Opie Cates (10 October 1909, in

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

– 6 November 1987, in Oklahoma) was an American clarinet player and band leader in the 1930s and 1940s, during the swing era, who became a radio actor.

Life and career

Cates was born Opal Taft Cates, the son of a farmer in Arkansas, and was also raised in Kansas and Missouri. Hollywood Palladium in 1947

By 1931 he was on the radio with his own band. He served for a time in the 1940s as musical director on radio's '' Judy Canova Show'', where his Arkansas drawl amused audiences when he introduced songs. He then became the star of his own radio

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

, ''The Opie Cates Show'', on ABC in 1947–1948, where he played a naive rube getting adjusted to big city life. Barbara Fuller played his love interest, with Francis X. Bushman as her father, Opie's boss. Cates would begin each show by saying, "The doggonedest thing happened to me th' other day," and proceed to introduce the episode's plot. The show found no sponsor and lasted only thirteen weeks. He reappeared in more or less the same role in the rural milieu of radio's ''

Lum and Abner ''Lum and Abner'' was an American network radio comedy program created by Chester Lauck and Norris Goff that was aired from 1931 to 1954. Modeled on life in the small town of Waters, Arkansas, near where Lauck and Goff grew up, the show proved ...

'' in 1949, telling stories about his hometown of

Clinton, Arkansas Clinton is the county seat of Van Buren County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 2,602 at the 2010 census, making it the most populous city in the county (reclaiming the distinction from the resort community of Fairfield Bay). The cit ...

, and was included in the pilot episode of an unsold television version of ''Lum and Abner'' that year. Cates was also musical director of the

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

radio show ''Meet Me at Parky's'' (1945), starring

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, and of ''

Granby's Green Acres ''Granby's Green Acres'' is a radio situation comedy from the United States. It was broadcast on CBS July 3, 1950 – August 21, 1950, as a summer replacement for ''Lux Radio Theatre''. Premise ''Granby's Green Acres'' featured a former banker " ...

'', a 1950

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

radio show with much of the ''Lum and Abner'' cast that later inspired the television series '' Green Acres''.

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named his character's son "

Opie Taylor Opie Taylor is a fictional character played by Ron Howard in the American television program '' The Andy Griffith Show'', which was televised on CBS from October 3, 1960, to April 1, 1968. Opie Taylor appeared in 209 of the 249 episodes of '' ...

" on ''

The Andy Griffith Show ''The Andy Griffith Show '' is an American situation comedy television series that aired on CBS from October 3, 1960, to April 1, 1968, with a total of 249 half-hour episodes spanning eight seasons—159 in black and white and 90 in color. The ...

'' after Opie Cates, whom Griffith and producer

Sheldon Leonard Sheldon Leonard Bershad (February 22, 1907 – January 11, 1997) was an American film and television actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. Early life Sheldon Leonard Bershad was born in Manhattan, New York City, the son of middle-clas ...

both liked., Archive of American Television, 2006, Part 2.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cates, Opie 1909 births 1987 deaths Swing clarinetists Big band bandleaders American radio personalities American male comedians Four Star Records artists Musicians from Arkansas Musicians from California Musicians from Oklahoma American clarinetists 20th-century American musicians 20th-century American comedians