George Andy Taylor-Bailey

Sheriff Andy Taylor and George Bailey are the same person. Hear me out.

Both of these characters were an important archetype in the past. I’m too indolent to think up some more examples, and then defend the idea from all comers from all points of the internet compass, so let’s stick with those two. They’re the same sort of guy, and that same sort of guy is dead and buried now.

I’m too young to have experienced either George Bailey or Andy Taylor in real time. They’re re-runeriffic touchstones for most people who remember them at all. It’s a Wonderful Life is semi-ubiquitous nowadays, mostly because for a long time, its murky copyright made it a cheap filler for second-rate teevee stations that desperately needed holiday fodder. The movie was a dud when it was released. Lost a half a million bucks in the 1940s, when that kind of scratch was worth more than five F-150s. It’s got a 94% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Either people used to be wrong, or they are now, take your pick. Or maybe it’s only a halfway-decent movie, and everyone is wrong. I dunno. Seems like a masterpiece of storytelling to me.

The Andy Griffith show ran for about ninety years and encompassed ninety-thousand episodes, if I recall correctly. It’s possible I don’t, but you get the idea. It was never a dud and entered a pantheon of teevee notoriety and perenially high ratings that included heavy hitters like I Am Fond of Lucille and Four Jews Yelling at Each Other in a New York Apartment. I don’t watch a lot of teevee, so I may be slightly off with those titles.

Now George Bailey was an upstate New York yankee, more or less, and sheriff Andy was an unapologetic southerner. On first glance, maybe the only link between the two might be Nick, the bartender at Martini’s, who served George Bailey and Clarence Oddbody a drink, and then went home and produced the Andy Griffith Show. But I swear they’re identical.

George Bailey is feted at the end of his long dark night of the soul as maybe the most well-liked, and more importantly, well-respected man in town. Andy Taylor doesn’t need a Bobby Gentry moment on a bridge to know the same thing. He’s the top dog in his town, although he prefers to slumber on the porch rather than chasing cars. Everyone knows it and defers to him. And both of these men get to their exalted perches by trying as best they can to ennoble and support the people around them, instead of trying to accumulate riches and favor and notoriety for themselves. They used to call it leading from behind, but I don’t know what they call it now.  I suppose it doesn’t matter what they call it, because it never happens anymore. Lately anyone claiming they’ve been leading from behind is just trying to claim credit for things they had little to do with. When a wallet full of credit is just lying there on the modern sidewalk, you pick it up and use it. You don’t go looking for the man who dropped it.

Picture if you will the average Ted Talk startup company a-hole delivering his slide-deck reason why they’re God’s older brother. TV preachers live in palaces that would make a pope blush, and put their name on top of the marquee, and in tiny little letters at the bottom write: also starring: Jesus. The founders of the largest corporations in the world say I, I, I more times in an hour than the Frito Bandito did in his whole career. The patron saint of these repellent people is Steve Jobs. He made Ebeneezer Scrooge look like Kris Kringle, screaming about removing inconsequential screws from his pocket Pandora’s Box to his minions. They only put up with it because they hope they might be able to be that big a jerk to somebody else someday. Maybe move up a slot on the totem pole of bile that is modern American corporate commerce.

Andy’s best friend is Barney Fife. Barney is an ugly, cowardly doofus with delusions of grandeur. Andy understands that at bottom, however, Barney is a good guy, and he gently reins him in when he gets out of hand. There’s an episode where Barney accidentally apprehends a dangerous criminal by simply being clumsy and tripping him up. Barney is instantly respected for the feat, such as it was, and bragging about his exploit, because that’s his nature. Hell, that’s human nature. Andy lets him drone on about his triumph, and is genuinely happy for Barney. He avoids questioning him too closely, because while he has his doubts, he knows Barney feels better about himself and he doesn’t want to spoil it for him.

The criminal vows revenge on Barney, and then escapes. Andy does what he always does. He’s all aw-shucks and folksy, but when real danger appears, he pulls a shotgun off the wall and hangs a holster over his shoulder and gets after it. He’s soft on the outside, avuncular, patient, and reasonable, but there’s a hint of iron in the backbone. Barney is visibly terrified. Andy tells him that it’s OK if he doesn’t want to go. Barney chokes back his fear, and agrees to go out and look for the miscreant, but that’s mostly because he knows Andy will take care of him. Eventually Andy figures out where the crook is, says nothing, and posts Barney there. He waits outside, hidden but ready to save Barney if he botches the job. Barney basically repeats his performance and through clumsiness gets the better of the bad guy. He’s a hero again, and never knows why.

George Bailey doesn’t participate in a charming ceremony to put the Martini family in their new home for an Instagram moment that will improve his search engine rankings. He didn’t fund the loan for the house thinking he could foreclose on it if there was postage due on a single payment when the cost of a stamp went up. He did what he did, because that’s what he does. He’s constantly bailing out his forgetful uncle Billy in the same way Andy does for Barney.

It’s telling that both men pull in the finest women in their respective towns. They’re not rich or notable in conventional ways, but Miss Crump isn’t going to settle for a tryst with Howard Sprague. You can tell Donna Reed is suitable only for the best man in town, because in a world without George, she becomes a spinster. Without George, there can’t be a best man in town. A rising tide lifts all boats, and he’s the tide. Woe betide us all when the tide goes out.

But go out it did. We live in Pottersville now, lock stock and barrel. The Bailey Savings and Loan went under after George put the Keating Five on the board of directors. We stopped reading Tom Sawyer, and Clarence Oddbody lost interest. Ellie Walker moved to Pottersville from Mayberry and became a stripper with ZuZu the petal dancer in one of Potter’s dive bars after Andy married Miss Crump.

But I assure you those silent men working behind the curtain of normal, decent, American life used to exist. I know it, because even though George Bailey and Andy Taylor were just characters on a screen, my father and my wife’s father weren’t.