The Andy Griffith Show (TV Series) Three Wishes for Opie (1964) User Reviews

One of the best TAGS episodes of all time.

[bxhanx · 10/10 · 18 August 2014]

Barney and the supernatural is always a combination for good comedy. Add Goober and Floyd to the mix and you get a hilarious combination of the super-funny! Barney buys some fortune telling cards and an old lamp. He gets a book learns just enough to earn some laughs. Opie gets 3 wishes, 2 of which come true as does a wish that Barney makes. Andy, as always, tries to bring some common sense to the table but as everyone knows, when Barney gets on a tear, he's gonna be on it until it runs its course. The séance scene with Barney, Floyd and Goober is classic and makes this one of the best TAGS episodes ever.

I won't spoil the ending for you but you won't be disappointed.

Wishful Wishing

[hellraiser7 · 10/10 · 14 February 2020]

This is my sixth favorite episode of the show, here it's something different as we get into supernatural territory. It's funny as it's sort of a case of punchline and payoff with every wish. I really love how Barney reacts to the whole thing, nervous and excited about the whole thing.

Throughout the episode we are sort of pulled in two directions where on one hand were skeptical but on another, we almost are believers. It's interesting how each wish comes true, you could easily dismiss as pure coincidence but then again it almost seems rather strange that those things immediately came true just as Opie spoken the wish.

My favorite scene is seeing Barney along with Floyd and Gubber are testing the waters in a Tarot ritual. It's just funny how all three are reacting as all three are clearly spooked out. It's even funnier when we see Barney makes a wish, it comes true and he is just shaking in his boots.

Whether it's just pure coincidence or even higher forces at work, I leave that up to you. But as an old saying goes, "You got to wonder."

Rating: 4 stars

Great episode

[dlynch843 · 10/10 · 22 November 2018]

They very rarely use that back room, but here it's used to good, spooky atmospherics. The music adds to the mystical/comical mood. Sometimes, a comedy show will do a 'scary episode', and I remember loving them when I first saw them back in the 60s. Don Knotts is at his best when discussing Aladdin's Lamp. I agree with another poster about the 'seance scene', with the candle in the dark, the mysterious footsteps....I hope this creates interest for this episode.

Barney at His Best

[Hitchcoc · 10/10 · 14 December 2019]

Barney goes to a police auction and buys a kit that can tell the future and grant wishes. He brings his compadres, Goober and Floyd, into the mix. Opie becomes the wish maker and soon is benefiting from his wishes. What's cool is that the supernatural seems to get the upper hand in this one. Andy doesn't come out smelling like a rose.

Funny episode

[kellielulu · 10/10 · 11 September 2022]

Barney spreads another rumor about Andy and Helen all based on his latest obsession with the super natural and what he thinks Opie is wishing for . Opie made two other wishes and both came true. He thinks Opie wants Helen and Andy to get married.

The whole episode is good at showing how people can sort of believe in the these things and still get spooked by it . It also shows the more logical sense of Andy and Helen. Goober and Floyd are caught up in it with Barney but don't really do much beyond being the ones Barney shares his new obsession with.

In the end Andy and Helen make it clear they aren't ready to marry and so the wishes don't come true because you wish for it . Barney starts to throw away his candles other things but Opie said that wasn't his last wish Barney start to say otherwise but Opie makes it clear he never actually voiced it . His real wish is for Helen to go on being his teacher in the sixth grade. Helen gets an odd look on her face and responds oh . Andy ask her what it is and she says that afternoon she is told the next year she's being transferred to the sixth grade! Andy is shocked but Barney gets a superior look on his face and takes his candles and other things back in the box! All the wishes came true plus one Barney made .

Barney's funny interest in the occult.

[vitoscotti · 10/10 · 11 June 2022]

I thought director Howard Morris had (Helen Crump) Aneta Corsaut over do it with her anger at the beginning. She's been through it before. And why didn't she put 2 + 2 together that Barney might be at it again. After that misfire it was a stellar episode.

Bsrney delving into the occult was very clever. Great scene in tho courthouse back room with scaredy cats Barney, Floyd, and Goober. Some classic Floyd, "Oh my, oh my...yes, yes".

I like how Opie stood up to Barney and set him straight on what he said, and didn't say. A terrific epilogue with always funny Barney barging in on Andy and Helen.

The Count Sure is Lively Tonight

[jpop59 · 7/10 · 11 February 2020]

As season five continues its slide towards the inferior "color episodes", we get another example of how the show was able to mine laughs from Barney and his minions (this time its Goober and Floyd). Barney buys a fortune telling set from a police auction supposedly confiscated from a band of gypsies, and soon the cards align and grant Opie three wishes. As each wish comes true (by some coincidences), Barney gains more and more confidence in the powers of the "Count". When Opie starts to make his third and final wish Barney cuts him short and assumes he is wishing that his Pa and Helen would get married. This sets up a series of flashbacks as Andy explains the goings on to Helen, who by this time is very upset that everyone in town thinks she is getting married. A good episode with some classic Barney moments (e.g. the seance in the back room of the courthouse).

Must Be The Harmonic Convergence Crowd That Thrills Over This Episode

[richardfuller-92973 · 3/10 · 7 October 2020]

No episode that begins with Helen Crump baring her teeth with her steely eyes all lit up chewing out our beloved sheriff because of what 'somebody else said' (which she has done before) is outstanding or definitive of the show. Far from it.

Oh, it might be a good episode, but hardly the show's best. Even still, I didn't find the episode that grand anyway.

Fan favorites always seem to be Pickle Story, Aunt Bee The Warden, Barney and the Choir, Cow Thief, Convicts At Large, Bank Job and the alltime biggie, Loaded Goat.

While Three Wishes does have an interesting one-second attention-getter with Andy dragging Barney back into the courthouse (all I can say is watch the elastic man), supporting townsfolk by this time are Goober and Floyd, who are far from Gomer's contribution or even Otis.

And as far as "flashbacks" go, they hardly drove this episode, but in the episode, Andy Saves Barney's Morale, when Barney's girlfriend Hilda Mae tells about sweet-talking him on the date until she mussed up his hair, that was a bigger contributor to the episode than the fingerprinting kit scene in Three Wishes was. That bit could have just been present-time dialogue.

All I can think is the hocus pocus voodoo crowd like this episode for some early depiction of soothsaying. But still, it's far from the best episode in the series.