Production meeting for 'Salvage 1' (fiction)
Andy's "Salvage 1" character was based on a real person. Robert Truax was the former NASA engineer who designed the beer-cooled rocket "motorcycle" that Evel Kinevel used to attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon.
I can just see the production meeting for this show:
Network suit #1: Let's make a show about that guy who makes rockets out of junk.
Suit #2: Great idea. He can be a disgruntled NASA guy who goes off on his own.
Suit #1: Not too disgruntled, the audience has to like him.
Suit #2: Then let's get an Andy-Griffith-type to play him. Hell, Andy carried his other 1-joke show for like 8 years!
Suit #1: That's it! Let's grab Griffith before somebody tries to make him a lawyer or something!
And the rest is TV history.