Andy and the New Mayor

Okay, at least where I live the Mayor is an elected official of the CITY and the Sheriff is an elected official of the COUNTY. The Mayor has absolutely zero authority over the Sheriff. This episode annoys me on other levels besides this. The cute small town feel is very much lacking in this episode. The main reason I like to watch The Andy Griffith Show is to forget about political things that is shoved on us from almost every television channel. I want the peaceful, innocent feel of Mayberry. It is very lacking in this lackluster offering from Season Three. And while on I am on the topic of Season Three, I cannot stand Andy's girlfriend Peggy. She is very annoying in my opinion.

N Andy and the New Mayor the balance of Mayberry is being upset. But first we must discuss Barney's new French perfume he is set to unleash on Juanita.. Everyone thinks it smells like paint. And this joke will be inserted several times...getting funnier and building to a great payoff line by Barney explaining to the new Mayor the smell is because he's been painting.

The new Mayor is made to be much the opposite of the former one. He's all about running a town rigidly and machine-like. The nature of Andy running his department in an easy-going way runs counter to the new Mayor's non-bending rules. Barney , caught in the middle, is at his nervous best as the Mayor's threats escalate. Barney's attempts in getting the Mayor not to give the department a bad report resulting in some all-time classic Barney dialogue - and, fantastic Barney physical comedy.

The new Mayor is not endearing and looses the charm of our previous lovable Mayor played by Dick Elliot. No longer will the Mayor of Mayberry be a beloved character in the cannon after this. That said the new Mayor's insolence and intolerance, played too well by Parley Baer, does work well in this one episode. Plus, the new Mayor gets a good end lesson himself with some help by another aggressive type, a bear!

I was never a big fan of Parley Baer in a recurring role as Mayor Stoner in big doses. Mayor Pike's (Dick Elliott) bumbling style fit in better with the show. Stoner had such a big role in this episode, he was a roadblock to the comedy flow. Baer's Mayor role is better in future episodes where he's not on screen as much as here. The domineering tyrant is better in small doses. Very funny epilougue about the duck pond.

... because one elected official - Mayor Stoner- has no authority over a different elected official - Sheriff Andy Taylor - especially when one was elected by the town of Mayberry (the mayor) and the other (the sheriff) was elected by the county. But if the show's purpose is just to make the new mayor into an arrogant jerk so that the cast had at least one chronic antagonist then I'd say that they succeeded brilliantly.

As for the plot, Mayor Stoner doesn't like the informal way that Andy runs his office. He doesn't like his record keeping, nor the fact that he is unarmed, nor that he lets a moonshiner out on parole for three days to harvest his crops. The Mayor demands that the moonshiner stay in jail and finish his sentence. Andy lets him out anyways, reasoning that the prisoner is so poor all he really has going for him is his word, and if he acts like that is no good then he's really taken everything from the man.

To be fair, the Mayor doesn't directly threaten Andy's job - over which he has no control. Instead he talks about reports he's having sent to the capitol, and talks about sending an unfavorable report to Raleigh concerning the sheriff's office if Andy doesn't start doing things differently.

The catalyst for this change was the death of actor Dick Elliott, in 1961, who had played Mayor Pike as a somewhat irascible fellow, but not as nearly as negative a character as Mayor Stoner would be.

The new mayor walks in and decides everything being done at the Sheriff's office is wrong. To rule followers, he has a point. But there is more to it than that. We have seen Andy run his office by the seat of his pants and upstaged several who were on his case (including his own deputy). This episode lacks much fun, but it has a message.