A Feud Is a Feud

A Feud Is a Feud – The Andy Griffith Show season 1, Originally aired December 5, 1960

A Feud Is a Feud – Andy tries to stop a long-time feud between two mountain families so their children can get married.

A young couple wakes the Taylors late at night and wants to get married. Andy barely gets started when Hanna’s father bursts in and stops the wedding at gunpoint. Followed by Josh’s father, who has the same intentions. It seems that the Carters and Wakefields have been feuding for years. The patriarchs ain’t about to let one o’ theirs marry one o’ them, so Andy backs down.

Josh Wakefield: Sheriff, it don’t matter what her name is, Wakefield or Carter. We’re both more’n 18. It’s your bound and duty to marry us if we ask you to.
Andy Taylor: Well now, the boy’s got hisself a point.
[Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Carter point their shotguns at Andy]
Andy Taylor: But you’all have got better points.

The Feud

In the morning Andy decides the best course of action is to end the feud before marrying the couple. So, he visits both fathers. He learns that neither knows how the feud started. And that no one has been killed in the 87 years of fighting.

Andy Taylor: Now I looked up the records, the old sheriff’s records and hospital records and such as that for the past 87 years and do you know what?
Jedediah Wakefield: What?
Andy Taylor: There ain’t never been nary a Wakefield or Carter that was so much as even hit.
Jedediah Wakefield: Well it ain’t because we wasn’t tryin’.
Mr. Carter: Dang Wakefields keep movin’ around.

Andy proposes a duel to end the feud ….

The Duel

Andy Taylor: Ready, One… Fellas, you’re supposed to walk when I start countin’.
Mr. Carter: Well, a fella’s legs gets mighty heavy.
Jedediah Wakefield: Yeah, everybody knows a fella gets our age, the first thing that goes is his legs.
Andy Taylor: Well it’s just a short walk and it’s the last time you’ll be a usin’ them.

But both men run off rather than take the chance of getting killed. In the end, Andy marries Josh and Hannah at gunpoint.

Andy interprets Romeo and Juliet

Opie Taylor: What’s a soliloquy?
Andy Taylor: Well a soliloquy is where you kind of look away off and kinda talk to yourself.
Opie Taylor: Oh.
Andy Taylor: They used to do that a whole lot back then. You do it today and somebody will take you away.

Andy Taylor: [explaining Romeo and Juliet to Opie] And Juliet said ‘Romeo, Romeo, where art thou Romeo?’ And Romeo said ‘well I’m right ‘tchere!’

Andy Taylor: Goodbye, goodbye. Partin’ is such sweet sorrow that I would say goodbye till it be morrow.
Opie Taylor: What’s THAT mean?
Andy Taylor: Well, that means I’d love to set and jaw with ya awhile longer, but I got to be a-movin’ on.

Cast of characters

• Andy Griffith (A Face in the Crowd, Matlock) … Andy Taylor
• Ron Howard (The Music Man) … Opie Taylor
• Frances Bavier (The Stooge, The Day the Earth Stood Still) … Aunt Bee Taylor
• Arthur Hunnicutt (Cat Ballou) … Jedediah Wakefield
• Chubby Johnson (Calamity Jane) … Mr. Carter
• Karyn Kupcinet (The Ladies Man, Little Shop of Horrors) … Hannah Carter (as Tammy Windsor)
• Claude Johnson (Adam-12, Space Raiders) … Josh Wakefield

Trivia

• This episode incorporates Andy Griffith’s humorous monologue retelling the story of Romeo and Juliet, much like his story “What It Was, Was Football.” Both routines appeared on his 1958 album “Just for Laughs.”
• Andy shooting a pistol isn’t the only time in the series he shot a gun. He fired a pistol in the air in The Gentleman Crook episode and fired at a station wagon in Aunt Bee Takes a Job. Also he shoots a shotgun in The Perfect Female episode shooting skeet against Thelma Lou’s cousin.
• Frances Bavier (Aunt Bee) and Chubby Johnson (Mr Carter) both appeared with James Stewart in “Bend of the River” (1952).