Summary[]
Barney and Gomer try to retrieve a baseball from a supposedly haunted house and find some strange goings-on inside.
Plot[]
Opie and Arnold are having an argument over whether Whitey Ford could strike out Mickey Mantle. They each pretend to be one of the baseball players in question to settle the issue, but Opie hits Arnold's pitch into the old Rimshaw House. When the two go to retrieve it, a ghostly voice moans, and they flee.
Meanwhile, Barney determines that Otis needs a sobriety test before he can leave the jail, and tries to get him to jump rope. The boys interrupt, but Andy disbelieves their claim about ghosts, thinking it was just the wind, and tells them not to go into the old, rotten house. After they leave, Andy sends Barney to retrieve the baseball, as Barney had bragged about not fearing ghosts in front of the boys. Barney starts to hesitate, but eventually goes, taking Gomer with him. The two have the same experience as the boys and flee without entering the house.
Otis, before he leaves the jail, cautions Andy and Barney about the Rimshaw house, recounting local rumors about moving walls, floating axes, and living paintings. Andy determines to settle the matter, taking Barney and Gomer back to the house with him. They find the baseball, but Andy insists they look around. Gomer steps into a hidden passage, and Barney panics, thinking Gomer has disappeared, until Gomer reappears claiming someone or something pushed him out. They find freshly peeled wallpaper and evidence of recent fires in the fireplace, and deduce someone - perhaps a tramp - has been living in the house. Andy goes upstairs to look, and assigns Barney and Gomer the cellar, but they are too frightened to go down. The trio notice a painting "watching" them with living eyes, and Andy, now seemingly scared too, yells for a retreat. Barney and Gomer run for it, but Andy only pretends to and stays behind, hiding upstairs.
Otis and long-time moonshiner Big Jack Anderson emerge from the secret passage and laugh about the rumors they have spread and spooky pranks they have played, which kept people away from the house and the still Jack is operating in the cellar. A floating axe suddenly appears; Otis and Jack panic and flee out the front door straight into Gomer's custody just as Barney, who realized Andy never made it out, returns to rescue Andy through the back door. He nearly faints at the sight of the flying axe, until Andy reveals he was swinging it on a string, and shows Barney the truth about the 'hauntings' and the still.
An ATF agent later arrives to pick up Jack on some outstanding warrants, and asks to meet the 'rough and tough' officers that caught him. When Andy tries to introduce the agent to Barney and Gomer, he is embarrassed to find them in the jailhouse teaching Otis and Jack how to jump rope.
Trivia/Notes[]
- This episode reportedly inspired the movie, "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken," starring Don Knotts and a few of his "Andy Griffith Show" co-stars.
- Opie's friend Arnold was formerly a bad influence, when he came to town as the Spoiled Kid.
- Barney refers to the Twilight Zone in this episode.
- The Rimshaw house is actually the home directly to the right of the Taylors. The crew added bushes and shrubbery to give a more dilapidated look.
- According to the script, Johnny Paul Jason was originally supposed to appear in this episode, before he was replaced with Arnold.
- The rhyme that Barney recites at the very end of the episode is the same one that he recites in "A Medal for Opie".
- MeTV stations play this episode on Halloween each year because it is the only horror-themed episode in the series besides "Three Wishes for Opie", and is the "scarier" of the two.
- This is the only episode where we see Otis actively helping a Moonshiner, instead of just keeping his mouth shut about the still's location. He helps Big Jack spread the rumors about the Rimshaw house, and helps him perpetrate the 'spooky' goings-on when Andy, Barney, and Gomer arrive.
Goofs[]
- Coming Up
Music[]
- Coming Up
Quotes[]
- Otis: (chanting but not in the jump rope) SLOW IT DOWN, AND LET ME IN, OR I'LL GO OUT, AND GET SOME GIN!
Barney: Now, cut that out!
- Barney: We'll give him a sobriety test...I know, we'll have him jump rope.
Otis: Me, jump rope? If anybody saw me doing that they'd KNOW I was drunk.
- Barney: All I'm saying is that there are some things beyond the ken of mortal man that shouldn't be tampered with. We don't know everything, Andy. There's plenty going on right now in the Twilight Zone that we don't know anything about and I think we aught to stay clear.
- Andy: Wasn't it you that said we got nothing to fear but fear itself?
Barney: Well that's exactly what I've got - fear itself.
Gallery[]
Behind the Scene Gallery[]
