Andy Griffith Show full of Aspies?

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Howard Sprague - Lived with mother, county clerk, no social life
Barney Fife - Always missing cues
Virgil (Barney's cousin from NJ), messed up everything until he discovered he did fine when no one was watching
Gomer Pyle

Agree or disgree? Any others you can add to list?

Howard Sprague was just a lazy person with respect to that. Besides, it spoke of a DIFFERENT time.

Barney Fife was just your run of the mill blowhard. He wanted to act tough, brave, smart, and in charge, when he was NON of that!

Gomer pyle was an enigma. He didn't seem to have problems socializing, etc... Again, he was blue collar, and in a different time. THAT explains some of the mechanical intelligence, etc... HIS show (Gomer Pyle USMC) was a showcase for his singing talent, and basically played off a misfit that was social and underestimated. USMC stood for U.S. Marine Corp, because he played the part of a private that his stupid sargeant was always trying to get rid of. BTW, Gomer also means stupid bumbling dolt!

Now VIRGIL is one I can agree with. He obviously WASN'T social and needed quiet, etc... Although, at first glance, he seemed a little like barney in the competence area, he shined when left alone. I'm not at EITHER extreme, but I am similar. If you ask me a question I may be nervous, etc... I often do better writing when I am calm. If you stand behind me and watch, I may do things fine, etc... but I am at least 5 times as fast when left to my own.

What about Goober?

Still reads comic books, unusual for grown men at that time
Misses social cues
Clueless when it comes to dating

BTW, all aspies aren't anti-social... some of us are very social, just not very good at it.

NAW, Goober, like Gomer, knew about machinery because of his station in life and the time. As for the lack of social clues, etc.... That was not unusual for a male that tried to be a gentleman. HECK, that is what I thought my problem was. If not for some OTHER problems I have I would not think I was AS, and write you guys(those with AS) off as nuts.

He DID have a kind of boyish personality, and such people might have read comic books at the time. Still, they had to do something to keep character, etc...

What about Ernest T Bass? Agressive, in-your-face, unaware of physical space boundaries and also clueless with women. He too very much desired to socialize but was utterly incapable of doing it correctly.

And what about those Darlin' boys from the Dillards? Not one of them ever even spoke, but they could play kick-ass blugrass. Maybe they were LFA savants.

He was supposed to be a crazy hillbilly. MAYBE some Autism. But he came from a different culture entirely. THAT is why he wanted to kill when wronged, have shotgun marriages, feuds, etc... BTW That culture ALSO tends to intermarry heavily without any regard. That leads to a LOT more genetic conditions. The Dillards were the same.

Things get kind of confused when looking at a show like the andy griffith show because it WAS a different time.

I've grown up around hillbillies, and that intermarriage stereotype is greatly exaggerated. I do understand that it was a different time, I was there. I was starting elementary school when TAGS was in it's heyday, and if I was AS positive, certainly many others must have been, too. But it's correct to say that all those characters behave in a manner completely consistent with the culture of their era and with the rural society they were part of. My maternal grandfather ran a gas station very similar to Wally's. I sure do miss those old refrigerator style Coke machines, and the nickle peanut dispensers. Do they still make those white Zero candy bars?

Remember Jerry Van Dyke's recurring sleepwalking, sleep-performing character on his brother's sitcom? Now that behavior was a bit unusual, even for the time period.

Yeah, those old bottle dispensers where you had to pull out the bottle, close the door, and then use the little bottle cap remover(my name to make it easy to tell what I am talking about now) in the side to open the bottle. HERE, we often called it a church key. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchkey THEN they came out with cans with "pull tabs"(where the tab ripped off the can), THEN they came out with aluminum cans, and then the ones with a partially perforated tab that is bent INTO the can with a lever/fulcrum(that they still use today). And air was available at EVERY gas station FOR FREE. And they originally had FULL service! It was basically EVERYTHING you got at jiffy lube, except you had to pay ONLY if you needed oil, filter changes, or maybe coolant or windshield washer fluid. THEN they came out with "service" which was GAS only and MAYBE cleaning the windshield.

YEP, I remember Jerrys character. I still like Dick Van Dyke FAR better. Maybe it is just because he had such great parts.

TAGS?!?!?

It is amazing how even such little things changed.

I've never thought about any one in the show being an aspie. I saw the topic and had to respond though. I live ten miles away from the actual Mayberry, Mount Airy. I was born there.

Well, 40-50 years ago, Boys were, in part, SUPPOSED to be like AS! Not THAT social, maybe rude, mechanically inclined. SOMETIMES to the AS extreme. Of course, they were supposed to be PHYSICALLY inclined as well. AS just kind of shifted everything around, and took some from the social area. Anyway, with them being so similar to a degree, and that time being so relatively simple, it is hard for one with AS to really stand out from the other on a show like Andy Griffith.

Heck, when I was young I got yelled at for pulling my toys apart. I did that after they broke, and I wanted to see how they worked, possibly fix them, etc... I DID fix a number, etc... I just figured HEY, I'm a BOY! What did you expect!?!?!? It might sound sexist, but I wasn't the one to come up with the stereotype.