opinion, anyway.
Joanna Moore was very nice looking.

If your only choice was Daphne ("The Fun Girls") or Helen, who would you? :D

A couple people have commented on Helen being good-looking or hot. I guess I'm not seeing that. Maybe it is her grating personality that has blinded me to her charms, but I doubt it. All a matter of opinion, anyway.
Joanna Moore was very nice looking.

Go to the 14:51 mark of Andy and Helen have their day. You'll see why some call her attractive

A couple people have commented on Helen being good-looking or hot. I guess I'm not seeing that. Maybe it is her grating personality that has blinded me to her charms, but I doubt it. All a matter of opinion, anyway.
Joanna Moore was very nice looking.

In the B&W episodes she was decent, the colour ones not so much, not unlike Lucy :lol:

If your only choice was Daphne ("The Fun Girls") or Helen, who would you? :D

I don't even remember writing this. :eek:

In the B&W episodes she was decent, the colour ones not so much, not unlike Lucy :lol:

You've got that right

In the color episodes Andy Griffith felt the need to ratchet everything up to make up for the loss of Don Knotts and not having Barney to set situations in motion. So he felt the normally sane characters had to pick up that slack by being a little more flawed and crazier so the show could have more stories. Andy was so stressed he even yelled "I don't know what we're gonna do without Don" when a reporter asked about Don leaving the show. They needed a crazier Helen to have more stories and Aneta wasn't that good at it. She did a nice job when she was allowed to be calmer and nicer. Andy Taylor didn't need a nasty Helen, but Andy Griffith felt the show did.

She was always kind of a crab, not my favorite character!

In the color episodes Andy Griffith felt the need to ratchet everything up to make up for the loss of Don Knotts and not having Barney to set situations in motion. So he felt the normally sane characters had to pick up that slack by being a little more flawed and crazier so the show could have more stories. Andy was so stressed he even yelled "I don't know what we're gonna do without Don" when a reporter asked about Don leaving the show. They needed a crazier Helen to have more stories and Aneta wasn't that good at it. She did a nice job when she was allowed to be calmer and nicer. Andy Taylor didn't need a nasty Helen, but Andy Griffith felt the show did.

The grimness of the times probably had an influence on their dour moods, also...they were in a reality stuck somewhere between absurd surrealism ton down home mediocrity... closer to real life but much less funny.

If you ask me, they both deserved each other. They were both a couple of crab apples, Helen with a permanent "stay away" attitude and Andy with a permanent scowl while acting 1/2 dead. What a pair huh? They should have turned themselves b/w and maybe they'd have been happier.

She was exotic - the complete opposite of every girl he'd ever met.

Oh, and she had a nice frame.

That's one heck of a bottom line, I reckon...