A Black Day for Mayberry - S4-E7
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the show, two men walk into the courthouse. (As a sidenote, one of the men is Rance Howard, which is Ronnie Howard's real dad). Barney is the only one there, as Andy is out. The two men sit down to wait for Andy. Rance Howard is not wearing a hat, and he is in a light-colored suit. When Opie walks through the door looking for Andy, you can see that Rance is not sitting there any more, and now it's a man with a dark suit and wearing a hat. (00:01:55)
Answer: As noted in the previous answers, in real life, things like this provided wind and/or rain deflection, and also maintained a bit of privacy when blinds were raised somewhat. The interior courthouse set was located in the studio, so the "outside" Main Street didn't exist. I believe these things were added to the courthouse windows for practicality, to avoid some crew movement being visible on the opposite side of those windows. These are not "window boxes" to hold anything, as they're actually bottomless; we can see the Venetian blind's long pull cords under them. They're made of plywood and simple to build, so the "material and labor" was inexpensive. Similar variations made of different materials are in other movies/shows. In 1957's "12 Angry Men," textured chicken wire glass panels are in the jury room windows, and in "Jesse Stone: Night Passage" another type is in Jesse's office windows.
Super Grover ★