This morning I rewatched the episode Goodbye Sheriff Taylor and something I noticed was how well the actress that played Mrs. Jackson did her anger. It was believable, understandable and funny (I about died when she yelled "We live on that side!")

It got me thinking about how one of the most annoying things about Helen Crump is that she can't do funny angry that well. Every time she gets angry it's always straight with full nastiness behind it. To make things worse she tends to not get this angry at people who deserve it. The Senior Play, The Ball Game and the episode with the gypsies should've been times when she was on full blast mode, but the writers didn't have her do it for some reason.

What I'm curious about is would Helen be more tolerable if she were played by the actress that played Mrs. Jackson OR would she be more tolerable if her role was written more like Mrs. Jackson.

This morning I rewatched the episode Goodbye Sheriff Taylor and something I noticed was how well the actress that played Mrs. Jackson did her anger. It was believable, understandable and funny (I about died when she yelled "We live on that side!")

It got me thinking about how one of the most annoying things about Helen Crump is that she can't do funny angry that well. Every time she gets angry it's always straight with full nastiness behind it. To make things worse she tends to not get this angry at people who deserve it. The Senior Play, The Ball Game and the episode with the gypsies should've been times when she was on full blast mode, but the writers didn't have her do it for some reason.

What I'm curious about is would Helen be more tolerable if she were played by the actress that played Mrs. Jackson OR would she be more tolerable if her role was written more like Mrs. Jackson.

I'm not saying that she could have done more with the part, I don't know, but in defense of Aneta Corsaut, I think she played the part of Helen the way Griffith wanted it played, not the way she wanted to play it. When TBS was doing one their retrospectives of the series, Corsaut was featured in one of the interview segments, she mentioned how envious she and Betty Lynn were of the actresses that played the fun girls because they got to do so much with their parts. The actresses that played the love interest for Andy during the series run that brought additional elements to their portrayals were gone in short order. Outside of Aunt Bee, the women characters in Andy's love life were given little thought, and little to do. Even Betty Lynn, we had no idea how Thelma Lou supported herself, why she wasn't pushing Barney to get married, hell, we didn't even have a last name for her. Andy once stated in an interview that he was uncomfortable playing love scenes and scenes of intimacy on screen which may help to explain the rather two dimensional personality of Helen Crump, in other words she played it the way the boss wanted it played.

This morning I rewatched the episode Goodbye Sheriff Taylor and something I noticed was how well the actress that played Mrs. Jackson did her anger. It was believable, understandable and funny (I about died when she yelled "We live on that side!")

It got me thinking about how one of the most annoying things about Helen Crump is that she can't do funny angry that well. Every time she gets angry it's always straight with full nastiness behind it. To make things worse she tends to not get this angry at people who deserve it. The Senior Play, The Ball Game and the episode with the gypsies should've been times when she was on full blast mode, but the writers didn't have her do it for some reason.

What I'm curious about is would Helen be more tolerable if she were played by the actress that played Mrs. Jackson OR would she be more tolerable if her role was written more like Mrs. Jackson.

I agree Helens anger was nasty not all appropriate for a comedy.