It may seem unusual to find a remembrance of a comic actor in a book column, but Don Knotts was truly an artist, a comedian who made me laugh more often than any other actor/comedian who worked during my lifetime. Not only did his performances have me hooting the first time I saw them, the same performances made me laugh every time I saw them thereafter, even after I’d long since memorized every word of dialogue and every gesture. No other public persona — I’m talking about Barney Fife here — brought me so much joy.
Makes no difference that the humor wasn’t of the Noel Coward variety; sophisticated or not, Knotts was just flat-out naturally funny.
I’m sorry he’s gone, but here’s the good news: we’re never going to miss him.
It’s possible to catch Barney and the other Mayberry guys and gals every morning at 10 and 10:30 a.m. on WRAL, and my guess is the show will continue in reruns ad nauseum.
Even though I’ve seen every episode umpteen times, I can’t help but tune in. And that must be true for millions of Americans. The early Andy Griffith Show (the black and white episodes) is surely one of the most popular and most timeless programs ever to have flickered across the cathode-ray tube.
Every minute of every day, an episode is showing somewhere in America and people’s lives are made a little happier. What more could we ask of an entertainer?
I first saw Don Knotts on the Steve Allen Show. He was one of the interviewees in the “Man-On-the-Street” routine. Louie Nye was Gordon Hathaway from Manhattan — “Hi-ho, Steve-a-reeno!” — Tom Poston was the straight-faced guy who couldn’t remember his own name, and Don Knotts was the nervous fellow who swore he wasn’t. “Sir, are you nervous?” Steve Allen would ask.
“New!” Knotts would reply in a high nasal gasp.
Every week the man-on-the-street routine was the same, and every week I’d laugh. And it wasn’t such a huge leap from the Steve Allen Show’s nervous bungler to being Andy’s deputy in Mayberry. Made no difference if the setting was New York or North Carolina, the camera was in love with the spindly little guy whose face was all angles, like a one-eyed jack. But it was there in the low-key North Carolina town where nobody minds his own business that Knotts and his nervous alter ego came to fruition.
Teamed with Andy, Aunt Bea, Floyd, Ernest T., Gomer, Opie, Otis, the Darlings, etc., Barney was irresistible. Kind, jealous, petty, gossipy, mean, sarcastic, vain, petulant, cowardly, sweet, cheap, presumptuous, arrogant, frequently wrong and never in doubt — Barney Fife possessed, in a lovable way, every human weakness. And, hey, he truly believed he was Frank Sinatra — there’s a little of ole Barn in each of us. Thank goodness.
Every Mayberry fan wanted to know what Don Knotts was like, you know, as a real human being. Joe Duff, a family friend, roomed with Knotts in college, and he told me that Don Knotts was Barney Fife. “He’s just played himself,” Joe used to say.
And probably that’s the key to Knotts’ humor. He was poking fun at himself. What’s more endearing than someone who can laugh at his own foibles? Probably that’s why we love Barney.
Not a bad run, Don Knotts. Here’s to you and all the times you’ve made me laugh — and the times to come when you’ll make me laugh again.
Stephen Smith can be reached at travisses@hotmail.com.
