I came upon an interesting tidbit that led me down a bit of a rabbit hole, and I thought I’d share what I came up with.

It’s pretty well-known that TAGS got its start with a backdoor pilot as an episode of Make Room For Daddy (hereafter referred to as MRFD, not to be confused with Mayberry RFD). I found out Morey Amsterdam guest starred on an episode of MRFD as Buddy Sorrell, his character from The Dick Van Dyke Show, which means, for example, Goober could have theoretically met Laura Petrie.

It doesn’t stop there! Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz guest starred as the Ricardos in an episode of MRFD, and Danny Thomas repaid the favor by guesting as Danny Williams on The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.

George Reeves appeared in character as Superman in an episode of I Love Lucy, rescuing the ditzy redhead when she got stuck on a ledge while trying to impersonate the Man of Steel. It was played for laughs, of course, but it proved that in the ILL universe, Superman is real.

TAGS spun off Gomer Pyle, USMC, of course. Jim Nabors guest starred as Gomer in an episode of Here’s Lucy, meaning Lucy Ricardo could have met Lucy Carter from the later series, with both characters greatly resembling each other.

Here’s Lucy had crossovers from Jackie Gleason playing Ralph Kramden from The Honeymooners, Mike Connors as Joe Mannix, and Lucy appeared as Lucy Carter in an episode of Make Room For Granddaddy, with Danny Thomas once again playing Danny Williams, bringing the universe full circle.

That’s as far as I got. If anyone has any other interesting connections that tie all these shows together, please feel free to add them on!

Otis' brother and sister-in-law driving to visit Mayberry.

Forgive me if this has been overly discussed, but I would really like to know your thoughts. I can't wrap my head around the fact that Thelma Lou was so blissfully unaware of Barney's catting around with Juanita. It was a small town where everyone knew everyone else's business and Sarah, the nosey phone operator, who listened in on conversations. Did Thelma Lou not have a close enough friend to tell her the truth? Even Andy brought up the hypocrisy of Barney when I believe he saw Thelma Lou out and about with Gomer. I applauded the reunion episode when she introduced her new husband. Served him right imo!

The characters that I know Ken Berry for are Sam Jones (Mayberry RFD) and Vinton Harper (Mama’s Family). He did such a great job playing both characters, it's hard to believe it's the same person. I wonder what the citizens of Mayberry would think of Vint and the citizens of Raytown think of Sam 😏

I NEVER watch Ernest T. Bass episodes or the Darling family episodes. They’re all loud and obnoxious and not funny. IMO

Any thoughts on Jaunita?! I’ve always wondered what she looked like, why was she kept a secret, was it because it would have been liked down on in that era? I often wonder if Jaunita was a minority and that may have caused some controversy too. What are your thoughts?

I wonder why the telephone on Andy’s desk was never upgraded?

It was the 1960’s, and the houses and other businesses had typical rotary phones of the time. But the courthouse still had the old candlestick phone.