Why Floyd the Barber Was Funny

If you were to look back at the history of the great television sitcoms, more often than not you'd find a star at the center of things, but the smart ones surround themselves with an ensemble of actors/characters that become equally as memorable. From The Jack Benny Program to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cheers, Seinfeld and The Office, the evidence is there. But one series that is very much in a league of its own is The Andy Griffith Show.

Running on CBS from from 1960 to 1968 for a total of eight seasons and 249 episodes, The Andy Griffith Show (which is currently airing on the MeTV network) was set in the fictional North Carolina town of Mayberry and focused on Andy Griffith's single father Sheriff Andy Taylor, who was raising his son Opie (Ron Howard) with the help of their Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier). And then there were the other denizens of the town, notably Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife (Don Knotts), mechanics Goober and Gomer Pyle (George Lindsey and Jim Nabors), town drunk Otis Campbell (Hal Smith) and Floyd Lawson, aka "Floyd the Barber" (Howard McNear), who struck a particularly strong connection with the audience.

howard-mcnear-the-andy-griffith-show — Courtesy Allan Newsome

"What I've been hearing for many, many years is that after Andy and Opie and Aunt Bee and Barney, probably the most beloved character on the show was Floyd the Barber," offers pop culture historian Geoffrey Mark, who is also the author of the definitive book on Lucille Ball's television appearances, The Lucy Book. "If you watch all the episodes like I have hundreds of times, Floyd the Barber really permeates Mayberry. A lot of Mayberry's attitudes get revealed through him, because that barbershop was kind of the center of town for the men to gossip in. And there were almost as many scenes in the barbershop as there were in Andy's office. People just hung out there, so whenever anything happened in town, any storyline where something was going on, there was always a scene at Floyd's where they discussed it."

As noted above, playing Floyd was actor Howard McNear, who had enjoyed an extensive career in radio and some television long before he arrived in Mayberry at the age of 56. His character described by Wikipedia as a "vague, chatty barber," what is truly amazing is that in the middle of the show's run, Howard suffered a stroke that resulted in the left side of his body being nearly paralyzed. Although he left for a time, he was warmly invited back and managed to make the character even more memorable despite his limitations.

"Before Howard had his stroke," says Geoffrey, "he was able to be both verbally and physically funny. The character of Floyd was not an airhead in the beginning. He was a caricature of all of the small-town men who had become business owners. They had grown themselves as far as they could possibly grow, which was not very much, and then kind of made themselves into town elders, remarking on everything that went on, because somehow everything in town was their business."

Please scroll down for much more on Howard McNear, Floyd the Barber and The Andy Griffith Show.

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Career Start

Allan Newsome, a "Floyd the Barber Tribute Artist" performing at various Mayberry-related events, and host of the long-running Mayberry-centric podcast "Two Chairs, No Waiting" (TCNW), comments, "The more I have portrayed him and studied what he does on the show and how he behaves, the more impressed I am with the way he was able to take those sometimes minimal lines and make them very entertaining. George Lindsey in particular was telling me that even on days he was off he would go to the set just to watch Howard McNear work. He was just so much like the actual character he was portraying that it was a joy to watch."

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Starring Role

Portraying Floyd the Barber resulted in a bit of a discovery process for Allan, who comments, "In trying to mimic his behavior, it made me realize how great an actor he along with the other cast members were. I have scripts from The Andy Griffith Show and there are some lines which may not have much to them, but the actors took those words and made them entertaining. People who don't act probably think actors just get in front of the camera and 'do things.' But that obviously isn't the case. They actually spend time, if they're good, making those lines their own and turning them into something that maybe the writers didn't even originally realize were going to be humorous. Howard did that again and again."

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Big Debut

Veteran Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper wrote a profile of Howard that was published in January, 1960 — nine months before the Andy Griffith Show would make its debut — that enthused, "When top comedians chew the fat about their craft, Howard McNear's name is bound to come up. He's played with all of them, bringing a unique type characterization to their shows which no one has succeeded in imitating. I knew him first on my radio shows, later as 'Mr. Hamish' of the George Gobel time. I've watched him with George Burns and Gracie Allen, Tennessee Ernie Ford and with Jack Benny. Recently he stepped out of his favorite characterization to play the doctor in Anatomy of a Murder; it brought him a slew of offers for straight roles."

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Different Roles

"But I don't like to play straight [dramatic] parts anymore," Howard told Hedda. "Just last week I turned one down. My agent could have killed me and so could my wife. But it was a serious thing; they wanted me for a judge who was committing a girl to a mental institution. I didn't think it was right for me. I prefer specialized bits."

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Iconic Character

Hedda also observed that Howard's "frustrated character, who leaves sentences hanging in the air at times while pantomime finished out the idea, is too intense to be done too often." For his part, Howard explained of that comic persona, "He's a sort of nervous wreck and you can't be on too much with it. I fitted him into the part of an absent-minded lawyer for a Jack Benny show, and he called me for another show. At first he wanted me to play it straight and I tried it for a couple of rehearsals. Then they agreed it would be better for me to do it my own way. Jack said he thought I was a master of this peculiar thing and he couldn't remember anyone doing a character like it."

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Creativity

In musing on the creation of the characterization he would be remembered for, Howard felt that it wasn't copied from any one thing or a combination of things he had seen or heard. "I think," he said, "they evolve from the person himself. I think perhaps its my own mannerisms — exaggerated, of course. I've often wondered if such portrayals aren't built up from the subconscious. I've worked with practically all the big comics and have arrived at that conclusion after analyzing their techniques."

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Shy Kid

He was born Howard Terbell McNear on January 27, 1905 in Los Angeles. He studied at the Oatman School of Theater and eventually joined the Savoy Players Stock Company in San Diego, California. He received his first dramatic training from Patia Power, mother of actor Tyronne Power. "My mother," he told the Progress-Bulletin of Pomona, California, "agreed to let me go to the school, but I was so shy I walked up and down in front of it for three days before I had the courage to go inside."

To the Los Angeles Times he elaborated, "As a young fellow, I was painfully shy. I'm still shy. I really feel perfectly at home only when I'm on stage. Meeting people is far harder for me than being behind the footlights; perhaps that's because I can feel I'm someone else when I'm acting."

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Setting His Sights On Radio

Howard gravitated towards radio, where his talents were perfectly suited. In 1937 he voiced the character of Samuel the Seal in the seasonal fantasy show The Cinnamon Bear. From 1938 to 1940 he played "ace operator" Clint Barlow on the radio serial drama Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police. In the 1940s he performed opposite Parley Baer and William Conrad in an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo. His career was interrupted by World War II, where he was a private in the U.S. Army Air Corps. Afterwards he went back into radio, beginning with syndicated shows like The Shadow of Fu Manchu, The Lux Radio Theatre and The Cavalcade of America.

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Versatility

He proved himself quite versatile, handling a number of diverse roles on such shows as The Adventures of Bill Lance, The Casebook of Gregory Hood, The Gallant Heart, Romance of the Ranchos. There were also comedy radio shows like Burns and Allen and Our Miss Brooks, crime dramas Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar; The Adventures of Sam Spade and The Line Up. And then there were Westerns Fort Laramie, The Six Shooter and the show he was best known for, voicing Doc on Gunsmoke, which was a radio hit long before it was adapted to television.

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'Gunsmoke'

Radiospirits.info said of Howard on Gunsmoke, "[He] brought the character of 'Doc' to life from the very first episode as a man delighted by the thought of all of the money he stood to collect from the number of men Marshall Matt Dillon sent to Boot Hill. William Conrad, who played Dillon, was so tickled by McNear's wickedly ghoulish take on the character that he suggested Doc's real name by 'Dr. Charles Adams,' a reference to macabre cartoonist Charles Addams."

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Early Roles

He began appearing in feature films with two uncredited parts in 1953's Escape From Fort Bravo and the Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball film The Long, Long Trailer. From there he made 26 others between 1954's Drums Across the River and 1966's The Fortune Cookie. Among them were three Elvis Presley films (Blue Hawaii, Follow That Dream and Fun in Acapulco).

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Elvis Presley

Allan was told an interesting story by Howard's son, Kit, about Elvis Presley. "Kit was home by himself," he relates. "The phone rings and he picked it up and the voice on the other line said, 'Hello, this is Elvis Presley. I'd like to speak to Howard … ' Kit said, 'Knock it off, Johnny,' and hung up on him. Elvis had to call back twice, and the reason he persisted is that he really liked Howard and just wanted to call and talk to him. I guess that kind of tells you a little bit about the guy he was that people he worked with in movies and television tried to stay in touch with him after it was all over."

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Television Appearances

Howard began appearing on television in 1952 with the anthology series Four Star Playhouse. From there he didn't stop, making appearances on dozens of different shows, including seven episodes of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, six episodes of Gunsmoke (not as Doc, but different roles), four episodes of The Real McCoys, an episode of I Love Lucy, three episodes of The Ann Sothern Show and seven episodes of The Jack Benny Program. Of course, life took on a whole new direction when he was cast as Floyd on The Andy Griffith Show, the success of which actually surprised him at the time.

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Getting Recognized

"I can't understand it," he admitted. "After all these years, now people are beginning to recognize me on the street and in restaurants. They even mistake my brother for me and he's quite flattered. My first TV show was with George Gobel. I was scared going out there in front of 30 million people all at once, but George was very helpful to me. And then there's Jack Benny. He's a big star, but he took the trouble to call my wife once and tell her how well he thought I did in one of his shows. My wife was in tears afterwards; she was so happy."

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Making Strides

"Floyd," notes Geoffrey, "was supposed to be a generation older than Andy, remembering Andy and Barney growing up as kids. He also gave another perspective as an elder of the town. Sometimes close-minded, sometimes judgmental, sometimes jumping to conclusions and sometimes giving them some wisdom and he gave the show a needed voice. He wasn't always involved in the high jinks, although sometimes he was. More often he was almost like a Greek chorus, commenting on the high jinks."

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Big Return

Unfortunately, in 1963 he suffered the stroke that resulted in his having to leave the show. But, Geoffrey emphasizes, "The very nice people at The Andy Griffith Show chose to do something that was very rare, I think, in television. They did not write the character out nor did they replace Howard with another actor. They gave him the space to get better and when he got better enough that he could deliver lines reasonably well and be funny, they brought him back on the show. So he was gone for over a year — not a season, but over a year, from the show. They talked about him, they walked past his barbershop, you just never saw Floyd. And then, all of a sudden, he was back."

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Loyalty

Allan picks up the scenario, explaining that Andy Griffith actually contacted Howard's wife and asked her if he would be able to come back. She said, 'That would be amazing. That would be great.' And they made accommodations for him. He was always leaning on something or sitting down. She credited that with keeping him alive for a few extra years. I've just always thought it was an amazing story that Andy showed such loyalty to Howard."

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Coming Back

Geoffrey states that when Howard came back, if one was looking carefully it's obvious that he had been ill: "He's lost weight, his speech had become a little stammered and as a good actor — because he was a good actor — he used it in the character. His disability informed who Floyd became. They never said that Floyd had a stroke or anything, but he used his stammer to the character's advantage. They went to all of this trouble to be inclusive and maybe in today's world they would have written his stroke into the script and let it be real. In those days, you didn't do that."

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Leaving the Show

Howard would end up leaving the series for the final time in 1967. "It reached the point," Geoffrey points out, "where it became obvious to people watching that the actor was not able to do his best work anymore. His last episode of the show happened to be one that required him to drive a car, to be on location. It was a hard shoot for him, because it required a lot of the character. In the last shot he did, the twitching of the face and his having trouble getting the lines out is really obvious. After that he had more mini-strokes and it was mutually decided that he just couldn't do the work anymore. His character was written out as having moved his barbershop to a larger city. But I have to say, I don't know any other series where the cast and crew went to such great lengths to protect an actor and keep him working."

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Marriage

Howard had married his wife, Helen Spats, in 1926 and they were together until his death on January 3, 1969 from complications of pneumonia following a final stroke. All these years later, though, his memory certainly lives on through the lives he touched. Allan, for one, seems to treasure a story that Kit McNear shared with him, mostly because it's so Howard. "Howard had been at work and he was basically telling them that he'd gotten run out of his house by his wife with a broom, because he'd gotten paint on the wall," Allan laughs. "His son was making dumbbells and needed to paint them black. They had a can of paint, but it stopped working. Howard comes up with the idea of using a can opener."

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My blood runs cold 6 howard mcnear as local antiques expert henry

Funny Moment

"So," he continues, "Howard put this can of spray paint under the electric can opener, and it just sprayed a line of paint around the entire kitchen and right across Howard's glasses. Kit said that when he took the glasses off, he looked like a raccoon. So his wife ran him out of the house with a broom and Howard said, 'I had to stay in the guest room. But it has curtains.' Apparently it was really important that it had curtains; he just threw that in, because that's the kind of thing that Floyd would tend to do."

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Legacy

In offering up a final assessment of Howard's life and career, Geoffrey comments, "He was one of those character actors who did a lot of one-shots, or they'd bring him back to the same show playing a different character, because he could. But getting cast on The Andy Griffith Show cemented him, almost like William Frawley on I Love Lucy, where he had done all of these films and all of this radio stuff. But if you mention William Frawley, the only thing that comes out of people's mouths is Fred Mertz. Howard broke out of that character-actor-we-can-count-on mold.

"Why is something iconic?" he asks rhetorically. "It's that combination of actors who bring something to their roles that make us love them, incredible casting, incredible writing, incredible direction. And the premise of the show has to be good and open enough that all kinds of things can happen. It's that wonderful recipe; a wonderful stew of different details coming together that makes it so delicious. And Howard McNear was a delicious ingredient in The Andy Griffith Show stew."

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Source: https://www.closerweekly.com/posts/heres-what-happened-to-floyd-the-barber-from-the-andy-griffith-show/