Late last year, I covered Criterion's wonderful Golden Age of Television set. Included was the teleplay version of No Time For Sergeants, whose massive success translated into a feature film version three years later.

I'd originally seen the movie before the Golden Age set introduced me to the predecessor. Now that I've seen the movie again, I kind of miss the low-rent, faster-paced vibe of the teleplay performance. Andy Griffith is wonderful as he always has been, but as with all great performers, once you've seen them do their thing in front of a live audience, there's nothing like it. The DVD includes no extras, but is worth having rather than renting for me thanks to there just not being enough Andy Griffith on my shelf that I always have access to.

The trio that made the move from Broadway. Don Knotts played the Army shrink.

The Andy Griffith Show was a comfort program for me. It always reminded me of the moments in life where things are more patient and considered. The world where there were consequences and you felt bad about screwing up. My generation is the one that grew up blaming everyone else for everything we did wrong or not well enough. We could be "anything", we were told, if only we'd put our minds to it. Mayberry introduced me to a place where people figured out what they were going to be and doing it, rather than pissing life away bullshitting about the million things that they were never going to do, or were always about to do.

Amazon has the No Time for Sergeants DVD listed at $12.49.