Posted on 02/25/2006 2:32:14 PM PST by Puppage
Just heard on Fox News. Don Knotts dead at 81
When I was in the Air Force overseas, TAG used to be a highlight on AFRTS for a lot of us.
One of the most bittersweet TV moments was their high school reunion. And Thelma Lou walking in, with her husband. It just wasn't right that Barney and Thelma Lou didn't marry.
I used to love "Three's Company" episodes when he always thought Jack Tripper was gay because Jack was doing certain situations or talking in the kitchen or something....hilarous!
Damn! And just when he was about to film "The JImmy Carter" story!
They finally did in the movie.
The producers later on said they made a mistake when they put that part in. I am glad they fixed it in the end with the movie.
Rest in peace, "Barney"... thanks for all the laughs...
God rest his soul. He was so good at what he did.
Barney arguing with (someone, I don't remember) and Andy walks in.
Barney: "Ange. How do you fight fire?"
Andy (with that bemused look on his face, messing with Barney's blood pressure): "With a water hose??"
Barney (giving Andy that wide-eyed look): "NO! With fire! You fight fire with fire!"
Yep, sometimes reunions of beloved tv shows are best left on the cutting room floor. They're particularly hard on gals like me who prefer the "happily ever after" endings.
RIP Barney.
your antics were a nice memory from my formative years
God bless you sir!
I'm sure the first thing he'll hear in Heaven is
"Welcome home Barney, here, how would you like a pickle?"
RIP Barney, God Bless
Rest in peace, Don Knotts.
I believe Don Knots was also one of the stars in Steve Allen's, man on the street skit. He, Louie Nye and Tom Poston.
Thanks for the memories, the laughs and your talent Don. You were a true master of your craft.
RIP Deputy Fife.
on Ernest T Bass
"He's a NUT Andy he's a NUT I tell ya"
I remember that! ROFLMAO!
Thanks for posting this. How sad. Don Knotts (lol, I saw a poster refer the other evening to "Don Knox") was a one-of-a-kind.
I'll bet there are cave-dwellers somewhere in the far reaches of the planet Earth who know who Barney Fife is! He lives on.
I get my nightly dose of Barn and Ange in the wee hours, but miss it in times like these - the Olympics pre-empting.
"Nip it ... nip it in the bud" - was what my dad said about my first serious boyfriend relationship at 15. BF would go around imitating Barney saying it.
"Nita ... jua-ah-ah-neeta ... ask thy soul if we should part ..." (singing it over the phone until Andy comes in from rounds - then "all business" to Juanita at the diner).
Ha ha, Barney as the bride in Ernest T's wedding to the Darling girl ... so funny!
And when he dressed up again as a woman, a la the Greater Tuna guys, to catch yet another thief ... and as he walked out onto the street in his get-up and wig, Opie just walks by and says "Hi, Barn" and keeps walking.
I do remember him on Steve Allen, too, as the nervous man on the street, along with the others. "Who, me? Nervous?" And Gordon Hathaway's "Hi ho, Steverino!"
The Mayberry Reunion movie was on not long ago and whoever said it's best to leave classics alone was right! While I was *glad* that Andy and Helen had married and were old-timers now, and that Barney and Thelma Lou were still together, and that Opie was having a baby - (grandpa Opie now) - it did sort of give me a jolt to "realize" that the Mayberry of old really doesn't exist anymore - as if it ever did, except on a TV show!
In the reruns I watch every night, they have been in one of the B/W seasons when Barney wasn't there. I missed how or why he left - he's only come back once - and Andy went to see him once in Mount Pilot at his detective job. It is definitely not as good with Barney gone.
Ooh, for a while they had that double-talking guy that used to be a partner in Burns & Schreiber. "Huh? Yeah. Huh? Yeah. Huh? Yeah. Enough already!" That was in the later color episodes, though. He was terrible.
I love seeing who some of the guest actors are. One of Andy's paramours was Ruta Lee and then he also had a date with Annie Oakley - Gail ... last name is escaping me. She out-shot him at the skeet tourney, after he kind of said some disparaging things about women and guns. Andy did have his "male chauvinist pig" side - but he also knew it in that episode and apologized.
(Which made it easier much later, in a color season, to have Aunt Bee get her pilot's license!)
Oh, so many memories - but Barney lives on, and so does Don!
Ouch! I'm glad I haven't "re-seen" that one this time around. I didn't remember it.
One of a kind ... RIP Mr. Knotts. Thank you for entertaining us all those years.
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