The Andy Griffith Show (Seasons 1–8)

The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) is a CBS sitcom you can watch online on iFILM. Andy Taylor, the widowed sheriff of tiny Mayberry, North Carolina, keeps the peace in a town where the biggest troublemakers are usually his own neighbors.

Andy rarely reaches for his gun. He settles disputes with patience, a dry joke and a bit of front-porch wisdom. Beside him is Barney Fife, the jumpy, self-important deputy who fumbles nearly everything; Aunt Bee runs the household; and young Opie is played by a pre-fame Ron Howard, decades before his directing Oscar. Across eight seasons there are no real villains — just the slow rhythm of a Southern town that feels frozen somewhere between the 1930s and the decade it was filmed in.

That gentleness is exactly why people kept watching. Griffith himself never won an award, yet co-stars Don Knotts and Frances Bavier took home six Emmys between them. The show never fell below seventh in the Nielsen ratings and signed off its final season at number one; TV Guide later ranked it the ninth-best series in American television history. Mayberry spun off Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and the sequel Mayberry R.F.D. If you want comfort TV with no cynicism in it, start here. Stream all eight seasons of The Andy Griffith Show online on iFILM.