What happened to Opie Taylor's mom?

She passed away, but I don't believe they ever said how/why? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andy_Griffith_Show. They didn't have "divorces" in 1960's sit-coms. I was thinking both parents were widowed on the Brady Bunch, but the Wiki entry tells that Mike was widowed, but Carol was divorced, but they never mentioned the divorce on the show. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_Bunch

The same thing happend with The Riffleman...right. Lucus had to raise Mark by himself, but they never tell what happened to the mom. Why all the single father shows in that era?

The mother from the Eight Is Enough family had also passed although that show takes place in a later era.

I've always found this "dead mother" phenomenon to be disturbing. Have you ever noticed that Disney heroines -- in fact, fairy tale heroines in general -- rarely have living mothers?

Marina Warner talks about this in her book "From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers," but only to explain the ubiquity of stepmothers (better a mean stepmother than a mean mother.) But what's with the dead mothers on American television?

The mother on Eight is Enough died because the actress had cancer and really died. Shw was dating John Travolta at the time.

It could be the dead mother bit comes in because a household with a living mother is regarded as normal and everyday (statistics being ignored), while one with just the father there gives rise to more story possibilities. There's little to write about (entertainment-wise) in a perfectly normal household. Hence the flaming rows, misunderstandings and general mayhem in soap operas. Any story has to have a difference from the everyday. Someone must do something that their character type wouldn't do in real life. Like Bilbo going off with the dwarves.