Don Knotts was always willing to play Barney Fife again, if Andy Griffith asked
Knotts couldn’t say no to Griffith.
When someone leaves a television series, viewers might assume that there’s bad blood between that actor and the show’s creative team. However, when Don Knotts chose to leave The Andy Griffith Show, it was a decision that, while upsetting, everyone knew was for the best. At that time, Knotts had already won multiple awards for his role as Barney Fife, and it was almost an expectation that he would inevitably move into film projects, graduating from a second banana to a main star.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Griffith acknowledged that he’d miss Knotts, but still believed The Andy Griffith Show would continue on at the same caliber it always had been. However, in Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show by Daniel de Visé, Ron Howard explained that while “Andy understood” Don’s choice to leave the series, he also acknowledged, “I think, for Andy, the show was never the same after Don left.”
Luckily, Don Knotts was neither forgotten nor gone completely from The Andy Griffith Show, as he made frequent returns as a guest star on the series, and returned for any cast reunions for the series. More than that, Knotts was still just as eager to play Barney Fife as he was when he first got the role.
According to a 1990 interview with the Boca Raton News, Knotts said that even after all these years, he’d be willing to return to The Andy Griffith Show, in whatever form it took.
Knotts said, “I still get a charge out of performing before a live audience. I’m not retired, but I don’t have any big ambitious plans. If Andy Griffith calls me up for another Return To Mayberry, I’d be happy to do it.”
