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Andy Griffith: ''I am too old to be canceled''
Griffith had reached an age where he wasn't afraid of fighting back.
Being older gets a worse reputation than it deserves. However, it does come with its own set of perks. Young people look to you for wisdom, you can look forward to the freedom of retirement and best of all, you've had enough time to get comfortable in your own skin.
As a television veteran, viewers got to watch Andy Griffith grow older in front of their eyes. Many saw Griffith as a pseudo-father figure due to his role on The Andy Griffith Show. While his character of Ben Matlock on Matlock was a bit rougher around the edges than Andy Griffith ever was, he was still a source of intellect, someone viewers could look up to at times.
While Matlock enjoyed nine entertaining seasons, the journey wasn't without its bumps in the road. Though the show began on NBC in 1986, it switched networks in the early nineties and finished the rest of its run on ABC.
According to Andy Griffith, who commented on the situation during an interview with the Chillicothe Gazette, the swap was most welcome, as the alternative would have been Matlock's cancellation after NBC's Entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff was replaced by Warren Littlefield. Tartikoff had long been a supporter of Griffith and Matlock, but it was a perspective that Littlefield didn't seem to share.
"I don't think Warren Littlefield even liked the show," said Griffith. "What he wanted was six two-hour movies...to be shown over three years."
Against the idea, Griffith instead contacted Fred Silverman, a noted television executive who also served as the executive producer of Matlock. Silverman revised the planned final season in an attempt to jazz up the series, but when he presented it to NBC, the network refused. However, with NBC out of the way, ABC expressed interest in picking up the series. "I had to take it because I frankly am too old to be canceled," said Griffith. "And it has been a marvelous experience."
