Mayberry Minutemen

Mayberry Media => Characters => Topic started by: Gomer Says Hey on February 19, 2014, 10:06:03 pm


Title: Helen Crump
Post by: Gomer Says Hey on February 19, 2014, 10:06:03 pm
It's only been recently that I learned an interesting bit of trivia about Helen Crump: she apparently was only intended to be a one-shot character, appearing in that one episode where she was the new teacher in Opie's class that none of the kids liked (especially when it came to History), and because of that, the writers couldn't come up with a decent name for her, so they intentionally went with a name they thought sounded awful since that was supposed to be the only time we'd see her.
Title: Re: Helen Crump
Post by: Barney Fife on February 21, 2014, 09:25:18 am
I wish it was the only time we saw her.I didn't like Helen most of the time.It seemed she was always angry about something Andy did.
Title: Re: Helen Crump
Post by: Gomer Says Hey on February 21, 2014, 11:28:37 am
As I said before, that's the reason I never liked Ellie Walker, because it seemed like most of her episodes were always the same: she decides to do something that seems radical or unheard of (for the early 60s anyway), Andy says something in a joking manner to tease her a little, she gets all huffy and takes his joking seriously and personally, spends the rest of the episode being mad at him, other characters try to get him to swallow his pride and right his wrong, in the end he eventually does, then all's right with the world again as if nothing happened.

In a sense, that was kind of ahead of its time, in that they were basically trying to show the world that times were changing, and women were capable of doing just as much, if not more that of what men can do, and that women were becoming more and more independent... it just seems like they went about showing that in a clumsy manner... especially today where it just comes off as plain ol' sexist, such as "Ellie Runs for Council", where all the men in Mayberry refuse to vote for Ellie as Council(wo)man of Mayberry simply because she's a woman and they feel a woman has no business running office.

Again, it was kind of ahead of its time though... feminism and such really wasn't quite as prelevent as it was by the 70s, when it was a big movement, and as such, pop culture was able to really reflect it a lot better (ala THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW).