This is my favorite episode of one of my favorite shows of all time. The look on Barney's face when he hears "his" voice through the microphone is classic! In my opinion, the TV character 'Barney Fife' is the best TV character of all time, followed by Peter Falk's 'Columbo', John Ritter's 'Jack Tripper', Michael Richard's 'Kramer', and Carrol O'Connor's 'Archie Bunker'. Good stuff here. Barney sings in the Mayberry choir and during practice, John Masters, the choir director notices someone singing off key. Barney offers to help John locate the person, but everyone soon realizes that it is Barney himself. Not wanting to hurt Barney's feelings by kicking him out of the choir, John and Andy try to figure out how to get around the sticky situation. They try practicing at different locations without making Barney aware of where the practices are, but when that doesn't work, Andy decides it would be best to make Barney the soloist- only unbeknown-st to Barney, he would be singing into a dead microphone in a very "soft" voice. Andy tells Barney the microphone will amplify his voice a "thousand" times and that Barney must sing with almost making no sound to keep from busting every ear drum. The plan works when a bass soloist sings into a live microphone backstage, making Barney think the loud deep voice is his own. Classic television!
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planktonrules18 October 2010This is a very good episode as it managed to combine a lot of humor while still reinforcing the way the characters felt about each other. In other words, it got laughs but also fundamentally stuck to the caring nature of the characters.
The show finds Barney trying out for the choir. The problem, however, is that Barney simply cannot sing and his voice is horrible. But Andy and the rest are in a pickle, as they care too much to tell Barney he's out of the group. But, unfortunately, Andy is stuck being the one to break the news. And he manages to eventually come up with a great solution AND not break Barney's heart. Make sure to see this one so you learn how they do this! Funny and sweet, this one manages to take a pretty mundane plot and inject it with humor and sweetness. Well worth seeing. -
Hitchcoc1 December 2019When the tenor in the choir leaves, they need a replacement post haste. Who should volunteer but our skinny deputy. Unfortunately, he has no singing voice. He doesn't know this, of course. So Andy and the choir director are faced with trying to get him out of the choir without hurting his feelings. The solution is interesting (though beyond the realm of possibility). On a different note: Who is this Juanita? Thelma Lou has said things like she'd like him to be the father of her children. A couple of episodes ago, he swore she was the only one. Just wondering.
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kkodey-7060027 July 2021At the beginning of the episode Barney is humming about Juanita, from the local drug counter, but his girl is Thelma Lou. Is Barney secretly cheating on Thelma Lou?
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joenic-2927925 May 2022One of the funniest episodes from The Andy Griffith Show. "Good old 14A" became a buzz phrase for TAGS fans over the years. In fact it made it's way on to the Reunion movie in the 1980s.
14A was the song number the choir sang in this episode, aka."Welcome Sweet Spring Time."
This was the first of 3 episodes shown over the course of the series, that dealt with Barney's bad singing. Ironically, in an interview before his death, Griffith claimed Don Knots in fact had a great singing voice. -
vitoscotti25 March 2022Whole episode centers on Andy protecting Barney's fragile feelings. Just tell him he can't sing, and there's no classic episode. Barney is very egotistical about his singing which is very clever writing. Barney's solo with Ben Cripe (Delos Jewkes) actually singing is one of the series funniest scenes. Fist appearance of John Masters (Olan Soule) as choir director is perfect casting. Certainly one of the series best episodes.
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This is a comical,but a not very plausible episode of Andy Griffith. Barney is somehow invited to join a community choir,but he cannot sing very well. The lengths that the members of the choir go to in order to spare Barney's feelings may be sweet in a way,but it is not very realistic or believable to begin with. Add to that the ridiculous idea that Barney can be tricked into singing into a dead microphone while someone else does the actual solo singing offstage and you have a pretty silly and unlikely episode. Barney may indeed have some weak points but he is nowhere near as dumb nor as fragile as this episode makes him out to be. Watch this strictly for amusement.
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dtk56 July 2016I love TAGS. But this is not one of the better episodes. I am not too concerned about the morality of Barney being made to look foolish. This is a TV sitcom so there's no point in getting too worked up over something like that. The reason I don't like it? Simply because NO ONE, not even Barney, would be so easily duped into thinking that he's singing into a "solo" microphone and that he barely has to whisper in order for his voice to be heard loud and clear. Golly gee, I don't think even The Beaver would believe something like that. :)
Unless the real singer behind the curtain is in perfect synchronization with Barney it should be obvious to Barney that he is not hearing his voice. Not to mention that it doesn't sound anything like Barney's voice. This premise is just so unbelievable that it takes away from some of the funnier parts of the episode.
Also, there's another part of the plot that is a little shaky for me. If they already have this singer why is everyone so worked up about the original soloist not being able to perform? Just have this guy take his place. You would think that John Masters, the choir director, would know that this singer is already in the choir and just use him. They would not even get to the point of having to ask Barney to sing. They would not have to go through the trouble of trying to fool Barney. Or go through the trouble of moving the practice location and keeping it a secret from Barney. Just a bit too unbelievable for me. -
skarylarry-9340023 November 2021Good episode. What isn't accurate is: when Barney, Andy, Bee and Opie (DOPIE) were all singing (I believe at the piano), Barney was singing terrible. Opie for sure would have out loud told Barney that he sounds terrible. Opie in many episode says stupid idiotic things at the wrong time and he definitely would have told that to Barney or to everybody else. That is why I call him Dopie!
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emguy4 July 2016A fundamental challenge of the half-hour sitcom that's short on big story arcs is that the writers have to pretend everything is wrapped up neatly within the space of one episode. Sometimes that calls for serious hand-waving to pretend that something simply didn't happen.
It's supposed to be "sweet" that Barney's friends deceive him. They deceived him when the choir agreed to meet elsewhere, without telling Barney. Singling out one person and ditching them is the stuff of nasty school cliques, and not a nice thing to do to a friend. They deceived him by omission when they could have talked to him honestly (yet kindly) about his singing voice, but chose to let him make a fool of himself instead. They deceived him when they led him to think there was a special microphone he had to whisper into. They deceived him when they got someone else to dub his voice, while having him think he was hearing his own voice. They deceived the judges and audience at the competition too, by having them think Barney was the soloist - not terribly ethical.
One problem with that sort of lying is that everyone would have to maintain it over time - an element that was addressed in other episodes. They'd have to keep pretending he can really sing, and perpetuate further lies to stop him. They'd have to keep pretending that one microphone was different from the rest. Eventually, someone would slip up, and he'd realize that a bunch of people he trusted had been lying to him all along. Not exactly sweet.
But the writers took the easy way out, and pretended it'd never matter again. End of episode = end of consequences.
This would have been a much stronger episode if Barney's friends realized that by sneaking around and lying, they weren't doing Barney any real favors or acting like responsible adults. -
MichaelMartinDeSapio4 September 2023"Barney and the Choir" is a charming and amusing episode, but I will have to go with the reviewers who have found it a bit too implausible, especially from a musicianly point of view. Singing is not an all-or-nothing matter, and someone could easily have taken Barney aside and explained to him kindly and diplomatically that they would coach him on his pitch and voice production later, but for the impending concert they would have to get someone else. Who knows how Barney would have reacted, but this would at least have been more true-to-life. In addition, no choir director would accept a new member sight unseen without hearing him sing first. The fourth-season episode "The Song-Festers" is a much superior choir episode, better-written and with more emotional depth. Still, "Barney the Choir" is still quite funny, with the scene of Barney "singing" into the microphone to a deep bass voice (provided by Glenn Cripes) arguably one of the series' classics.