Make Room for Sheriff Taylor

Sheriff Taylor gives a big-city blowhard what-for in Mayberry this week, but the series isn’t “The Andy Griffith Show”--it’s “Make Room for Daddy” (Friday at 12:30 a.m.).

There would be a few changes before Andy got his own weekly slot: In Mayberry’s “Make Room for Daddy” appearance, the town drunk isn’t Otis, it’s Will Hoople (who inherited the job when his father died). And Frances Bavier appears, but she’s not Aunt Bee--she’s Henrietta Perkins, a widow still paying 50 cents a day for the rented suit her husband was buried in. In fact, there is no Aunt Bee.

One thing remains the same: the folksy wisdom, which gets the best of big-mouth city boy Danny Williams (Danny Thomas), who is outraged to be fined for running a stop sign (after all, there was no road). When Andy-not only sheriff but justice of the peace and editor of the local paper-makes Danny pay $100 instead of the normal $5, the entertainer decides to go to jail in a televised protest meant to expose this “backwoods racketeer with a badge.”

Of course Andy is no racketeer. He knows what he’s doing all along, and even the stubborn Danny ends up getting the message.