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What If Barney (Don Knotts) Smoked a Pipe?

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brightleaf

brightleaf

Part of the Furniture Now
Sep 4, 2017
555
4
Don Knotts may have been Barney, a nervous, fidgety character used for comedy on screen.

barney.jpg

But what was he like when the camera wasn't rolling?

barney-off-screen-437x600.jpg


....A ladies man with girls eager to warm up his pipe.

 
cortezattic

cortezattic

Lifer
Nov 19, 2009
15,147
7,642
Chicago, IL
I wonder what pipe shape he would find appealing. As Barney Fife I can see him sporting a gourd calabash, but as an off-screen character, I don't know.

 
mso489

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,211
60,657
Knotts was a brilliant comedic actor. I always wondered how much of his nasal whine delivery and amazing awkward body language was Don Knotts and how much a created character. From a few interviews I saw over the years, I think it was a blend. He took his awareness of his own awkwardness and exaggerated it, and added strong acting skills to make his on-screen character live. Andy Griffith was the perfect straight man for Knotts, a pairing made in TV heaven. It wouldn't have worked if Knotts hadn't been able to act out everyone's feeling of being inept and not up to situations, so even competent and capable people recognized a little of themselves. Insecurities on the half shell. Making lemonade out of lemons.

 
mso489

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,211
60,657
Yes! Steve Allen was a founding performer and conceptualizer of TV entertainment. And composer of many pop standards, like "This Could Be the Start of Something Big," and many others. Proof of his talent are some of his failed efforts to bring intellectual subjects to TV, like his show interviewing historical characters (actors of course) and other duds, but he was a brave originator. He could be a little pompous and silly-high-flown, but when he was funny, he had it right on. I think even his slightly stilted over enunciation had good comic effect, like Charlie Chaplin's top hat.

 
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