Banjo-Playing Deputy

"Ain't life funny?"---Floyd
Season five of The Andy Griffith Show goes to both extremes for me. On the one hand, it includes two of my least favorite episodes ("Aunt Bee's Romance" and "Family Visit"); but, on the other hand, it has my all-time favorite TAGS episode "The Case of the Punch in the Nose" and one of my top ten "Man in the Middle." Season 5 was the final black & white episode and last season with Barney Fife as a regular character. Many fans probably stop watching TAGS after this season which is unfortunate because the color seasons are very underrated. Luckily, Season Six is going to be released on DVD May 9, so definitely check it out! Now, on to season five:

"Opie Loves Helen": Every season opened with an episode featuring Opie. In this one, Opie develops a crush on Miss Crump.

"Barney's Physical": It's Barney's fifth anniversary on Andy's force and it may be his last year as he is an inch and a few pounds away from passing the new physical requirements for lawmen...

The final part of "The Barney Years"
Thank you Paramount for continuing to release The Andy Griffith Show on DVD. This release of season five will conclude "The Barney Years", as Don Knotts as Deputy Barney Fife, left the series after season five as a regular cast member, in order to do films. I personally feel that these first five years were far-and-away the best the show had to offer. I know that many other people feel much the same way, too. I still plan to buy the final three seasons (six-eight), as-and-when they are released anyway just to make my collection complete, as Don Knotts also made several guest starring appearances on the show during the final three seasons as Barney Fife. There were also several other worthwhile episodes during seasons six-eight. Another thing that changed after season five was that the series was then filmed in color. Thank you again for making these DVD collections available and please continue to release the most complete and unedited episodes possible.

The Andy Griffith Show Season 5 -- The End Of The Barney Fife Era (~sniff, sniff~)
The fifth season of "The Andy Griffith Show" (1964-1965) is yet another admirable and very funny year in the eight-season lifespan of this beloved television comedy series. Season #5 is presented in its complete form on the five discs that make up this handsome DVD set from Paramount Home Entertainment. And each of these 32 episodes looks beautiful, too. Excellent video and audio quality.

All 32 show-closing epilogues are fully intact in this DVD collection (unlike Season 3, which has a select few missing). And as far as I can tell, short of digging up each original script (somehow) and checking all shows word for word, these episodes appear to be "uncut". I can't see any discernible edits, despite a disclaimer at Paramount's webpage for this release that says: "Some episodes may be edited from their original network versions".

However, that same "edits" disclaimer is not included on the back of this Season-Five box (as it was on the S.3 box, which does contain a...

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