I just watched Season 6's opener Opie's Job for the first time and during the first eight minutes of the episode I found myself wondering if this episode was originally planned as an episode of the Twilight Zone as it is an excellent deconstructive parody of The Andy Griffith Show. Andy's description of his bad day sounds like it's lampooning past plots of the show I.E. Otis is now a dangerous drunk driver who likes to fight and there's a bully also named after Sheldon Leonard) and Andy's behavior towards Aunt Bea and Opie is more how you would expect a southern small-town Sheriff to treat his immediate family (When Andy said Where's the Boy I thought Opie was going to get a beating). The only way to make it even more of a parody would be to have Andy drink a six pack of beer in one setting and then have a bikiniclad Helen Crump to come over to love/get abused by Andy.

One has to wonder the thought process in making this the Season Opener. Were the shows producers trying to inform people that grumpy Andy was how Andy was going to be playing the character? Were they that desperate to keep the tradition of Opie episodes opening the season they went with the one with his name in the title even though Look Paw I'm dancing is a much better episode? Or was this the alleged episode that had the opening modified after Andy trashed a hotel room due to getting into a big fight with George Lindsey and Francis Bavier during the first day of rehearsals? The world may never know.

The opening of Opie's Job is weird. Andy was a total jerk, but I like the rest of the episode.

Season 6 was the first season for color, correct? Just speculating but with new make up, new lighting, new photographic concerns, I can envision how it might require some adjustment getting used to the new requirements.

You are absolutely right - the opening of this episode seems like a parody of TAGS! I felt almost like I was watching some SCTV spoof, except that Andy's demeanor towards Opie was disturbing.

Ben Joelson and Art Baer wrote seven episodes of the series, 3 in season 5 and 4 in season 6. The duo were regular writers for Gomer Pyle USMC during the first two seasons of that series. In my opinion some of their Griffith efforts missed by a mile. "Opie's Job" is the first of three bizarrely offkey episodes they penned in season 6. The second one was "The Bazaar" introducing the character Warren in such a horrific way that it basicly doomed Jack Burns chances for a successful run in the series. Their next effort, "A Man's Best Friend" is another disaster, in this episode Goober looks like a jackass as Opie and his friend use walkie talkies to fool him into believing in a talking dog.

The best effort for the writing team came in season 5 they are credited with writing "TV or Not TV", (the bank robbery built around the Sheriff Without a Gun TV series). They also wrote "Opie's Fortune" (decent episode) and the strangely unMayberry-like Aunt Bee's Invisible Beau" with Aunt Bee supposedly involved with a married man. "Eat Your Heart Out" (Goober and Flora) from season 6 was their last episode for the series.

I think the major changes in attitude and stories was the show didn't have Aaron Ruben's steady hand controlling the writers, stories, and doing any rewriting that needed to be done before the episodes were filmed. Andy Griffith has always been given a lot of credit for his wisdom in the direction of the show,but I think it was more Ruben's wisdom with an important assist from Andy, and Don's opinions voiced to Andy. The three of them together had fantastic judgement. Andy and Bob Ross together just didn't have that level of judgement or combined talent. Bob Ross seemed a very good writer when Ruben was overseeing his work, but not after Ruben was gone. And I think Sheldon Leonard hardy factored at all into the weekly decisions about the show. Aaron Ruben was the smart guy guiding the show behind the scenes, but then he was gone.

I just watched Season 6's opener Opie's Job for the first time and during the first eight minutes of the episode I found myself wondering if this episode was originally planned as an episode of the Twilight Zone as it is an excellent deconstructive parody of The Andy Griffith Show. Andy's description of his bad day sounds like it's lampooning past plots of the show I.E. Otis is now a dangerous drunk driver who likes to fight and there's a bully also named after Sheldon Leonard) and Andy's behavior towards Aunt Bea and Opie is more how you would expect a southern small-town Sheriff to treat his immediate family (When Andy said Where's the Boy I thought Opie was going to get a beating). The only way to make it even more of a parody would be to have Andy drink a six pack of beer in one setting and then have a bikiniclad Helen Crump to come over to love/get abused by Andy.

One has to wonder the thought process in making this the Season Opener. Were the shows producers trying to inform people that grumpy Andy was how Andy was going to be playing the character? Were they that desperate to keep the tradition of Opie episodes opening the season they went with the one with his name in the title even though Look Paw I'm dancing is a much better episode? Or was this the alleged episode that had the opening modified after Andy trashed a hotel room due to getting into a big fight with George Lindsey and Francis Bavier during the first day of rehearsals? The world may never know.

Those color episodes were almost all so bizarre...