Deputy Barney Fife [played by Don Knotts]: “It’s the old mother
figure bit: he loves her like a mother. Sigmund Frood wrote a lot about that.” —The
Andy Griffith Show, Season 5, Episode 4, “The Education of Ernest T. Bass,” original
air date Oct. 12, 1964, teleplay by Everett Greenbaum and James Fritzell,
directed by Alan Rafkin
I’ve always thought that no TV character could
fracture the English language so often, effortlessly and hilariously as All
in the Family’s Archie Bunker. But I must say, after watching numerous
episodes of The Andy Griffith Show in this year of social distancing, that Barney Fife
comes in a close second.
Sheriff Andy Taylor’s lovable but flummoxed deputy
brings to mind nothing so much as the couplet from Alexander Pope: “A little
learning is a dangerous thing/Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.” (Of
course, Barney is more likely to think of the creator of those lines as a
religious leader than as an English poet.)
Barney applies the principles of psychology far more
broadly than simply to substitute mother figures. He is also a student of the
criminal mind, concerned that any show of leniency is liable to be interpreted
as a sign of weakness. Firearm use is a necessity, he believes. “There's Andy,
and there's me, and baby makes three," he says, patting his gun.
Is it really his fault, then, that his gun goes off
as soon as it’s placed in his holster?
The physical aspects of Barney Fife—the sneer and strut
in front of no-account occupants of the Mayberry jail that inevitably precede
his bulging, saucer eyes and sweating forehead—overshadow his extensive resort
to malapropisms. But his misuse of the mother tongue also makes him one of the
great subsidiary characters in sitcom history.
For his performance in this role—including his dexterity
in mangling language in so many sidesplitting ways—Don Knotts was nominated five times
for an Emmy, winning each one. By the end of that extraordinary streak, I’m not
sure why the Television Academy didn’t simply throw up its hands and rename its
Best Supporting Actor Award in his honor.
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