page_title: Don Knotts
section_title: Post-Mayberry film career
hierarchical_section_title: Don Knotts / Career / Post-Mayberry film career
caption_attribution_description: Photo from a skit from Andy Griffith's Uptown-Downtown Show. From left: Griffith, Tennessee Ernie Ford (as the husband), and Don Knotts (as Ford's wife).
context_page_description: Jesse Donald Knotts was an American actor and comedian, best known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, a 1960s sitcom for which he earned five Emmy Awards, and for his role as Ralph Furley on the highly rated sitcom Three's Company from 1979 to 1984. He also starred in multiple comedic films, including the leading role in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and The Incredible Mr. Limpet. In 1979, TV Guide ranked him #27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
context_section_description: Knotts went on to star in a series of film comedies that drew on his high-strung persona from the television series: he had a cameo appearance in United Artists' It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and starred in Warner Bros.' The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Knotts then began his Universal five-film contract with The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). Knotts reprised his role as Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (gaining him another two Emmy Awards), and he later appeared once on the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D., where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump.
  After making How to Frame a Figg, Knotts's five-film contract with Universal finished. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until his appearance on Three's Company in 1979. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host a variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, The Don Knotts Show, which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Here's Lucy. In 1970, he appeared as a Barney Fife-like police officer in the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show. In 1972, Knotts voiced an animated version of himself in two episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies: "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry", in which he played a lawman resembling Barney Fife, and "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner". He also appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, with Art Carney as Oscar Madison.
  Beginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). They also did two independent films, the boxing comedy The Prize Fighter (1979), and the mystery-comedy The Private Eyes (1980). Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including Gus (1976), No Deposit, No Return (1976), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).
caption: On a 1967 Andy Griffith special, Knotts plays the outraged wife of Tennessee Ernie Ford, as Griffith looks on
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