Andy Griffith Show Memories : Episode #4 - Ellie Comes to Town

Ellie Comes to Town

Overview

A new female druggist, Ellie May Walker, Ph. G. (Pharmacy Gal), comes to town to work for her uncle and quickly realizes that things work a little differently in a small town like Mayberry than they do elsewhere.

Episode Number: 4 Season Number: 1

First Aired: October 24, 1960

Writers: Jack Elinson, Charles Stewart

Cast/Crew/Cast Stars

Director: Don Weis

• Andy Griffith (Andy Taylor)
• Ron Howard (Opie Taylor)
• Frances Bavier (Aunt Bee Taylor)
• Don Knotts (Barney Fife)
• Cheerio Meredith (Emma Brand)
• Elinor Donahue (Ellie Walker)

Episode Summary

Ellie Walker makes her first appearance as a lady pharmacist in Mayberry. Whe she agrees to take over the daily duties at Walker's Drugs for her uncle Fred, she quickly finds herself at odds with most of her uncle's customers. Ellie has trouble dealing with Mayberry's laid back and trusting at first. She ends up making enemies faster than she makes friends. Things really get nasty when Ellie refuses to sell Emma Brand her pills because she does not have a prescription. Emma's health supposedly declines quickly, and Ellie finds herself becoming the town witch as she gets blamed for Emma being sick. Andy tries and fails to resolve the situation. In the end, Ellie comes around to Andy's way of thinking. She sees that perhaps it's more important to consider the needs of the people than it is to follow all the rules and regulations. It turns out Emma's pills had no medicinal value at all. Her symptoms were all in her head, so she was never in any real danger. This episode offers a view of Mayberry from the eyes of an outsider. Elinor Donahue contributed a great deal to the show's first season, and Cheerio Meredith was great as the cranky Emma Brand (later called Emma Watson).

Notes/Trivia

• In this episode, the license plate on the squad car is DC-269. It can been seen when Andy and Barney pull up to Emma's house to deliver Aunt Bee's soup. In every other episode where you can see the license plate to the squad car, the number is JL-327.
• Ellie and Opie, away from the script, make faces at each other in the drugstore window.
• In this episode, Andy says that he was in France during the war. Since according to both Class Reunion episodes, Andy didn't graduate high school until after 1946. Therefore, it's highly unlikely he would have made it to France during the war.
• This episode marks the first appearance of Ellie Walker, Andy's first love interest in the series. Andy usually seemed to gravitate toward educated, professional women. After the episode was filmed, the boradcast date was moved up because the producers decided that Andy needed a love interest.
• The series was filmed entirely in Hollywood, at Desilu Productions on the former RKO Pictures lot. Mayberry exteriors were shot on the former Selznick International Pictures lot, later known as Forty Acres. The rural fishing hole that opened each episode was Franklin Canyon Lake, just north of Beverly Hills. Franklin Canyon was also the site of the show's Myers Lake and other outdoor locales.

• The whistled theme song, "The Fishin' Hole" was composed by Earle Hagen (the music coordinator and famous whistler of the show) and Herbert Spencer, with unsung lyrics by Everett Sloane. Hagen also wrote the music for the series.

Memorable Dialogue

Emma, threatening to boycott the drug store: Come next Christmastime, don't expect me to buy my cotton balls from you!