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Many in Mount Airy unhappy with 'Opie'
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Published: October 30, 2008
MOUNT AIRY
Opie and Andy Taylor support Barack Obama. And not everyone in Mayberry is happy about it.
In a three-minute video posted last week at www.funnyordie.com, Ron Howard -- who played Opie on The Andy Griffith Show and has since become an Academy Award-winning director -- said that he was going to extreme measures to show his support for Obama, the Democratic candidate for president.
He did so by shaving, dressing up as 8-year-old Opie, and taking part in a skit with his TV dad, Andy Griffith.
During the skit they talked about the need for change.
Howard then changed costumes to become Richie Cunningham, his character in the popular '70s sitcom Happy Days, and did another endorsement for Obama, this time with Henry Winkler, who played Fonzie.
So far, the video has gotten more than 2 million hits.
The video has been a topic of conversation around Mount Airy, which has built much of its tourist trade on nostalgia for The Andy Griffith Show and the fictional Mayberry.
Griffith is a native of Mount Airy and based much of the show on the area. Many scripts refer to nearby cities, including Winston-Salem.
Some folks, though, don't like to see the actors from their old favorite show taking sides in real-life politics.
"A lot of people are surprised at him, and disappointed, too," Russell Hiatt, who runs Floyd's City Barber Shop on Main Street, said about Griffith.
"Everybody's high on Andy."
But he said he wasn't shocked by Howard doing the skit.
"I'm not surprised with Opie at all," Hiatt said. "He hasn't ever even come here to Mount Airy."
Joe Brookshire, a tourist visiting Mount Airy from Cordele, Ga., said that the endorsement video "distresses me."
He and a group of friends, who are Mc-Cain supporters, came to Mount Airy because of their fondness for the classic TV show.
"I don't know if we'd have come if we'd known" about the video, he said.
At Snappy Lunch, manager Mary Dowell said she has heard some talk about the endorsement from customers and staff.
Dowell said she understands why Griffith and Howard would want to perform as their beloved characters for the endorsement, rather than do the endorsement as themselves.
"Everyone relates to Andy and Opie," she said.
Jack Loftis, the mayor of Mount Airy -- who is a Democrat -- said that he didn't expect the video to make much of a difference in the election.
"There's an awful lot of respect for Andy and Opie both in this town, but I'm not sure it will impact the way people are going to go vote right now," Loftis said.
"With all the campaigning that's been going on over a year now, I think everyone would have their minds made up by now."
■ Tim Clodfelter can be reached at 727-7371 or at tclodfelter@wsjournal.com.
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