TV Land said goodbye to the man who brought years of laughter to "The Andy Griffith Show."

George Lindsey, who was affectionately known as "Goober Pyle" on the show, died Sunday after a brief illness. He was 83.

Lindsey played the grinning service station attendant alongside Andy Griffith from 1964 to 1968. The beanie-wearing character was the successor to Jim Nabors' character "Gomer Pyle."

"America has grown up with me," Lindsey said in an Associated Press interview in 1985. "Goober is every man; everyone finds something to like about ol' Goober."

Lindsey also played television roles in "Hee Haw," "M.A.S.H.," "CHIPs," "Twilight Zone," and many other 1950s and 60s classics.

"There's no place in the United States I can go that they don't know me. They may not know me, but they know the character," he told The Tennessean in 1980.

Lindsey, an Alabama native, devoted much of his spare time raising funds for the Alabama Special Olympics and the mentally disabled.

Funeral arrangements are still being made.