Virtue Magazine

“What Andy is trying to say, Gomer, is during our lifetime we travel many roads,” Barney began. “There are big roads and little roads, rocky roads and smooth roads . . .”

An impatient Sheriff Taylor soon cut Barney off, preventing the poor deputy from finishing his discourse on life’s many roads. But all humor aside, Barney’s description was not without merit: during our lifetime, we do travel many roads.

All roads must eventually end, however. For Don Knotts, the road ended last month when he died of pulmonary and respiratory complications at the age of 81. Knotts played a number of memorable comedic characters throughout his lifetime, but he will always be most famous for his portrayal of Deputy Fife on The Andy Griffith Show (TAGS).

I was an avid fan of TAGS from a very early age, and still enjoy watching it today. The show featured an unbelievably talented cast of actors and actresses, and a number of equally talented writers who helped produce storylines and write scripts. The show also featured something that is noticeably lacking in most television shows today: clean humor and good morals.

TAGS began in 1960, and didn’t end until 1968. The 1960s may have been a time of social, political and cultural upheaval, but you wouldn’t know it from watching TAGS. Nearly 40 years after it ended the show remains essentially timeless, and the peaceful town of Mayberry exemplifies the quiet and relaxed pace of life that many people wish for today.

Knotts played Fife for the first five years of the show, and later returned to make several guest appearances in the final three years of the show. Described by nearly everyone who worked with him as a wonderful guy, Knotts took Deputy Fife and made him, despite all his faults, into one of the most beloved television characters in history. In the process, Knotts cemented his place in history as one of the most talented comedy actors of his era. And yet, he never appeared to let success go to his head.

“You would think an actor who won five Emmys would get a bit difficult to deal with,” TAGS producer Aaron Ruben once said of Knotts. “Not Don. If anything, he was even more modest and humble. He was a delight to work with, and he was one of the main reasons the Griffith show was my happiest five years in the business.”

That sentiment was shared by Andy Griffith, who was a lifelong friend of Knotts. In fact, it’s been reported that when Griffith learned Knotts was nearing death, he traveled from his home in North Carolina to Los Angeles in order to have a chance to visit his friend one last time.

“Don Knotts is the finest comic actor I’ve ever known,” Griffith once said. “Doing that show with Don was like getting up to go home. It was the best five years of my life.”

Interestingly enough, when the show first started Griffith was supposed to be the “funny man” and Knotts the “straight man.” But as Griffith later noted, it only took two episodes for everyone to realize that Knotts should be playing the “funny man” and Griffith the “straight man.” Later on other comedy characters were added to the show, including Floyd the barber, the drunkard Otis, and Gomer and Goober Pyle. Thelma Lou became the onscreen girlfriend of Barney, while the widowed Sheriff Taylor eventually settled down with Helen Crump (in the first episode of Mayberry R.F.D., a spin off of TAGS that began in 1969, Andy and Helen finally got married before moving away).

Equally interesting is the fact that TAGS at first received largely negative reviews from the national media. One columnist called the show “corn-pone humor.” Griffith in fact became discouraged by the poor media reception, but when the television ratings started coming out, it became clear that TAGS was connecting with Middle America. It quickly became one of the top ten shows each season, and in its final season, became the number one rated show of the year.

Associate producer Richard Linke explained why he felt TAGS became so popular: “In the mind of the audience, The Andy Griffith Show was about real people who lived in a real town—a town where people cared about one another.”

TAGS never really addressed any political or social problems, and yet it was a fundamentally conservative television show. The show promoted conservative values, it promoted morality, it promoted a small town way of life free of crime and government, and it did so without ever becoming “preachy.”

“The program does not merely reflect society, but suggests values,” Richard Kelly was quoted as saying in a 1998 article on TAGS in The Christian Science Monitor. “At a time when a lot of standards have broken down, it represents a kind of lost paradise founded on the best hopes of people.”

Or as a parent in Colorado Springs put it: “I want my child to be like Opie, not Bart Simpson.”

Knotts’ final appearance on TAGS came in January 1968, the last season of the show. It was fitting that the episode, “Barney Hosts A Summit Meeting,” turned out to be the single-highest rated episode ever of TAGS.

Knotts later participated in the 1986 film “Return to Mayberry,” where we see Barney finally marry his longtime sweetheart Thelma Lou. He also made several appearances in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s on Matlock, another successful television series starring Griffith.

Knotts won five Emmy Awards for his role as Barney Fife.

Sources:

Mayberry 101: Behind The Scenes of A T.V. Classic by Neal Brower, published in 1998 by Blair Books

Mayberry Memories: The Andy Griffith Show Photo Album by Ken Beck and Jim Clark, published in 2000 by Rutledge Hill Press

http://www.drpolitics.com/articles/andie.htm