The Story Behind the Story

The other day I was thinking about The Andy Griffith Show – as you do. In particular, I was pondering an episode where Ralph, the brother of Otis Campbell, the Mayberry town drunk, is coming to pay a visit. Otis is in a tizzy because he believes his brother to be a success, and he is ashamed that Ralph will see what a failure he is. To help Otis out Andy agrees to let him pose as a Deputy while his brother is in town, much to the antic chagrin of Barney.

All seems to being going well until Ralph comes staggering into the Mayberry jail three sheets to the wind. It turns out that he is the town drunk where he lives, and tops off his evenings, like Otis, by letting himself into the jail to sleep it off. In one of the most ironic moments in sitcom history, Otis lectures his brother on proper decorum. Back slaps occur all around, and a lesson seems to have been learned. Until the next episode.

There are numerous avenues to explore arising out of this 22-minute classic. Consider the concept of a town drunk. It appears that every small North Carolina town has one, but only one. No one else wobbles into the jail after a night on the town, just Otis, and apparently Ralph. You know they aren’t the only drinkers. Are they akin to the proverbial scapegoats, taking the alcoholic sins of the community onto their backs? Is this truly a public service?

Before I could answer these sociological queries, I became consumed with what led Otis and Ralph to this vocation. Why did they feel this need to not only drink copious amounts, but to display their inebriation to the world? Otis certainly could have headed home to pass out. It was rare that Barney and Andy went looking for him. He came to them, as did Ralph.

Having been raised on a shallow understanding of Freud, Bettelheim and Erikson, I naturally assumed that childhood trauma had to be the cause. The fact that they are brothers is instructive. I think it is probable that Ralph and Otis’ father was a drinker as well. Like them, he was a big man and when he was in his cups the fists would fly. Their mother wanted to protect the boys but was ineffectual.

As the brothers grew, they began to imitate the only strong role model they had. They too took to drink. They also realized, whether consciously or not, that the only time their father even noticed them was when he was drunk, so they imbibed in public to get the attention they longed for.

Their drinking led to endless trips to the Sherriff’s office in the dry town where they were raised. Oddly enough, it was only there that someone paid heed to them. Maybe it was not loving care, but it was more than they ever found anywhere else. They had located a haven, and a lifelong pattern had set in.

I realized that you could do this backseat dissection with many sitcom characters. They are perfect for analysis. With few exceptions, they are one-dimensional, letting us avoid the nuances involved in the personalities of real human beings. How many of us know that Otis works as a glue dipper, whatever that is? I didn’t and I have seen every episode countless times. He is one thing and one thing only – the town drunk.

Take Buddy Sorrell, Rob Petrie’s co-writer on the Alan Brady show. His nickname was The Human Joke Machine, but how did he become this person for whom jokes were everything? Undoubtedly, he was picked on as a kid for being both small and Jewish. He didn’t even have a Synagogue community to fall back on (he did not have his bar mitzvah until he was adult). Making people laugh was his defense mechanism. It became more than a way to distract his tormentors, it became an obsession. He had to have a joke for every occasion, just to feel safe. Luckily for him he found a professional outlet for his neuroses. Otherwise, he’d be sitting in a Bronx drunk tank, a Northern Otis, trying to make Deputy Barney O’Flaherty laugh.

Sally Rogers, Buddy and Rob’s office mate, provides additional fodder. Why is her whole life focused on corralling a man and getting married? My guess is that she was doted on by her father when she was little. Her mother, however, was cold and distant. It got worse when her parents divorced and her mother blamed Sally. Ever since Sally has been searching for a substitute father figure. This fixation made her unpopular with other girls at Herbert Hoover High, fueling her lifelong inability to make friends with other women (secretly she hates Laura), as well as her caustic wit. Tragically, this same caustic wit has driven away the object of her obsession – a man to marry.   

As I thought about this, I realized that this could be a new parlor game. Players would be assigned a sitcom character and the one that comes up with the best psychological history wins. Extra points could be awarded for creativity, like opining that Otis’ mother became preoccupied with mah jongg as a way to escape her loveless marriage, further isolating Otis and Ralph. It could be called “Bonkers Backstory Bonanza”.

I think I have a winner here. Finally, a justification for all those years in front of the boob tube. Just so someone doesn’t decide to turn the tables on me and ask why I would watch the same sitcom episode so many times that I can remember it in detail 50 years later. But who would want to do that?