Long before The Rock was dressed up as a Egyptian mercenary, there was another pimped out pharaoh, The Knotts, except he wasn't known as The Knotts, but more commonly known as Don Knotts. Knotts started his film career with No Time For Sergeants (1958), a play that he had performed on Broadway in his earlier years. This comedic Full Metal Jacket of its time introduced Knotts to Andy Griffith, who later made Knotts an Emmy winner with The Andy Griffith Show. But Knotts wasn't content with just being an award winning television star. The bright lights and silvery dreams of Hollywood called out to Knotts like the voice of God to the prophets of some ancient desert tribe. In 1966 Knotts once again showed the world that Jerry Lewis wasn't a comedic genius and starred in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, where he had to spend the night in a suspected haunted house to gain an outrageous fortune from some dead uncle.
The 1970's allowed Knotts to display his acting wonders not only on the small screen with his own variety show and playing the adhesive Mr. Furley in Three's Company, but Knotts also appeared in Disney films. Yes, Disney. Before it was a capitalist movie company that belched out disease-ridden cartoon lions and lesbian mermaids, Disney made quality films starring the likes of Don Knotts and housebroken shaggy dogs. In 1977 Don Knotts played the pre-cursor to Chewbacca in Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. Knotts was the mechanic as some dude pretended to be Speed Racer and chase down some diamond thieves and win some crazy race through Monte Carlo. Meanwhile Knotts is suping this Volkswagon Beetle that is possessed by the ghost of Junior Wells.
The Herbie saga wasn't the end of Knotts's kung fu grip on the Hollywood scene. Out of the west came a story about two American desperados that fit the personalities of Knotts and Tim Conway. The film was The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975). Sure there were kids and some goofy songs, but Knotts and Conway were the heart of the story: two rugged frontiersmen living out their dreams of Manifest Destiny. The film received such praise that there was a sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979). This time Conway and Knotts are two outlaws on the wrong side of the law and are trying to clear their good names and see that justice is done.
But Don Knott's greatest cinematic achievement of the 1970's would be a film entitled Gus (1976). At this time American heroes were no longer pure: Dirty Harry, Rocky, Santa Clause. Then along came a mule that could kick field goals. The day Gus came to the masses, fascism died. In Gus was the embodiment of the American spirit. Something that should not be was granted an opportunity to breathe. Not only did it breathe, but it survived and conquered. Gus, the field goal kicking mule, that son of a bitch that everyone said would fail, did it. It kicked a field goal and won the fucking game. But it was when the camera got a tight shot of Don Knotts with a small tear beginning to form from his eye and he began to cheer at the victory, it's not what he said. It was what he showed. It was as if to say, Gus the field goal kicking mule wasn't the main character of this story, neither was I but it was the people. It was the working class heroes that this story was about. He was right.
