Well, good luck on getting any police cooperation with your investigation in the future:
A private detective hired by the family of a missing Indiana University student has made unflattering comments about Bloomington's police chief, calling him a "Gomer Pyle."
Former New York City police detective Richard "Bo" Dietl told the hosts of "Good Day New York" that 20-year-old Lauren Spierer's family has hired him to investigate her June disappearance.
He was then asked about possible friction between local police and big city private investigators.
Dietl replied that he felt like he "was talking to Gomer Pyle" when he spoke to Chief Mike Diekhoff, comparing the chief to the naive, small-town character Jim Nabors portrayed on two television shows in the 1960s.
The detective seems a little mixed up. He got the place right if he wanted to convey the sense of Hicktown, USA, but he picked the wrong character. Gomer Pyle? Any good analogist knows it should have been "I felt like I was talking to Barney Fife."
What a Maxwell Smart.
Comments
In an early Andy Griffith episode in which a con man pretending to be researching a screenplay about "the sheriff who doesn't carry a gun," the con man is exposed but then says Andy can't arrest him. After all, as the crook points out, Andy doesn't carry a gun.
Andy responds, "Yeah, but my deputies do." The camera then swings to a car with Goober and Gomer Pyle pointing shotguns out the window.
Gotcha!
Don't forget the episode in which Barney gave Gomer a ticket for making an illegal turn, then made one himself in the squad car, which resulted in Gomer running around for the rest of the episode yelling "Citizen's arrest! Citizen's arrest" at Barney.
Even the worst episodes of The Andy Griffith Show were markedly better than the best episodes of most modern comedies, but I think the best TAGS was the pilot, which aired as part of the Danny Thomas show. The combination of Andy Griffith's laid-back manner and Danny Thomas' exasperated bluster was priceless.