Fleet's "Band with a Beat"

[GentlemanJim]

The traveling entertainers were featured in 3 episodes of the Andy Griffith Show.

Season 1 episode 3 "The Guitar Player" featuring Henry Slate as "Bobby Fleet"
Season 1 episode 31 "The Guitar Player Returns" featuring Herb Ellis as "Bobby Fleet"
Season 3 episode 8 "The Mayberry Band" this time featuring Joe Sirola as "Freddy Fleet"

Henry Slate:





Herb Ellis (not easy to find pictures of):






Joe Sirola:




Anybody have a favorite among them? Slate and Sirola give the Fleet character a sleek and suave, highly polished persona, while Ellis is so down to earth it makes you wonder how they chose him for the part.

Fun trivia tidbit. Ellis and Sirola both appeared as n'er do wells in the Clint Eastwood classic "Hang 'Em High"

[vitoscotti]

The Freddy Fleet character is like eh. All three were good. "The Mayberry Band" is a classic episode of the three. Didn't know this episode's trivia.

Aneta Corsaut, who would later play Helen Crump, was a friend of Jim Fritzell who wrote this episode. She suggested the name Phil Sunkle for one of the Freddy Fleet Band members as a tribute to a musician friend she had back in New York. Corsaut didn't tell her friend about this and, when the episode aired, Sunkel sued the show. Corsaut tried to explain the situation to her friend, but by that time, Sunkel had settled out of court.

[eddie146]

Bobby Fleet was the best!!

[Will Dockery]

Originally Posted by GentlemanJim

The traveling entertainers were featured in 3 episodes of the Andy Griffith Show.


Season 3 episode 8 "The Mayberry Band" this time featuring Joe Sirola as "Freddy Fleet"

This is either the only or one of the few episodes with the old "reform school" a the end of Andy's street visible.