Favorite TV Show Blogathon–“The Pickle Story,” The Andy Griffith Show

I hate pickles. I find them disgusting and hate when the complimentary pickle spear finds its way onto my plate at restaurants. I don’t like the pickle water bleeding onto the neighboring food and making it also taste like pickles. I can tolerate pickles chopped up in things, like tuna salad, but only if the amount of the other ingredients outweighs the amount of pickle.

My hatred of pickles makes “The Pickle Story” episode of The Andy Griffith Show especially funny. This episode originally aired on December 18, 1961 and the plot is simply that Aunt Bee’s (Francis Bavier) homemade pickles are disgusting. At the beginning of the episode, Aunt Bee is visited by her friend, Clara Johnson (Hope Summers), Mayberry’s reigning pickle champion at the county fair for the last eleven years in a row. She hopes that this year’s batch will win her twelfth blue ribbon. This scene also introduces the episode’s cliffhanger: Clara announces that this year she’s increased the amount of allspice in her pickle recipe. Will this lavish use of allspice put Clara’s blue ribbon in jeopardy?

“I simply went wild with allspice!” -Clara

Well if it does, Bee won’t be the one ending the streak. After offering Clara a pickle, Bee looks at her with a look of hope and optimism–maybe this will finally be the batch that will usurp champion Clara’s domination of the pickle competition at the county fair. Clara takes a bite of the pickle and winces. The funniest part of this episode is the music that plays every time someone tastes Bee’s pickles. Clara tries to use the compliment sandwich technique of offering critical feedback. She tells Bee that while her pickles are very pleasant and nice and she wouldn’t change a thing, she recommends that Bee use younger cucumbers so her pickles wouldn’t be so soft. Clara also suggests that Bee tone down her brine as it’s heavy and steep an extra sprig or two of parsley in vinegar prior to adding it to her brine. She also suggests that Bee drain her pickles more, use fresher spices and boiling her vinegar longer. But other than that, Bee’s pickles are nice, Clara says.

“I don’t know how I can face the future knowing there’s eight quarts of those pickles in it.”
-Barney

Clara’s thinly disguised distaste of her pickles is lost on Bee as she eagerly heads down to the Sheriff’s office to bring lunch to Andy (Andy Griffith) and Barney (Don Knotts). At first the men are excited to see Bee but their enthusiasm quickly fades when they realize that she’s brought a jar of her awful “kerosene cucumbers.” Andy and Barney know what fate awaits them and they try to act excited, but are horribly failing. Bee is completely oblivious. Barney tries to feign being full, but Bee won’t hear of it. Andy and Barney are forced to placate Bee and eat her pickles and the hilarious music plays. She then tells them that she made eight quarts. Eight quarts of these godawful pickles.

Andy’s face is how everyone’s face looks after eating Bee’s pickles.

This starts a scheme where Andy and Barney try to get rid of Bee’s pickles and replace them with store-bought pickles which are far superior. There’s a funny scene where Andy tries to shoo a fly off the pickle and Barney discovers that it died! Bee’s pickle brine was so bad a fly died. That evening, Barney comes over to Andy’s house while Bee is over at Clara’s house to take all the jars of pickles. Bee unexpectedly enters through the kitchen door, just as Barney is trying to leave. She spots Barney’s suitcase and asks if he’s going on a trip. Barney, the smooth operator that he is, explains that yes, he is going on a trip and he came over to borrow Andy’s suitcase, because “[his] is at the cleaners.” Despite Bee accepting the story and wishing him a good trip, Barney keeps awkwardly blathering while Andy is dying on the inside.

The pattern on Bee’s dress hilariously matches the wallpaper.

Barney finally leaves and we see a montage of scenes of him stopping motorists and handing them a jar of pickles saying that their exemplary driving made them the winner of Mayberry’s Safe Driving Award. A poor driver from Portland, OR (where I live, more or less) is handed a jar of Bee’s horrible, mushy, briny pickles. I appreciate that “Oregon” was pronounced correctly in the episode and not as “Or-eh-gone.” Anyway, Andy makes the switch and he, Barney and Opie all gladly eat Bee’s pickles. One evening at dinner, while eating a pickle, Bee expresses happiness over how good “her” pickles are and announces she’s going to enter them in the county fair. As an aside, in the dinner scene, the pattern on Bee’s dress perfectly matches the pattern of the wallpaper behind her and I always find it funny. Anyway, Andy is horrified that Bee is planning to enter something that she didn’t make.

Barney during happier times eating Bee’s pickles as she gleefully looks on.

Barney doesn’t see what the big deal is, but Andy explains that he cannot in good conscience allow Bee to unknowingly enter pickles she didn’t make. It is decided that Bee must make more pickles. Barney is horrified at the thought of purposely forcing Bee to make more pickles, but he ultimately relents. This sets up a hilarious scene of Andy, Barney and Opie eating jar after jar of pickles, so that 1) there aren’t any pickles left to enter in the contest; and 2) So that Bee sees them enjoying “her” pickles and wants to make more. Andy, Barney and Opie all have their own theme music that slows down as they eat more and more pickles. Andy’s music is more or less a modified version of the show’s theme song, Opie’s is more childlike, and Barney’s is in the middle. By the last jar of pickles, each character looks like they’re going to be sick and the music has slowed down to a labored dirge.

Despite having watched the boys eat all her pickles, Aunt Bee is horrified to see that all her pickles are gone. She quickly makes more and soon it’s time for the fair! The judging scene is funny. The judges get to Bee’s jar, pull a pickle out, sniff it, apprehensively taste it and concur that it must have been made from kerosene. In the end, Clara’s gamble with her wild use of allspice pays off and she earns her twelfth blue ribbon. Bee also announces that because everyone loved her pickles so much, she made a double batch! 16 quarts of pickles. Andy then resigns himself to a lifetime of eating terrible pickles. “Learn to love them,” he says, stoically.

“Don’t tell me Aunt Bee’s making marmalade now!”

In the hysterical tag scene, Andy is eating breakfast and spreads some marmalade on his toast. Barney comes in and asks if he’s painting. Andy says no and concludes that it’s Opie’s glue. Barney disagrees and says that it smells like ammonia. He then sits down to some breakfast and smears some of the marmalade on toast. Barney is about to take a bite and is almost overcome by the fumes. Andy opens the container of jam on the table and realizes that it is the source of the smell. They open the cupboard and are horrified to see a dozen jars of Aunt Bee’s latest concoction.

This episode is absolutely hysterical. From the music that plays each time someone eats one of Bee’s awful pickles, to almost all of Barney’s dialogue. Clara’s constant boasting of using allspice is hilarious. It’s as if she discovered some secret ingredient that’s elevated her recipes and she can’t help but brag about it. Poor Andy is caught in the middle between not wanting to hurt Bee’s feelings but also not wanting to eat anymore of her disgusting pickles. Barney just hates Bee’s pickles and doesn’t want to eat them. He doesn’t care. Opie doesn’t have a big role in this episode, but he is memorably stuck eating jar after jar of pickles. Bee is absolutely oblivious (or in denial) throughout the entire episode, as anyone with eyes could see that people don’t enjoy eating her pickles.

As a native Oregonian, I still think about that poor soul from Oregon who was unwittingly gifted a jar of Bee’s kerosene cucumbers.

This poor poor man.