Was the reference to Saberton in The Pagent a nod to the surburb of Morgantown, VA?
Theresa West quotes a line in the “PAGEANT” episode wherein Barney says that Clara Edwards won’t be available to portray her usual starring role in the annual upcoming town pageant because she has to go to Saberton to attend her sick sister. Thersa asks if I wrote that little factoid in the script knowing that Saberton is a “suburb” of Morgantown W.V., Don Knott’s home town. Or was it just a coincidence? I checked my script copy. On page 12 Barney says “Her sister took sick over in Mebane.” Mebane?…Saberton?…Could she have been stricken in a mobile hospital? My creaky memory came briefly to life and I remember writing “Mebane.” It was a small town in North Carolina which had popped into my mind because it was the home town of Rusty, a classmate who roomed across the hall from me during my freshman year (Fall,1939) at Duke University and unceasingly described it as the fried chicken capital of the known universe. So how did the name become Saperton. I reckon there was a little frien
