Don Knotts dies at 81, page 1

posted on Feb, 26 2006 @ 12:03 AM

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Don Knotts who played Barney Fife on "The Andy Grifftih Show" and a string of other inept characters in films and on television is dead at 81. Knotts was a gifted comic actor whose work with Andy Griffith in the sixties is some of the finest comedic work in television history.

Don Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on “The Andy Griffith Show,” has died. He was 81.

Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at a Los Angeles hospital, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs “The Andy Griffith Show,” and another Knotts hit, “Three’s Company.”

Unspecified health problems had forced him to cancel an appearance in his native Morgantown, W.Va., in August 2005.

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[edit on 2006/2/26 by GradyPhilpott]

whaaa

posted on Feb, 26 2006 @ 12:12 AM

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Thanks Grady

What wonderful days those were when Mayberry rfd and Andy was on the tube.
Sadly we will never see innocence like that again. Don will certainly be missed by me.

Heaven will be heaven if I get to hang with the likes of Knotts, Winters, Allen, Bruce and so many other funny men that made me laugh.

[edit on 26-2-2006 by whaaa]

The Parallelogram

posted on Feb, 26 2006 @ 12:19 PM

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I was just going to start this thread-- I only just now got the news, and I have to say I was very unpleasantly surprised.

Godspeed, Officer Fife... we hardly knew ye.

GradyPhilpott

posted on Feb, 26 2006 @ 02:49 PM

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It's hard to see the old comics go like this. Comedy is very different today and say what you will about censorship, when comedians couldn't rely on cheap, blatant references to bodily functions and genitalia, they had to work harder for a laugh and the result was classic. Some of WC Fields best humor came from his doing his best to circumvent the censors, but Godfrey Daniel and Effingham Hufnagel are a long way from the flagrant crudity of today's humor.

The Parallelogram

posted on Feb, 26 2006 @ 02:54 PM

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Grady, you hit it on the head right there. Don Knotts came from a purer, more innocent age in America's history... the really sad part is that the appreciation of fine comics like Knotts and his contemporaries (Tim Conway comes to mind, as do the others you mention) is fading away just as fast as the old guard itself.

[edit on 26-2-2006 by The Parallelogram]

intrepid

posted on Feb, 26 2006 @ 03:05 PM

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It seems wierd to me. He's one of my earliest memories, I would have thought he was older than 81. His comedy spanned decades, he was still great in Three's Company. RIP Don.

Shugo

posted on Feb, 26 2006 @ 03:09 PM

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First Rodney Dangerfield, then Richard Pryor...now Don Knotts...it is truely a sad and cruel world in comedyville.

Susquehanna

posted on Feb, 26 2006 @ 04:54 PM

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RIP Don, he was a favorite of mine as a child. He lived a full life, one would think.