Director Ron Howard steps back in time — and winds up in Mayberry — in a video endorsement of Barack Obama posted Thursday on FunnyOrDie.com. Joined by former on-screen cohorts Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler, Howard revives two of his iconic TV characters — Opie Taylor from the 1960s classic “The Andy Griffith Show” and Richie Cunningham from the 1970s hit “Happy Days” — to discuss this year’s election.
“I’ve never done this before and I hope never to do it again, but I guess you could say I’m feeling pretty desperate these days,” Howard says as his beard disappears and he dons a boyish wig. “So as a demonstration of my sincerity, this is for you America.”
The FunnyOrDie site made news earlier this year when founders Will Ferrell and Adam McKay produced a campaign ad from Paris Hilton that responded to John McCain’s invocation of her celebrity in an anti-Obama ad.
Howard, who won a pair of Academy Awards for directing 2001’s “A Beautiful Mind,” helms the screen adaptation of Peter Morgan’s “Frost/Nixon,” due in theaters in early December.
