 Actor Andy Griffith had left his first sitcom, "The Andy Griffith Show", voluntarily after the 1967-68 season while it was still number one in the Nielsen ratings and despite a high-dollar offer from CBS to continue it, in order to pursue his other interests, singing and motion picture acting, and to prevent his being typecast solely as a rural Southern sheriff.When he decided to return to network television two years later, in the fall of 1970, it was in "Headmaster", a drama, in which he played the headmaster of an exclusive California private school.When that program very quickly sank in the ratings, Griffith replaced it immediately with this one, which was much closer in tone and content to his earlier, more successful role (also sharing some writers and music director Earle Hagen), and this program replaced "Headmaster" on the CBS Friday night schedule effective January 8, 1971.