The Andy Griffith Show Episode Review: "A Baby in the House"

Guest stars include Alvy Moore, Candice Howard and Ronnie Dapo.

Even though my daughter and I both enjoy this series, we have also come to realize we aren’t as impressed with the later episodes, partly because they just don’t seem to have as much effort put into them as the earlier ones. And, unfortunately, this is one of those episodes that really didn’t impress us all that much.

While there were some funny moments, including when Bee went out of her way to have help with the child, including inviting Goober (George Lindsey) and a traveling salesman (Moore) inside so they could help comfort the crying girl, it was an episode that honestly was a bit predictable and it wasn’t too hard to figure out why the baby cried every time she picked her up.

On top of it, there were plenty of scenes where it was pretty obvious they were holding a doll and the “cries” were faked. My wife, who wasn’t watching this but could hear it from the kitchen, thought it was a man pretending to make baby noises. And, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t far off with that assessment.

This episode probably would have been a bit better had it broken things up a bit rather than keep the emphasis on Bee and the baby. For example, it might have been worth showing Andy trying to keep the Darling family from killing each other rather than just have him go off screen and tell us about it later. In all honesty, the episode would have been much better if the focus would have been on that and the baby would have been a secondary story.

Overall, I think this was just a weak effort. Maybe if the baby (and its cries) wasn’t so fake in so many of the scenes, I would have been more impressed by it. But, I think the best part of the episode was the part we ultimately did not see and I’m very disappointed that was the case.

My Grade: C