The Daily Oklahoman newsroom in the 1980s. Then Sports Editor Jerry McConnell is on the far right.
When I joined The Daily Oklahoman sports desk in the fall of 1983, it was a black and white world. Published photographs were all black and white. The newspaper pages themselves were black and white (and read all over!).
It’s hard to overstate the impact the newspaper had on Oklahoma City and beyond. The paper’s circulation was north of 200,000 and we circulated in every county in the state. When someone wanted a sports score or a football recruiting update, or to complain about a headline, they called the paper.
I know because I was on the receiving end of those calls a lot.
We drew our pages by hand on sheets of paper, which were sent down to the composing room to be put together by a large crew of folks. There was an often frenetic scene in composing as people rushed around at a frantic pace on deadline, shouting ‘we need a cut!’ for an editor to help them splice story that was too long as it was pasted on the page.
Some nights I acted as a copy editor on the sports desk, working to smooth the rough edges off of copy, as well as writing headlines. Other nights, I actually drew the pages, although I had such a lack of artistic vision that my pages usually looked as if they were part of a third-grade art project.
Anyway, desktop publishing was introduced in the newsroom in 1987. Our jobs dramatically changed, as we ‘drew’ our pages on a computer screen and they came out of the printers as one compete sheet instead of having to be pasted down by hand. There were far fewer people needed in the composing room.
Desktop publishing required more people to work on the sports desk to lay out individual pages. We were a little community that endured the stressful race to make three deadlines a night, often remaking much of the sports section for each deadline.
As desktop publishing became more sophisticated, one of my co-workers on the sports desk saw what was coming. He predicted that technology would advance so far that copy editors would all be replaced some day by ‘automatic headline writers.’
Doug Simpson, you saw where things were headed 30 years before it became reality. In fact, a recent Google search revealed dozens of sites offering AI headline writing, including the popular “Grammarly” site that offers a ‘free headline generator.’
There has been ongoing controversy over news sites that use AI to write their actual copy, including a disturbing story from 2023 about some Sports Illustrated copy generated by AI. Sports Illustrated was once considered the Gold Standard of sports writing.
So where will it all end? Will artificial intelligence really displace millions of white collar jobs, including the software coding jobs that created AI in the first place?
Call me a skeptic, but I can’t see AI replacing airline pilots, health care professionals or school teachers, among many other professions.
But then, I think back to what my newspaper colleague Doug predicted more than three decades ago. There ARE automatic headline writers in 2026.
So, I’ll close this with a quote from one of my favorite movies, Caddyshack, which reflects the attitude of our AI overlords. It’s a scene where caddy Danny Noonan confesses to Judge Smalls during a round of golf that he might not be able to go to college because his parents don’t have enough money.
“Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too,” the judge tells Danny as he walks away.
Don Knotts as Barney Fife from the Andy Griffith Show
EDITOR’S NOTE: My friend Ed Godfrey has memorized more word-for-word dialogue from The Andry Griffith Show than anyone I know. He can quote Don Knotts as Barney Fife from almost any scene. And they are some of the funniest lines in television history. So, I told Ed that if he would compile a list of his favorites, I would publish it in this blog. I’m proud to offer you Ed’s 15 favorite Barney Fife quotes:
By Ed Godfrey
The best sitcom character in the history of television is Barney Fife, played by the great Don Knotts. I’m sorry, if you don’t agree, you’re wrong.
I mean, that scene where Andy is explaining to Barney how he has to keep singing softer and softer into a “powerful” microphone until his voice is less than a whisper rivals Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First” routine in my book.
Jim’s blog about The Andy Griffith Show has been his most viewed blog this year, so I suggested he keep it going and rank Barney’s best lines in the show. He told me I was the expert and that I should write the blog, without financial compensation, I might add.
So here are my favorite Barney Fife lines. If I missed one, well, just remember I am not getting paid for this.
Number one has to be his most famous quote which he repeated in many episodes and which I have on a T-Shirt. NIP IT IN THE BUD! He’s used it when discussing romance, crime, parenting, etc. It was his go to phrase, but my favorite is when he was lecturing Andy about raising Opie.
“I say this calls for action and now. Nip it in the bud. First sign a youngster is going wrong you got to nip it in the bud… You go read any book you want on the subject of child discipline and you will find everyone is in favor of bud nipping.”
Number Two: Barney lays down the law to the new prisoners at the Mayberry jail.
“Now men, there are a few things we ought to get straightened out right at the start to avoid any grief later on. Now here at The Rock, we have two basic rules. Memorize them so that you can say them in your sleep. The first rule is, OBEY ALL RULES. Secondly, do not write on the walls as it takes a lot of work to get writing off of walls.”
Number Three: Barney gets tangled up with a guy littering on the street and accidentally captures a fugitive. When Barney realizes what he has done, he turns into a peacock and starts strutting his stuff to the crowd who has gathered around, including his girlfriend Thelma Lou, who wants him to take the rest of the day off at Andy’s suggestion.
“I would like to, Thelma Lou, but I don’t guess I better… You just never know when another beast might come down out of the forest. You understand don’t you Thelma Lou? I really don’t expect you to. You see Thelma Lou, this is what we call the deadly game. I am in it for keeps.”
Number Four: In Barney and the Choir, Andy, Aunt Bee and Thelma Lou don’t want to hurt Barney’s feelings by kicking him out of the Mayberry choir before the concert, so they try to make him think he is sick because of the redness and lump they pretend to see in his throat. Barney immediately goes to the doctor to get checked out and returns with the good news after choir practice had ended.
“You know that lump you seen? That’s a uvula. Everybody’s got one. Did you know you had a uvula Andy? Open your mouth. Go ahead, open it. Yeah, there is a good ole’ uvula. They got a uvula. I got a uvula. All God’s children got a uvula!”
Number Five: In Opie the Birdman episode, a classic, Opie kills a mama bird with his slingshot and then starts caring for her orphaned young in a cage. Barney demonstrates how birds communicate with each other with their chirping.
“A bird that’s feeling chipper will chirp nice and chipper. Well, like, ‘Gee, I’m feeling good’… And then it works the other way around, too. When a bird’s feeling sick why he chirps, ‘Gee I’m feeling bad…Here comes a cat! Let’s fly away! OK.’
“Yep, the ways of the creatures of the wild are many and wonderful.”
Number Six: Barney sings A capella for Andy, thinking it is a song.
“A capella, a capella.”
Number Seven: Barney offers a comforting shoulder to Andy, who has been jilted by Peggy.
Barney consoles Andy with a heart-to-heart talk
“OK pal, there it is (tapping his shoulder). Cry all over it if you wanna. Get it off your chest. Talk it all out. That’s what a friend is for. It’s welling up inside of you so get it out…. I know you don’t want to but you got to. It’s therapetic.”
Number Eight. Barney offers another memorable line after unknowingly capturing a fugitive on the street.
“I might as well have me a look around town. You never know what might be coming up. You know Andy, I never thought our town would come to this. Mayberry, gateway to danger.”
Number Nine: Barney gets conned by a man pretending to be an FBI agent who is in Mayberry to give the sheriff’s office a reward for having a low crime rate. Barney explains why crime is so low in Mayberry.
“Well, I guess to sum it up you could say there is three reasons there is so little crime in Mayberry. There’s Andy, and me and baby makes three (while patting the gun in his holster.) Say, that is kind of a good phrase if you would like to write that down.”
Number Ten: In the Cyrano Andy episode, the first appearance of Betty Lynn as Thelma Lou in the series, Barney likes Thelma Lou but is too shy to tell her, so Andy calls on her on behalf of Barney. Thelma Lou makes Barney jealous by telling him Andy is interested in her, so Barney tries to even the score by paying a romantic visit to Elly Walker, Andy’s girlfriend. Barney, of course, gets rejected by Elly.
Barney Fife and Miss Elly
“I feel sorry for you, baby. You – you had your chance to fly with me but you wasn’t woman enough. Now the balloon’s gone up withoutcha.”
Number 11: In The Pickle Story, Andy and Barney swap out Aunt Bee’s homemade pickles for good store pickles, and Barney is dismayed when Andy suggests they are going to have to get rid of the store pickles and replace the jars with more homemade ones.
“You can’t be serious? You actually want her to make another batch of them kerosene cucumbers?”
Number 12: In Barney and the Choir, Barney drops a not-so-subtle hint to the Mayberry choir director about who could replace the first tenor who had to drop out (clip taken from same episode, but doesn’t include the quote).
“As my old voice teacher used to say, a choir without its tenor is like a start without its glimmer. You know who used to say that? My old voice teacher. That’s the teacher I had when I studied voice.”
Number Thirteen: In the episode Man in a Hurry, an out-of-town businessman whose car breaks down on a Sunday in Mayberry learns how slow life can be in the small town. He paces nervously back and forth on Andy’s front porch waiting for his car to be fixed while Barney contemplates how he will spend the rest of his afternoon.
“You know what I think I’m going to do? I’m going to go home and have me a little nap, then go over to Thelma Lou’s and watch a little TV. Yeah, I believe that’s what I’ll do. Go home. Have a nap. Then over to Thelma Lou’s for TV. Yep, that’s the plan. Right home. Take a nap.”
The impatient out-of-towner then yells at Barney, “For the love of Mike, just do it, do it! Go take a nap. Go to Thelma Lou’s for TV. Just do it:
Barney replies, “What’s the hurry?”
Number Fourteen: In the episode Barney’s Sidebar, Barney buys an old motorcycle with sidecar at an auction and sets up Checkpoint Chickie on the highway to catch speeders. His first traffic stop is a trucker who points out there has always been an understanding with law enforcement that they could go five miles over the speed limit to get over Turner’s Grade.
“Well, I tell you Eddie, I let you do 40 today, you will do 45 tomorrow. I let you do 45 tomorrow you do 50 the day after that. You do 50 the day after that, you’ll do 55 the day after that.”
Number Fifteen: Barbara Eden of I Dream of Jeannie fame guest stars as a manicurist and sets up in Floyd’s Barber Shop. She finally gets Barney to sit for a manicure, but Barney has one condition.
“Be extra careful with that one. That’s my trigger finger. You damage that and I might as well quit the business.”
SPONSORED CONTENT: Ed Godfrey gave this book, “Andy & Don,” to me as a birthday gift a couple years ago. I started reading and could not put it down. It’s that good, mainly because it reveals some behind the camera info on both Andy Griffith and Don Knotts, as well as other stars of Andy Griffith Show. For instance, Andy was quite the lady’s man, while Frances Bavier was not a fan of her role as Aunt Bee, nor of the show in general. Check it out on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4mb7RbA
SPONSORED CONTENT: Ed Godfrey gave this book, 
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