RIP
RIP Don Knotts
RIP Don Knotts
A fantastic character actor and comedic presence has left us, CNN is reporting.
RIP
RIP
This morning you've got time for a hot, home-cooked breakfast! Delicious and piping hot in only 3 microwave minutes.
Can't find the words right now. What a great loss. From the associated press release:
LOS ANGELES (Feb. 25) - Don Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show," has died. He was 81.
Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs "The Andy Griffith Show," and another Knotts hit, "Three's Company."
Unspecified health problems had forced him to cancel an appearance in his native Morgantown in August 2005.
The West Virginia-born actor's half-century career included seven TV series and more than 25 films, but it was the Griffith show that brought him TV immortality and five Emmies.
The show ran from 1960-68, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. It is one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top: The others are "I Love Lucy" and "Seinfeld." The 249 episodes have appeared frequently in reruns and have spawned a large, active network of fan clubs.
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.
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."
LOS ANGELES (Feb. 25) - Don Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show," has died. He was 81.
Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs "The Andy Griffith Show," and another Knotts hit, "Three's Company."
Unspecified health problems had forced him to cancel an appearance in his native Morgantown in August 2005.
The West Virginia-born actor's half-century career included seven TV series and more than 25 films, but it was the Griffith show that brought him TV immortality and five Emmies.
The show ran from 1960-68, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. It is one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top: The others are "I Love Lucy" and "Seinfeld." The 249 episodes have appeared frequently in reruns and have spawned a large, active network of fan clubs.
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.
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."
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Andy, Barney, Gomer, Howard Sprague, Floyd the Barber, and Earnest T. Bass (actually, "A Rope Leash" in real life), Otis the Drunk, and lil' Opie. You cannot find characters like that anymore.
Barney changed the entire approach of Andy as regards hsi performance. Andy was supposed to be a funnier character, but Barney, Goober, and Floyd forced him to play more of the 'straight man' to their comedic genius.
Floyd had a stroke that paralyzed one side of his body. that is why, inlater episodes, whenever he is in a scene he is standing behind the barber chair, ususally running a comb through the hair of a customer, the other side motionless and limp. He wanted to continue, and because his vocal style was always soft-spoken and broken, he still worked as a character even after a debillitating stroke.
Nothing...nothing compares to his role as Deputy Barney Fife. The "Three's a Company" performances where a shadow of the brilliance of Barney.
Barney changed the entire approach of Andy as regards hsi performance. Andy was supposed to be a funnier character, but Barney, Goober, and Floyd forced him to play more of the 'straight man' to their comedic genius.
Floyd had a stroke that paralyzed one side of his body. that is why, inlater episodes, whenever he is in a scene he is standing behind the barber chair, ususally running a comb through the hair of a customer, the other side motionless and limp. He wanted to continue, and because his vocal style was always soft-spoken and broken, he still worked as a character even after a debillitating stroke.
Nothing...nothing compares to his role as Deputy Barney Fife. The "Three's a Company" performances where a shadow of the brilliance of Barney.
"The smarter mysteries are hidden in the light" - Jean Giono (1895-1970)