As the bug-eyed deputy to Griffith, Knotts carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.More here:
Knotts, whose shy, soft-spoken manner was unlike his high-strung characters, once said he was most proud of the Fife character and doesn't mind being remembered that way.
His favorite episodes, he said, were "The Pickle Story," where Aunt Bea makes pickles no one can eat, and "Barney and the Choir," where no one can stop him from singing.
"I can't sing. It makes me sad that I can't sing or dance well enough to be in a musical, but I'm just not talented in that way," he lamented. "It's one of my weaknesses."
In Knotts' hands, Fife was a fully realized stooge, a hick-town Don Quixote who imagined himself braver, more sophisticated and more competent than he actually was. His utter lack of self-control led him into desperate jams that usually culminated with Fife at the end of his rope, bug-eyed and panting with anxiety. Sheriff Taylor allowed his deputy to carry just one bullet, which he was obliged to keep separate from his service revolver due to past trigger mishaps.Thanks for making us happy, so many times!
Asked how he developed his most famous character, Knotts replied in a 2000 interview: "Mainly, I thought of Barney as a kid. You can always look into the faces of kids and see what they're thinking, if they're happy or sad. That's what I tried to do with Barney. It's very identifiable."...
[T]he actor did not recall his childhood fondly.
"I felt like a loser," he recalled in a 1976 interview with the Los Angeles Times. "I was unhappy, I think, most of the time. We were terribly poor and I hated my size."
UPDATE: The NYT runs a correction: it's "Aunt Bee, not Bea."
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15 comments:
Funny, I was thinking about him earlier this week --- remembering the sort of comedy team shtick he used to have going with Tim Conway (I'm 34 btw). Conway's still kicking, right?
Don Knotts is Dubya
(your linky pagey commenty thingy on your borders post is all brokey)
Mr. Knots, you will be fondly remembered by many generations.
Yes, Conway is still touring w/ Harvey Korman last I heard.
Man, did I ever get a lot of laughs out of Don Knotts. I remember as a kid going to the drive-in theater with my parents and brother to see "The Reluctant Astronaut". At the age of 6 or 7 I thought that was about the funniest thing I'd ever seen. It's still funny. I am really going to miss him.
I loved Don Knotts. But my wife couldn't stomach him. She just found him annoying.
Isn't it funny how two people with similar tastes can have such different reactions to the same actor's perfromances?
Of course, I remember Knotts also for his work with Steve Allen back in the 1950s. He and that entire troupe will go down in TV history along with other great comedy ensembles like the Goonies, Monty Python, Laugh-In, Your Show of Shows, and the original cast of SNL.
Mark Daniels
I've fixed the comments on the Borders post now, so go ahead!
Ruth Anne: that's so wrong!
Ruth Anne: boo, hiss. (Although, when Roy Orbison died I did say "I guess they Wilbury him in a few days.")
Ruth Ann, that may top "tungsten cheek". The horror, the horror....
Well, Ann, you did like Ruth Anne's "Rest in Peas," after all! (And Ruth Anne, irreverent or not, I think this latest makes a three-way-tie for your best, which also includes the other one I just referenced. You know what the third one is.)
On a serious note:
Don Knotts--anyone who was able to bring that many laughs to so many generations of viewers is great in my book. He was under-rated, IMHO.
R.I.P.
In a prophetic move, I suppose, my 12 y.o. stepson, Jack, just gave me a DVD set of the early Andy Griffith Show classics. The ones in black and white and with Barney. A tribute to the show and it's characters that Jack enjoys watching Andy, Barney and the gang with me today. I watched them in the orginal series when I was his age.
Reader: "Well, Ann, you did like Ruth Anne's "Rest in Peas," after all!"
I didn't actually feel sad when the guy that did the Jolly Green Giant's voice died.
As to Don Knotts not getting credit, he did get full credit for what he did back when the AG show was originally on, and people were delighted to see him back on TV again in Three's Company. I suppose his movies were underappreciated, however, but they were children's movies. I think Jim Carrey has repeatedly said that he got his inspiration from Don Knotts, and if you look at Jim Carrey and think about Don Knotts, you can really see it.
My favorite from the Steve Allen days.
Steve: "What's your name/"
Don: (stuttering) Ka-Ka-Ka-Ka Be-Be-Be-Be J-J-J-Johnson
Steve: What do you do for a living?
Don: I'm a Dy-Dy-Dy-Dynamite Lo-Lo-Lo-Loader.
Steve: What does the K B stand for?
Don: Ka-Ka-Ka-Ka Boom
Todays "humor" leaves me in "duh" mode.
Man, did I ever get a lot of laughs out of Don Knotts. I remember as a kid going to the drive-in theater with my parents and brother to see "The Reluctant Astronaut".
For me it was The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. I was young enough to be scared whenever that organ started playing and for months my friends and I were going around saying "And we even used Bon Ami!".
Knotts seems to inspire fond memories, for me much more so than Capt. Kangaroo, Mr Rogers, etc. Maybe because we often saw him with family or friends as opposed to sitting alone watching the TV?
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