$dsn = 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=DBNAME';
$username = 'USER';
$password = 'PASS';
$options = array();

$dbh = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password, $options);

if ($dbh) {

    $stmt = $dbh->query('SELECT * FROM MYTABLE LIMIT 1');
    $results = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

    print_r($results);

}
else {
    echo 'Failed.';
}

[client]

default-character-set = utf8 # not utf8mb4

[mysql]

default-character-set = utf8 # not utf8mb4

[mysqld]

# REF: http://stackoverflow.com/a/24487309/3174018
collation-server = utf8_unicode_ci
character-set-server = utf8 # not utf8mb4