Opie Cates was an American clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

 player and band leader in the 1930s and 1940s, during the swing era

Swing Era

The Swing era was the period of time when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. Though the music had been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Moten, Ella Fitzgerald,...

, who became a radio actor.

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

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

Judy Canova

Judy Canova , born Juliette Canova, was an American comedienne, actress, singer and radio personality. She appeared on Broadway and in films...

, where his Arkansas drawl amused audiences when he introduced songs. He then became the star of his own radio sitcom, 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

Francis X. Bushman

Francis Xavier Bushman was an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. His matinee idol career started in 1911 in the silent film His Friend's Wife, but it did not survive the silent screen era....

 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

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

in 1949, telling stories about his hometown of Clinton, Arkansas

Clinton, Arkansas

Clinton is the county seat of Van Buren County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 2,283 at the 2000 census. The city was named for DeWitt Clinton, the New York governor who built the Erie Canal; he previously was also a U.S. Senator from New York. Clinton is located at...

, 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

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

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

Harry Parke

Harry Einstein was an American comedian and writer, usually known by the name Harry Parke, but who was variously credited as Harry Einstein, Harold Einstein, Harry "Parkyakarkus" Einstein, Parkyakarkus and Parkyarkarkus...

, and of Granby's Green Acres, a 1950 CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

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

Green Acres

Green Acres is an American television series starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a country farm...

.

Andy Griffith

Andy Griffith

Andy Samuel Griffith is an American actor, director, producer, Grammy Award-winning Southern-gospel singer, and writer. He gained prominence in the starring role in director Elia Kazan's epic film A Face in the Crowd before he became better known for his television roles, playing the lead...

 named his character's son "Opie Taylor

Opie Taylor

Opie Taylor is a fictional character in the American television program, The Andy Griffith Show which was televised on CBS from October 3, 1960 to April 1, 1968...

" on The Andy Griffith Show

The Andy Griffith Show

The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...

after Opie Cates, whom Griffith and producer Sheldon Leonard

Sheldon Leonard

Sheldon Leonard was a pioneering American film and television producer, director, writer, and actor.-Biography:...

both liked.