What is DL’s view on Don Knotts?

I could have lived without him.

I thought Mr. Furley was a riot.

I just find “The Andy Griffith Show” so boring.

I always thought he was gay until a recent Andy Griffith thread where I learned learned both were horndogs who cheated on their wives constantly while shooting TAGS. Not with each other. With women. I was honestly shocked.

According to The Enquirer, he was quite abusive. His paramours regaled in tales of violence and cruelty.

He was great on Three's Company.

I hated Three's Company though I did catch it sometimes (only to change the channel). But as a kid I loved him as Barney Fife and he was so popular no one thought the show would survive without him.

He wasn't all that good on Matlock either.

He was straight, but also into crossdressing, he was a fixture at Fredericks of Hollywood back in the day.

He always reminded me of a nervous chihuahua. I hate chihuahuas.

John Ritter said he was hung.

Superb character actor. I didn't enjoy all his roles, but I appreciated what he was expected to do and he always delivered.

People who weren't there at the time don't know what a smash hit he was as Barney Fife, especially in rural and working-class households. Even now just about every non-urban sheriff's office or police office has a deputy or other officer they call Barney.

Nip it. Nip in the bud.

I saw him at a New Years Eve Broadway performance of some Kitty Carlisle dreck that we (I was there on a theatre tour with two friends) just had to see because Kitty Carlisle. He wore a full length fur coat, was with a bimbo,, and did not look happy. He left as quickly as he arrived by limo, acknowledging no one nor offering any autographs.

I do think he's hilarious on Mayberry RFD. I forgot which celebrity it was, but they said he (Don Knotts) was, indeed, a ladies' man.

r13, he had charisma, serious star power...Ava Gardner fucked him, he had his choice of all Hollywood leading ladies of the 50's and 60's.

Gasp

I left out one detail: it was 1983.

He did admit that he was very jealous of the 3 main characters on Three's Company.

He once said that all redheaded children should be killed by the time they reach puberty.

Later in life, he used to say Opie's birth name was Oprah. He would laugh until he threw up.

Manson supporter.

Us Gen X and Millennials remember him as Inspector Gadget and his cameos on Scooby-Doo. Sucks to hear that he was apparently a bastard. It seems like everyone in the entertainment industry is a little whacked.

^ Whoops that was Don Adams as Inspector Gadget my bad! But he did make a cameo on Scooby-Doo. My mistake.

Never liked him in anything. Andy Griffith is creepy enough by himself so didn't watch that. Three's Company? Ropers all the way. Ugh. No Fifes.

"The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" is a brilliant comedy for the whole family and one of my go-to movies to chase the blues away.

If you have kids, or nieces and nephews from about ages six to twelve they will get a big kick out of it!

Calm? Do MURDER and CALM go together???

Totally nut fucktz. How could Don Knotts get these women without gunpoint?

[R13], he had charisma, serious star power...Ava Gardner fucked him, he had his choice of all Hollywood leading ladies of the 50's and 60's.

I liked him in Three's Company but I was also a preschooler at the time. MeTV reruns of TAGS allow me to enjoy Barney Fife too.

Too bad he was a sack of shit towards the women in his life. They deserved far, far better.

He was great, he and Andy Griffith made an unstoppable team, but neither was as strong without the other

R4 But what did the Weekly World News have to say about him?

R20 Half (or more) of the LA movie/music/celeb scene partied with Manson, used Manson’s drugs, and fucked his cult whores.

Don't pay attention to the rumors, if you really want a good read on Don Knotts and Andy Griffith read "Andy and Don" it is excellent

Don had a thick 7 1/2 inches and fame. All that a woman could want.

I've never liked Don Knotts. Or Andy Griffith. Lifelong, I've always avoided the Andy Griffith Show and its spinoffs.

That is all.

[italic]The Andy Griffith Show[/italic] was wildly popular and successful... and incredibly racist, even for the era in which it ran. Set in the rural South in the 1960s, there were no black residents, no black characters (recurring or not) in the show, and in the original 8-year run, there was only one speaking role for a black person (Rockne Tarkington). Of note, however, the show employed many gay actors, notably Frances Bavier and Jim Neighbors.

^ That's not really fair since few shows of that era incorporated Black actors. Andy Griffith was aware of the issue, but for the most part resisted using black characters, because his feeling was there were few black people in Mt. Airy NC where he grew up and it would be disingenuous to incorporate them in the show. Andy and Don were both considered liberal with Andy discovering and promoting Jim Neighbors. Andy remained friends with Jim and his partner the rest of his life often visiting and staying with them in Hawaii

"Don had a thick 7 1/2 inches"

Don was know to be hung like a horse and had no problem attracting all the Hollywood starlets he could handle

Nitaaaaah! Juanita!!!! …. lovely dear JUANITE!!

It's Jim NABORS, you fucking twits.

Hugely hung. 50% of his body weight was schlong. Every time he slid that beer can inside of me, my body SANG.

Well Grace, if anyone would know it's you. After all, you did fuck every straight man in Hollywood during your brief time in LaLa Land before you ran off to Europe with the faux "royalty."

It WAS Jim Nabors you fucking twit

[quote] John Ritter said he was hung

John Ritter didn’t know the meaning of the word!

He had that wiley nervous rubber band string type of body where you knew he'd probably be a nut in the sack but perhaps you don't want to look at his face, so it's doggy style.

Gomer said he was hung and I trust Gomer's authority ... "Surprise, surprise, surprise 😛 "

I thought he was wonderful. 'The Ghost & Mr. Chicken' is a cult favorite.

Well known curmudgeon Andy Griffith said one that the happiest days of his life were the years he worked with Don Knotts.

^ They were best friends for life. Andy was by Don Knott's side when he died

“ because his feeling was there were few black people in Mt. Airy NC where he grew up and it would be disingenuous to incorporate them in the show. ”

What? How do you know these were his thoughts?? Link to proof, R34?

^ It was in the biography I linked at r30

Loved when he guest starred on The New Scooby Doo Movies. He was also Wilbur on Search for Tomorrow with Mary Stuart.

It was still racist. Are you trying to tell me there were no black people living in Mt. Airy contemporaneously with when the show ran? And even when Griffith was a child? I said it was incredibly racist because there would have been blacks living in or near the town. I can see there being no regular, but maybe a recurring or a once-in-a-while thing, but to have only one speaking role in 8 years in that period of American history is remarkable.

Sure, it was a reflection of what white people wanted to see on television. It was a different era. It makes the risks that others took (thinking of Gene Roddenberry with [italic]Star Trek[/italic]) that much more striking.

^ I'm not trying to tell you anything, because I'm quite certain that would be impossible. I am telling you what I read in a biography on the subject of black characters on The Andy Griffith Show

Andy Griffith wasn’t racist, and neither was his show. Calling TAGS racist is lazy bullshit, done purely because it’s set in the South. I don’t remember many (or any) black characters on “The Honeymooners”, and no one would think to call it a racist show even though there are a helluva lot more black folks in New York City than there have ever been in Mt. Airy.

^ Lucy wanted black characters on The Lucy Show, but Gary Talked her out of it 😏

The Dick van Dyke Show, based in NYC, had one episode that contained black characters because the show centered around Rob being certain the hospital gave them the wrong baby. The baby he was certain was Richie belonged to a black family. They meet, hilarity ensued. The producers fought tooth and nail to get that one harmless, funny show aired, because the sponsors thought it too controversial. Things were changing in the 60s, but very slowly

“Car 54, Where Are You?” was one the first sitcoms to have black characters.

Back in the early days on TV it was either all black or no black. That's how we had Amos & Andy, which I still think was a wonderful show with wonderfully talented actors. But you'll never see it again most likely. I have all the episodes on DVD.

[quote]It WAS Jim Nabors you fucking twit

The name is still Jim Nabors, r40. It's just Jim that isn't, any more.

[quote]“Car 54, Where Are You?” was one the first sitcoms to have black characters.

Yes. Bewitched was another one.

^ Nobody cares that you're the spelling queen of DL 🤨

Don Knotts was a physical actor who could say more with a facial reaction than many actors could with a paragraph of dialogue.

Barney Fife is one of the iconic characters of American television because he is someone we all know, and that most have inside of us to a certain extent.

I don’t think it’s true but I remember hearing the rumor, it may have been here, that Knotts was the benefactor of the famous Angelyne at one time.

Don Knotts was great as Mr. Furley, but an interesting alternative for that character would be Kenneth Williams. Of course he would be deploring Tripper's homosexuality ("absolutely DIS-GUST-ing!") Al the while obviously having an unrequited crush on Tripper. But Williams would be too much, too prissy for American TV audiences.

To those of you painting the Andy Griffith show with a racist brush, as a child in the 60, until Star Trek, there were no minority cast members on any of the popular shows. By the end of the 60, there were integrated casts (Star Trek, Laugh-In) and shows (Julia), but before that, NADA.

^ I agree, BIG difference between 1960 and 1970

R53, Carl Reiner said Mary Tyler Moore was also uncomfortable with that episode and told him she didn’t think the show should get political. There was absolutely nothing political in the episode except the appearance of a black couple, for the premise. Especially striking for the time was the post-final commercial closer, where the four of them sat in the Petries’ living room, drinking coffee and having a good laugh over Rob’s idiocy.

^ One of the best shows they ever did. Hard to believe how different things were in the early 60s compared to Sammy Davis Jr. kissing Archie Bunker in the early 70s

Sorry to derail the racism-tangent, but i want to add my love for the CLASSIC “Ghost & Mr. Chicken.”

“Taro. Caro. Salomon!!!”

I didn’t get his character on Andy Griffith when I was a kid (“stuuupid”) but as an adult it’s obvious he really was good and I’ll watch it every so often if it’s an episode he’s on. He won five Emmys as Barney Fife. I’ve never seen an episode of Three’s Company; that kind of broad humor isn’t appealing to me.

I remember an episode of All in the Family when Archie not only had a black doctor, but received a blood transfusion from a black donor. DEI alarmists would lose their shit over this 50 year old episode.

Knotts is excellent in his cameo role opposite Phil Silvers in the comedy classic ‘It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World’ (‘63).

I bet he kissed like a chicken, though.

Before the Andy Griffith show, Don Knotts was also a regular on the Steve Allen show. He obviously developed the Barney Fife character from his weekly 'Man on the Street' appearances:

[quote] The Andy Griffith Show was wildly popular and successful... and incredibly racist, even for the era in which it ran. Set in the rural South in the 1960s, there were no black residents, no black characters (recurring or not) in the show, and in the original 8-year run, there was only one speaking role for a black person (Rockne Tarkington).

R33 Maybe you're saying the makers of the show were racist for not including other races. But the show as written was not racist, it just didn't include black characters. To me a racist show would be one that has negative jokes or comments about black people, negative portrayals, or was anti-black in an overt way.

R33 here. First, I should state for the record that I have seen every episode of [italic]The Andy Griffith Show[/italic], most too many times to count. It is my brother's favorite TV show; he has the entire collection on DVD and when we don't know what else to watch, he drags out the set and picks one of his favorite episodes. I've seen some as recently as this past Christmas.

I did not say Andy Griffith was racist. I have seen and read many interviews in which he expressed no racial animus but instead an open and accepting demeanor that, given the era in which he was popular, was refreshing. He was truly a kind man who cared for those around him.

However, the power of television and particularly in the 1960s cannot be overstated. There was a racial line that show runners (in general, not just [italic]The Andy Griffith Show[/italic] ) did not cross without great pushback and in most cases, career-ending pushback. I understand why stars like Griffith and Knotts would not want to die on that hill. Nevertheless, there came a time in the show's run in which the show and its stars were so popular that the network would have caved to their pressure should they demand that some small speaking roles show black people simply existing. At least Griffith's contemporary. Lucille Ball, had the (forgive me) balls to have black extras and background characters (but, alas and similarly, one speaking role in 6 years) during the initial run of [italic]I Love Lucy,[/italic] which broke racial barriers of its own with the interracial relationship between Lucy and Ricky/Desi. And we can't forget that [italic]Star Trek[/italic] existed thanks to her Desilu studio bankrolling the revised pilot (once the network forced Roddenberry to change the gender of Kirk's first officer from the Number One played by Majel Barret in the original pilot and shown as flashbacks in "The Cage", to Leonard Nimoy's Spock).

I get it. [italic]The Andy Griffith Show[/italic] was not overtly racist. It was merely structurally racist.

The Incredible Mr. Limpet was subtle allegory…

Oh fuck that, it was a job!

Andy Griffith is extremely liberal. He is not a racist. He did commercials for Obama.

@r71, For someone who's "seen every episode of The Andy Griffith Show" you sure weren't paying very close attention

Another...

And a couple of more... Next time your brother wants to watch old Andy Griffith Show reruns PAY ATTENTION

Desi Arnaz - Certificate of Naturalization. "Color: White"

^ Yeah, but was he white, white

[quote]They were best friends for life. Andy was by Don Knott's side when he died.

Same on both accounts with me and my daughter.

I'm not even sure there were Catholics or Jews in Mayberry never mind blacks.

^ 😂 Please, describe a Catholic for the crowd

Does anyone know if they had Moravians on the show?

R81 The Taylors and their friends went to a church. It was some kind of non-denominational Protestant church. Not a Catholic church with a priest, or a synagogue. Am I wrong?

^ Ok, but you said, "I'm not even sure there were Catholics or Jews in Mayberry never mind blacks." How could you tell if someone was Jewish or Catholic?

^ I'm 100% sure Juanita was Catholic 😂

R84 It was a jokey observation about how everyone seemed to be white and protestant in Mayberry. But how can you "tell" if people are protestant? Maybe Andy was Jewish. And Aunt Bee might have been an Orthodox Jew.

Clara, the organist of the Protestant church, may have been a Catholic in secret.

@r86, Ok, but you keep making a point of different religions in Mayberry, but there's no way to tell what religion someone is

R88 Their last names might be a clue.

@r82, "Does anyone know if they had Moravians on the show? "

Yes, Andy Griffith was Moravian and at one time seriously considered being a Moravian Minister... Bet you all thought he was Baptist

But seriously, you can't tell the difference between people in a white protestant Southern community vs white people in Brooklyn who might be various ethnicities which usually identify as Catholic (like Italians) or Jewish?

@r89, Describe a Catholic last name... This ought to be good

@r91, You're crossing over into the Twilight Zone with your stereotyping. Better check yourself

R92 Describe all the characters on The Andy Griffith show with Italian, Hispanic, or Jewish surnames.

R93 Oh, my God, you're right! The characters and townspeople of The Andy Griffith Show do not exhibit a slant towards WASP stereotypes at all. They are clearly of all ethnicities and we are meant to interpret them as such.

^ I'm done here KKKen, have a nice day... Dickhead

^ I'd say he's more of an asshole, but you can never be sure with "those people"

^ Really? I would have sworn he was a douchebag... Must have gotten his nose fixed 🤔

I thought he was one of the ugliest men I had ever seen so I never watched that hick show.

R96 R97 You are the two stupidest people I've ever encountered on DL.

Don as the Nervous Weatherman when he was part of Steve Allen's stock company.

@r100, Then go fuck yourself with a hot poker, asshole

I can't believe you guys can get into a fight about TAGS.

R75: "This year’s list of actors includes Calvin Peeler, who at age 13 in 1968, landed the role of Martin during the first season of “Mayberry R.F.D.”

R76 and R74 are extras, and I was aware of these actors. They weren't "some small speaking roles".

I'm like Griffith and Knotts in this regard: it's not my hill to die on. I'm not trying to prove Griffith or Knotts were racists. The show was a reflection of the era.

The place where the fictional Mayberry existed was North Carolina, a Confederate State that took until 1971 to fully desegregate its schools. Lucy put Black people on as extras a decade earlier, but of 249 episodes of [italic]The Andy Griffith Show[/italic] you've found two with black extras and the linked Quora post will show you a couple more. The thing is, this wasn't coincidental because the show was filmed on Desilu's lot in Culver City, California. They had to cast these people and someone had to make the decision to include a few Blacks (I've found evidence of a total of 4 but have not conducted an exhaustive search and I recall the incidence of Black people on [italic]The Andy Griffith Show[/italic] so few, I don't know if more exist but will happily be proven wrong) out of hundreds of extras over 8 years to represent a state that in 1960 was 24.5% black. This is not opinion but fact. Why the pushback?

^ Quora? 😂 Did you check with Facebook and Reddit to see what they thought? How about your mom? What's her thinking on this?

@r71, " At least Griffith's contemporary. Lucille Ball, had the (forgive me) balls to have black extras and background characters"

So, were Lucy's black extras somehow blacker than TAGS black extras, because it sure seems to me that along with the TAGS episode about the black coach TAGS had black background actors just like the other shows of that era, you disingenuous prick. Now, care to get into why everyone's religion was so important to you, KKKen?

Probably better if you didn't

I’m an elder gay and have seen most of the movies and TV shows that Knotts made an appearance in. Sure, Three’s Company was B-minus, low-class television (though not as trashy as certain other popular sit-coms - Married With Children, for example). Still, you twinks and other gen X, Y, or Z youngsters who were raised on a diet of shitty reality shows and gangsta hip-hop garbage music don’t know what’s good.

Welcome to the DL, R103.

@r103, "I can't believe you guys can get into a fight about TAGS. "

Because, no matter how innocent the subject may be on DL there are racists, bigots and trolls constantly lurking about ready to spread their passive-aggressive bullshit every chance they can and the total fuckface on this thread who thinks Quora is a legitimate source to make his pathetic case is no different

Let's not let "The Andy Griffith Show is racist!" become "Let's Be Mamie Eisenhower's Bangs"!

A treasure of course. He's one of the most well-known, and well-loved West Virginia natives.

R104, the total black population of NC is not illustrative of the black population of Surry County which is where Griffith is from.

The black population of NC has historically resided in the large metro areas and eastern coastal plain of the state. Several of the western counties even today have less than 1% black population and the black population of Surry County has always been less than 5%.

^ Thanks, people don't realize there weren't many blacks in the Piedmont where Andy Griffith is from. They're concentrated in the coastal low lands where the farms and plantations where. The Piedmont is famous for beautiful wood furniture because of the dense hardwood forests. Andy's father worked his whole life in a furniture factory

[Quote] What does a Catholic look like?

^ I've got news for you... Catholic girl

R105, R106, et. al.: Again, not my hill to die on. Maybe you should examine why you're so triggered.

^ Maybe I should you racist, bigoted dickhead

^ [italic]Oh, dear.[/italic]

^ Oh, dear.

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken remains one of my favourite movies of all time.

Attaboy Luther!

[quote]Ok, but you keep making a point of different religions in Mayberry, but there's no way to tell what religion someone is.

Except for Schlomo the Jew.

I had a crush on him when I was a little girl.

Although there were certainly blacks in Mt. Airy when Griffith was a kid, they were in small amounts. More in Winston-Salem and Durham. And Catholics am Jews were rare in such small towns until the last 30-40:years.

Did he have a big schwanker?

He was such a fussy prisspot closet case!

I never understood the humor of Roper and Furley acting appalled and disgusted by Jack being "gay" when both Norman Fell and Don Knotts were the gayest actors EVER on a broadcast TV sitcom. Yes, even gayer than Paul Lynde. Was that all supposed to be some inside joke?

[quote][R13], he had charisma, serious star power...Ava Gardner fucked him, he had his choice of all Hollywood leading ladies of the 50's and 60's.

Not just Gardner: also Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, and Jayne Mansfield. And let's also not forget Guy Madison, Rock Hudson, and Fernando Lamas...

The man was a sex god.

Sex on a stick.

[quote] Ava Gardner fucked him

She was a whore, darlin'. She also fucked Mickey Rooney so clearly she wasn't the discriminating type.

^ Thelma Lou carried a lifelong torch for Andy, not Barney

Although Andy loved to diddle in the show's lady pool Thelma was not one of the lucky ones ☹️

R84 I grew up in rural NC. There might be one Catholic church per county (in the less populous counties), whereas you’ll find an endless deluge of Southern Baptist, Methodist, AME, Presbyterian, and other assorted Protestant congregations. And synagogues? Forget it. You have to go to a city of decent size to find those.

I adore him in Barney character. I never watched Threes Company.

@r131, Andy Griffith was Moravian and at one time seriously considered being a Moravian Minister

Don? Not.

Forget about Moravians! Were there any Moldovians in Mayberry, darling?

When I was a kid, I thought The Private Eyes was the funniest movie until Airplane.

[quote]I Love Lucy, which broke racial barriers of its own with the interracial relationship between Lucy and Ricky/Desi.

That was not an interracial relationship. Desi Arnaz was of 100% European Spanish ancestry.

The episode of the Andy Griffith Show where Helen Lawson appeared in blackface doesn't count as having a black character.

Tomorrow is the centennial of his birth.

So anyway…. I hear so many people intentionally say “nip it in the butt” instead of “the bud”.

I think Clara said that to Aunt Bee right before church.

Ugly. I never watched The Andy Griffith show because I though Andy was ugly, too. My eyes!

They keep a page on DL where they say the most hateful lies about him!

Don Knotts 100th birthday today

^ I wonder what that's like.

Didn't Don Knotts and Ken Berry get married and open an amusement park farm in California?

Liked him as Barney Fife.

I could not stand "Three's Company." and I still do not understand its popularity.

What's an amusement park farm? Are amusement parks grown there?

R148

[quote] And the movies …. what was “The Incredible Mr. Limpet” supposed to be about?

It's about humans' purpose in a godless universe, Rose.

Erectile dysfunction.