Customer Reviews

Mayberry, My Home Town: The Ultimate Guidebook to America's Favorite TV Small Town

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Originally written & published in 1987, this 272 page collection interviews, articles, essays, letters, and encyclopedia-style entries is a GREAT READ! For Y2K folks used to fast-paced short articles, this book has a surprisingly up-to-date format, though the limits of 1980's technology can be seen in some of its map schematics and Mayberry set layouts. Definitely worthwhile reading for Mayberry fans, as well as those interested in the series or its actors. A very important book for any Mayberry-related collection.

Contents include: How to Get to Mayberry; Floorplans of 10 of the Main Rooms and Buildings in Mayberry; complete verses to theme song "The Fishin' Hole"; an alphabetic Encyclopedia of All Things Mayberry; a chapter on the movie "Return to Mayberry"; 1980's interviews with Jim "Gomer Pyle" Nabors, Aneta "Helen Crump" Corsaut, Betty "Thelma Lou" Lynn, Elinor "Ellie Walker" Donahue, Rance Howard (real-life father of Clint & Ron Howard), Clint "Leon"(the little PB&J cowboy)Howard, and Ron "Opie Taylor" Howard.

Scattered throughout the book are over 57 photographs, most full 8x11 page in the familiar glossy black & white that was the hallmark of the early years of the show. Most are production stills, promotional portraits, and some candid shots. Many of the photos are from the private collections of the actors.

There is also a short fun section especially for fans rating the Top Ten favorite episodes, plus over 225 trivia questions with answers suplied later in the book. This section includes an interview with the then-president of the largest fan club (over 12,000 members at that time) and a samples of several fanclub newsletters. (One of these at least currently has a great online website which I have visited!)

Finally there is a special index (to the encyclopedia listings)that are grouped by topic to help make use of the encyclopedia section more rewarding. Topic headings include "Animals of Mayberry", things relating to "Ernest T. Bass", another called "Kin and Family Connections in Mayberry", and "Mayberry in Song Including all Musical Matters".

We especially appreciated the color cover on the hardback edition: an 8x10 photographic reproduction of a cross-stitch pattern showing a main design of Opie's birds (Winkin, Blinkin & Nod) on their tree branch, with a border of the names of eighteen main characters of Mayberry surrounding the title of the book. This is a frame-able book cover!

Our one "complaint" was that the author's love of Mayberry is sometimes "too evident" however, that small "flaw" is easily and indulgently overlooked by those of us that feel the same way.

This is over-priced for what it delivers. The format is not very interesting; the bulk of the book is an A-Z encyclopedia-like guide to just about everything that was seen or heard pertaining to The Andy Griffith Show. While some of the information is revelatory a lot of it is TOO trivial. I believe I read somewhere else that this book has a synopsis of every episode; that is not true, it does NOT, which greatly disappointed me. Also, drawings and diagrams in the book are crude and unappealing. There are some decent black and white photos, but not one color photo. The only thing I did enjoy were the interviews with some of the stars, but they were condensed (I wanted more). There are 272 pages to this book but when you consider the price it seems like it's not a whole lot for the money. A big, big dissappointment!