Mayberry, North Carolina

Mayberry is a fictitious community that was the setting for two popular American television sitcoms, The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry R.F.D. Mayberry was also the setting for a 1986 reunion television movie titled Return to Mayberry. Mayberry was set in North Carolina and is said to be based on Andy Griffith's hometown of Mount Airy, North Carolina. Mount Airy is also known as Mayberry and this town is known by both names to the people who reside there.

According to show episodes, the community of Mayberry was named for fictional founder Lord Mayberry. Historically, the word Mayberry is of ancient Anglo-Saxon origin and is a locational name, a dialectical variant of the placename Maesbury in Shropshire. Purportedly, Andy Griffith himself chose the name of the fictional community. Griffith, however, told Larry King in 2003 that Artie Stander is the person who thought of the name Mayberry; Stander was one of the show's creators and writers.

Mayberry is a real community in Patrick County, Virginia, located 22 miles northeast of Andy Griffith's hometown of Mount Airy, North Carolina. The Mayberry Trading Post, home of the Mayberry, Virginia, post office until it closed in 1922, told local TV station WGHP-TV that Griffith and his father made many trips to the Mayberry Trading Post. Griffith incorporated several community places and names from his childhood home into the show. The term "Mayberry" is mentioned many times in television shows such as Cheers, House, M.D., Criminal Minds, Supernatural, How I Met Your Mother, and Scrubs. According to the episode "The Battle of Mayberry", the town was almost named Taylortown in honor of Colonel Carleton Taylor, who was one of the first settlers in the town. There actually is a Taylortown in North Carolina, but it has nothing to do with the fictional town of Mayberry or the show.

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