For the past eight years, in a variety of situations, I’ve been performing as a character we named “Almost Andy.” For decades people have been remarking on how much I looked like Andy Griffith. On my 80th birthday I took a course on comedy from a wonderful comic and instructor Rog Bates. At the first class all of the students joined with Rog and agreed that I should base my humor somehow on Andy Griffith. I couldn’t accept the role of playing a second rate Andy and so I developed a character called Almost Andy. All of his humor was based on adventures encountered because he looked like an older Andy Griffith in his role of Matlock. For eight years now I have had some wonderful times wearing my seersucker jacket.
Just a week after graduating from the Rog Bates class I had the honor of participating in the Mayberry Days Festival at Mt. Airy and riding in their big parade and then doing a little comedy with many former Mayberry Characters and some great impersonators and the host David Browning, who plays a fantastic Barney and the audience was very kind to me. I’ve been back to Mt. Airy several times and done a bit in a movie, a marvelous play in Benson North Carolina two seasons with Scott Epperson who died suddenly before we could begin work on the third year. We received some wonderful press coverage from throughout North Carolina. My last function as Almost Andy just three weeks before the Real Andy died was in Raleigh where the soon to be governor of North Carolina mistook me for the real deal. The newspaper banner on the front page the following morning read “Pat McCrory has a Mayberry Moment.”
Recently, I donned my Mayberry jacket and Almost Andy appeared in Henderson, NC at their huge car show. I had the honor of working with other Purple Heart Veterans and we were distributing poppies and raising funds in honor of our fallen warriors. (What a great bunch of dedicated guys they are.) I managed to sit on my portable stool and greet hundreds of visitors. It was a very generous group visiting the outing and I want to thank every one of them. Gosh life is great sometimes when we get to let that little kid inside us out.
“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” Mark Twain. It’s like that with remembering sometimes too. Some memories are like blessings. Things get bigger and better and longer and there are no bounds of the imagination. Fiction creeps in and invades on fact. One of the best tools in writing humor is making things bigger than or smaller than or the opposite of . My imagination continues to bounce like a ball in a room hitting the floor and the ceiling and then bouncing off the walls and sometimes I am even blessed with a “WHEE!” moment where an idea goes flying higher and higher and higher yet and I just stand back and marvel at it all. George, you have always been a blessing in my life. Art
Hi, Almost Andy! I “almost” enjoy all of your reminiscing (sp?) stories. Memories of the real Andy and of you, my friend, for times we spent together at NSA.
God Bless,
George Morrisey
I loved reading about your Andy adventures here. And to be mistaken for the real guy must have been a hoot!