The Andy Griffith Show “Bargain Day” (March 23, 1964)

Stubbornness and parsimony among beloved relatives are mined for sweet, sometimes uneasy laughter in this comic gem.  Aunt Bea (Frances Bavier), teased by Andy about the freezer she got a great deal on at auction and never uses, decides to take advantage of a sale at a new butcher’s, Diamond Jim’s.  Only she has to buy “a whole side of beef,” it’s the hottest day of the year, and the freezer starts bucking like a bronco when she plugs it in.  John Whedon’s script keeps topping itself, finally generating one of TV’s immortal catchphrases when Aunt Bea balks at summoning an expensive repairman from Mount Pilot.  “Call the man, Aunt Bea, just call the man!” becomes Andy’s exasperated refrain.  I grew up in a small town in North Carolina – not as small as Mayberry, but close enough to feel a bit like Opie – and my own father’s mannerisms and vocal inflections resembled those of Griffith’s Andy Taylor character.  The Andy Griffith Show reran in local perpetuity, and this strange consonance in paternal images resonated most strongly when “Bargain Day” would play, because for a time my father adopted “Just call the man, Aunt Bea” as his retort to anyone evading the most obvious solution to a problem.  So much of Andy’s wisdom here echoes my dad’s philosophy: his anger when Aunt Bea brokers a deal for Mr. Foley, the kindly butcher to whom she’s been disloyal, to store her bargain beef, because he believes in solving one’s own problems; and his surprise decision to buy a new freezer (at full retail price!) just because life is short.  So I’m hardly qualified to write about this show objectively, but it seems to me that the tag, in which Andy reminisces for his son about the days of ice wagons (“but don’t ask what came before the ice age, because ah don’t go back that far”), achieves a kind of perfection, not trying to be funny or heartwarming, just content to lean back on the porch and pass the warm night.