Preston Foster : Preston Foster and The Andy Griffith Show

Preston Foster and The Andy Griffith Show

I remember an episode on The Andy Griffith Show where Andy and Barney were taking Opie and some of his friends camping. In an early scene in the episode they were asking Gomer Pyle to come along, but Gomer wanted to stay home and watch a movie with Preston Foster in it. He said that in the particular movie he wanted to watch that Preston Foster would be camping out in the woods and that he didn't want to miss it. Andy told him, "Aww, come on Gomer, you'll have a great time and Preston Foster will understand." LOL Anyway, I'm wondering if anybody has any idea which movie Gomer was talking about. Usually, he really liked what he called "Godziller" movies, those sci-fi Japanese movies from the '50s and '60s. But I don't recall Preston Foster in any Godzilla movies.

Re: Preston Foster and The Andy Griffith Show

Not Godzilla but he was in "The Time Travelers" from 1964 which involved some mutant "monsters".

Re: Preston Foster and The Andy Griffith Show

I can't think of a well known sci-fi picture from the pre-TAGS period that Preston Foster appeared in. Sci-fi wasn't his genre, as it were, though he had his "flings" (so to speak) with "dark" pictures: his Warners horror, Doctor X,he's quite good in, and borderline sci-fi, but really a horror. Also, Mr. Foster was in a number of crime pictures, in which he played either law officers, private eyes or even outright criminals (Roger Touhy, Gangster). On the rare occasion when he played a villain there was an underlying warmth, a kind way about him, that kids were well attuned to.

The town of Mayberry seems like the kind of place that would produce its fair share of Preston Foster fanboys. He was a big, ruggedly handsome fellow, somewhat on the beefy side (and no less formidable for it), he appeared in a fair number of action flicks, westerns and just plain "outdoors stories", often focusing on animals, wild and tame alike. His natural acting style was a good fit for the Middle America of sixty plus years ago. Foster's TV series, Waterfront, was a favorite of mine when I was very young. The actor was burly and masculine in an unthreatening way, thus very kid-friendly.
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