Give Thanks for Don Knotts’ Last Role: A Talking Turkey
As we prepare for our national day of gratitude, take a moment to give thanks for one last funny performance from sitcom icon Don Knotts. Appropriately for the season, Knott’s final movie role was providing the voice of anxious cartoon bird Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Disney’s 2005 Chicken Little.
There’s more than a little Barney Fife in Mayor Turkey Lurkey, a trembling public official full of false bravado. That’s no coincidence — the character was 100 percent based on Knotts’ comedy performances of the 1960s. Supervising animator Dick Zondag says the film’s director, Mark Dindal, wanted some big Don Knotts energy for the character.
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“I’m a huge Don Knotts fan, actually,” Zondag told The Province in 2005, via MeTV. He knew that Dindal wanted more than straight-up Knotts — “he wants Don Knotts from The Ghost and Mr. Chicken or the Barney Fife Don Knotts.”
With Knotts on board to provide voicework, Zondag went to town designing a character that was unmistakably based on the comedian. That meant watching hours of footage from Knotts’ comedy work. “I go and take whatever film clips I can and study them like crazy,” Zondag said. “Then I’ll go and build things that I think are like what that character will do. And some of them are exaggerated and over-the-top because, at the end of the day, it’s still a cartoon.”
From Mayor Turkey Lurkey’s wide, state-of-disbelief eyes to his thin, gangly build to his anxious, get-me-out-of-here gait, the character’s visual design is pure Knotts.
Critics didn’t love Chicken Little but loved Knotts. Roger Ebert called out Knotts’ performance in his final film, crediting the film’s main laughs to its distinctive voice talent. And other critics believe the movie’s main flaw was not enough Knotts. “If you’ve got Don Knotts in your movie, make the most of it,” begged CinemaBlend. “Don’t waste him.”
Fans were thankful as well. “Don Knotts was fabulous — we need to find more work for Don Knotts, he’s so good!” wrote one IMDb user.
Over on Reddit, one user challenged Redditors to say something good about Chicken Little. “I like the turkey mayor character. He was funny,” wrote u/MastersJoyUniverse.
Well, of course, posted u/Additional-Soup7553. “Don Knotts is a Fucking Legend.”
