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"The Mayberry Deputy", "Abe Lincoln" and "Ebenezer Scrooge" are just several of the aliases of 45 year old David Browning, from Bristol, Virginia. As an impersonator and improvisational master, Browning uses costuming, gestures, facial expressions and audience participation to bring out the flavor of the characters and provide an atmosphere of good clean fun. |
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"The Mayberry Deputy" is the most noted of his characters and started in 1988 when a friend of Browning hired the Dillards, known to most show watchers as the "Darlings", to play bluegrass music in Bristol, Tennessee. Browning, who started out in community theatre, put together a "Barney Fife" type act. Based on a sense of recall (since Browning has seen all the Mayberry shows at one time or another), that first performance was a hit. From then on he discovered that he could make a statement as David Browning that was not funny at all, but the same statement, made in uniform with a gun, had audiences falling out of their seats. |
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Soon after, Browning was asked by the Andy Griffith Rerun Watchers Club to perform in a theme park at a Mayberry event in Nashville, Tennessee. The Rerun Watchers Club's founder, Jim Clark, saw Browning's act and began mentioning his name across the country. Browning has been embraced as "The Mayberry Deputy" at small and large groups in North Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Virginia, Florida and Alabama, with continued referrals and request wherever he goes. |
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Browning traveled to Nashville to appear in Confederate Railroad's video of "Elvis and Andy". He feels that video is as good to an actor as a book is to an author. He has also appeared with many of the original stars of "The Andy Griffith Show". |
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Recently Browning had alot of fun performing at the North Carolina Sheriff's Association meeting in Pinehurst. "I really felt like I was in a room full of friends with all those high Sheriffs". Browning think people enjoy the Fife character because it reminds them of a time gone by, it's funny and it's clean entertainment. "In the world we live in today, people are searching for their own Mayberry", he says. "I value this character for what it gives people today of laughter and memories". As a minister with the Babtist Ministerial Association told Browning, "You are ministering to people with your corny jokes and clean humor".
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