Nice gun holster …
DATELINE, Statesville, NC — Ever been to Statesville, North Carolina? It’s kind of like Mayberry RFD – you know, that fictional place that was the setting in the 60s TV series, The Andy Griffith Show. Except it’s in color, not black & white, and it looks like it’s grown up with the changing times.
We wouldn’t exactly call it vibrant, but there’s evidence of life, for sure. Not much evidence, but it’s there. However, no sign — not even a whiff of Avery E. Sharpe – A K A Mr. Sharpe Shears. People spoke of him, but there was no visible sighting.
Well, we enjoyed our self-guided tour. Even ate a burger in one of the spots there. It just doesn’t seem like the kind of place you’d find a guy like Avery Sharpe, though. He seems out of place here. Definitely mis-cast. NOT the kind of person you think you’d get from central casting when you asked for a supporting person to act the part of a salon-visiting, hair-cutting scissors sharpener – shears, as they’re called in the industry.
The Andy Griffith Show, which purported to be about small-town life in North Carolina, actually was filmed on the other side of the country, at Desilu Studios in Callifornia. The street scene exteriors were filmed at Forty Acres in Culver City, California. The woodsy locales, which you watched while the theme song was whistled, were filmed north of Beverly Hills at Franklin Canyon, including the shot of main characters, Sheriff Andy and his son, Opie, walking to and from “the fishin’ hole”. It’s TV smoke and mirrors. Avery Sharpe Shears seems like he also belongs on the other side of the country, too – like maybe in one of the many LA-area homeless encampments you see littering the once-beautiful city.
LA-area homeless encampment, California. (Fox News photo)
