What Might've Been: Salvage-1 (1979)

Not even Fred Sanford was this ambitious.

Andy Griffith returned to television in January 1979 with Salvage-1, this time playing a junkman with a dream. The idea was that he wanted to build a rocket to the moon to collect junk there and bring it back to earth to sell it for profit. Pretty radical stuff.

The series launched with a TV-movie, then went right to series, which didn't finish out the calendar year. The second season didn't start until the November sweeps, but after two weeks into that second season, ABC pulled the plug as the ratings tumbled.

One of Griffith's co-stars, Joel Higgins, moved on to Best of the West before landing his biggest success with Silver Spoons over on NBC, where he played second fiddle to Ricky Schroeder, and, ultimately, Alfonso Ribiero.

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As we all know, Griffith would return with Matlock, and the rest is history.

Rating: C+.