Question: Here's an argument you can settle. I know that for a while hick sitcoms were huge on TV, but I had an argument with a friend about the trend. Wouldn't you say it was The Andy Griffith Show that started them all? Thank you for your help. I know you won't let me down.
Answer: The Andy Griffith Show is the show that's remembered for breaking the rural-comedy trend wide open after it debuted in 1960, Randall, but the comedy that defied the experts who thought folks in the big markets didn't want to watch their country-folk cousins came along three years earlier: The Real McCoys, which was a runaway hit for ABC before jumping to CBS for a final season in 1962.
Funny thing was, the champions of hayseed humor weren't from anywhere near the territory. Irving Pi
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Wide-eyed actor Ethan Embry — who played Reese Witherspoon's gay best pal in Sweet Home Alabama — is back fighting crime on TV. On his last (short-lived) series, Fox's Freakylinks, he solved paranormal mysteries. Now, he's going back to basics, playing Det. Frank Smith on ABC's Dragnet remake (debuting Sunday at 10 pm/ET).
As exec producer Dick Wolf pointed out to reporters at the Television Critics Assoc. press tour in Hollywood: "Nobody under 35 has seen the original show, unless they're up at 3 in the morning, stoned or drinking, watching TV Land."
"Which is a surprise that I haven't seen it!" quipped the 24-year-old Embry.
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