AP - Sat Feb 25, 5:39 PM ET
Cast members from 'The Andy Griffith Show', from left: Don Knotts as Deputy Barney Fife, Ron Howard as Opie
Taylor and Andy Griffith as Sheriff Andy Taylor. Knotts, who kept generations
of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney
Fife on 'The Andy Griffith Show,' died Friday night, Feb. 24,
2006. He was 81. (AP Photo/Viacom)
'The Andy Griffith Show'
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."
Actor Don Knotts is kissed by actress Betty Lynn who portrayed
Fife's girlfriend Thelma as they recreate a pose from a publicity photograph in
this January 19, 2000 file photo.
Knotts, who won five Emmys for portraying the bungling deputy Barney Fife on
'The Andy Griffith Show'.