The Andy Griffith Show (TV Series) The Taylors in Hollywood (1965) User Reviews

Very Funny- One of the Best Color Episodes!

[phantomcurator-178-818096 · 8/10 · 9 June 2015]

The Andy Griffith Show "A.B." (After Barney) is generally accepted by fans of the show as a slow decline into sitcom mediocrity, with rather annoying (Warren the Deputy) and somewhat dull (Howard Sprague, Emmett Clark, and Sam Jones) characters simply unable to fill the enormous comedic shoes of the brilliant Don Knotts.

Thankfully, there are a handful of episodes during the 6th, 7th, and 8th Season that briefly rekindle the comic wackiness & unpredictability that made the early years of TAGS so much fun, and "The Taylor's in Hollywood" is such a show.

The "fish out of water" concept used in this episode (simple, unassuming, small town country folk traveling to California & being rather bewildered by the flashy & exaggerated Hollywood "version" of things) is not original to this episode; Paul Henning's "Beverly Hillbillies" had already been using this formula to great success for many years on American television.

What makes it fun here is the outrageous performances of the guest stars, including a campy, over-the-top, "pre-Love Boat" Gavin MaCleod portraying Andy, and bombshell blond June Vincent portraying a glamorous, rather aggressive, Winchester toting Aunt Bee in one of the funniest scenes in ANY season of TAGS, either B&W or color.

It's obvious from watching "The Taylor's in Hollywood" that one excellent way for TAGS to help compensate for the departure of the outrageous Barney Fife is to bring in equally outrageous guest stars, and let the regular cast members of TAGS play "straight man" to them; unfortunately, this doesn't happen nearly enough in the color seasons of the show.

I give "The Taylor's in Hollywood" a "8" (especially when it is compared to most of the other color episodes).

Lots of fun packed into the episode

[vitoscotti · 10/10 · 10 July 2022]

Brian Bender (Gavin MacLeod) is hilarious as the over-acting big ham movie version Andy Taylor. Loved when "Sheriff Taylor! Sheriff Taylor!" is yelled out during a scene, and Andy responds. The over-acting during the movie was a brilliant comedic angle by the writers. It opened the door to classic scenes. Season 6 has mostly opened with stellar episodes despite Don Knotts leaving. Some of the scenes are corny but are working masterfully. It's funny Aunt Bee (Francis Bavier) shows her displeasure to the movie with a dose of classic over-acting.

All About Bee

[Johnny_West · 1/10 · 25 July 2022]

Helen Crump wrote the screenplay for the movie, but Andy Taylor takes Aunt Bee and dopie Opie to Hollywood? Even as a kid watching this, I had to wonder about Andy. Was Gomer going to make a cameo appearance?

Aunt Bee was great in Mayberry, cooking dinner, making pies and pickles, keeping the house clean, etc. She was a great mother figure for Opie, and I always liked Aunt Bee. Unfortunately the writers made her character into a very limited person. Once she was out of Mayberry, all Aunt Bee did in the Hollywood episodes was to be a hillbilly over-reacting to everything she experienced. Aunt Bee deserved better than that.

I really feel like the writing changed after Barney left, and the writers did not know how to make characters like Aunt Bee charming, and they just focused on her being from a small town (Mayberry), so she seemed ignorant. The early seasons treated her much better, and she always seemed sweet, whimsical, and wise. The post-Barney years lacked that sweetness most of the time.

As a kid, I found these Hollywood episodes insanely boring. Walking around complaining about how everything was different from Mayberry, or how it really was in Mayberry, or why she missed Mayberry, Aunt Bee made 30 minutes seem like 3 hours. But that is due to the bad writing, in my humble opinion.

Saccharine

[Hitchcoc · 4/10 · 20 December 2019]

Once again the Taylors are hanging in a hotel in Hollywood. They get to be on the set as the ridiculous movie is being made. How else would we get to see Gaven McCloud with a toupee, playing a tough sheriff, mugging for the camera. It gets even worse.

FICKLE AUNT BEE!

[JSGal · 5/10 · 18 July 2021]

As the Taylor's attend a first shooting of a scene of a movie "Sheriff Without A Gun", which portrays Sheriff Andy who never wears a gun, Aunt Bee throws a fit! She ends up crying to Andy that what they are portraying is nothing like Andy or their town. She insists he demand they change it! However, the next day when a new scene is shot Aunt Bee changes her mind when a sexy young actress plays her part! Then she praises the director and raves how the actress has captured Aunt Bees's character. Give me a break! This is just another example of how fickle the Mayberry citizens are, with the exception of a few.

Also, as Opie gets older he tends to become annoying, so often opening his big mouth and making trouble for his dad and others!