The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show - Prater's Creek Gazette

Don Knotts (1924-2006)

You are a life long fan of The Andy Griffith Show if you are on this website. Heck, you are slap dab in the middle of our own little Mayberry: Prater’s Creek, SC. With recurring characters to get to know and consider as your friends, and places, real and make believe, that you know you are always welcome.

The passing away of Don Knotts, at the age of 81, from respiratory complications, is huge to this newspaper and to The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show. Like you, we grew up watching The Andy Griffith Show and never get tired of watching reruns of the show. And Don Knotts was the greatest thing about that show. He was the greatest comic actor on the funniest TV show ever. And that’s something.

Knotts was born on July 21, 1924 in Morgantown, West Virginia. After graduating from West Virginia University, he headed for the big city. “I went to New York cold. On a $100 bill. Bummed a ride” he later recalled.

Within six months he had found employment on a radio Western where he played a know-it-all handy man. He stayed with that show for five years before moving on and making his television debut on the Steve Allen Show, where he did his “nervous guy” routine. He had appeared on stage in the play “No Time For Sergeants” with Andy Griffith, and later the movie. When Griffith got the TV show offer, Knotts told him that he needed a deputy. Originally, Griffith was supposed to be the comic lead, but he and the producers saw that Knotts was the funniest thing on the show. He played “Ol’ Barn” from 1960-1965 before leaving the show.

His movies were great also. I’ll never forget The Reluctant Astronaut and The Incredible Mr. Limphet, The Apple Dumpling Gang, and his great turn as a TV repairman in 1996’s Pleasantville.

But it was with Barney Fife that he made his mark on the world. And please don’t mention Mr. Furley and Three’s Company. I hated that show, jiggling or not.

When I was in Six String Drag, the house that Kenny Roby stayed in, along with Ryan Adams from Whiskeytown, was right behind the Raleigh YMCA that Barney would vacation at on the show. I’d sit there on the front porch of that old house (it was on what Whiskeytown called “Faithless Street”) and always want to go over and play some ping pong and eat tapioca pudding just like ‘Ol Barn did.

With his trusty bullet in his front pocket he was a Southern Don Quixote, but he had Thelma Lou instead of Dulcinea. The writers disappointed a lot of people in the class reunion episode when Thelma Lou comes back but is married and Barney’ heart is broken. The actress who played Thelma Lou, Betty Lynn, said she was upset they had written her character’s return like that.

The episode where Barney is bragging to what he thinks is a college girl, but who really is an investigative reporter out to dig up some dirt on Andy for her revenge seeking boss who had been ticketed, is almost as beautiful as Shakespeare. Where Knotts, in a wonderful human way, tells the judge at Andy’s hearing “That this town doesn’t have a better friend that Andy Taylor” is a moving as any television episode that has ever aired.

How many hours have The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show spent in the van talking about “The Andy Griffith Show”? Thousands. How many times have we said we were going to sing acapella? “Acapella, Acapella”.

Yes, if you are on this website, then you are certainly the kind of person who gets a lump in your throat talking about the importance of Barney Fife. I’ve always wanted to visit Houser Street in Queens, NY where Archie Bunker lived, and drink a beer with him and watch the Jets. And eat ribs, or maybe a “Fatburger”, drink cheap wine, and listen to the Ink Spots with Fred Sanford, Grady, and Bubba in Watts. But most of all, I want to visit Mayberry. That would be my idea of Heaven. And I’m sure the folks up in Heaven insist on Don Knotts wearing his Barney uniform. And he ain’t playing a harp, he’s playing a “French Harp”, a harmonica. Playing a little “Finickeela. Finickula”