What would TAGS been like with Jerry Miller and no Warren Ferguson?
I believe Jerry Miller would have been a more successful replacement for Barney
Fife. For one, his character was distinct from Barney in that he was more
low-key and laid-back as opposed to Barney's high-strung, persnickety
personality, which Warren shared. Also, he was a more sympathetic character
than Warren. I think this had to do more with the actors playing the roles.
If you look at just about any character Jerry Van Dyke has played through the
years, it was a likeable one. Jerry Van Dyke has an endearing quality that
comes through in his acting. Jack Burns could be very funny, but he didn't
have the same quality. Instead, he tended to come across as annoying more than
sympathetic. This may have also been partly the way his role was written.
But Don Knotts was always able to imbue Barney Fife with a vulnerability that
made him loveable even when, at times, he could be quite annoying. An example
of this is The Case of the Punch in the Nose. I actually get pretty
exasperated with Barney's single-minded persistence in completing the
investigation so the case can be closed. Sometimes I just want Andy to
throttle him! (Which proves what a great actor Don Knotts was.) But at the
end, after Andy resolves the feud between Floyd and Mr. Foley and Barney finds
out it wasn't handled officially, he stalks out of the courthouse saying, It's
just as open as it ever was! Now, if he had said this angrily, we would have
had no sympathy for him. But, no, Don Knotts has Barney deliver his line in a
little-boy whine that we find endearing and funny, despite knowing he's going
to go out and start trouble all over again. This was the genius of Don Knotts
that he was able to play a character like Barney Fife and make him totally sy
mpathetic and not annoying.
Though I don't mean to take anything away from Jack Burns, he just wasn't able
to pull this off with Warren. Who knows, however, what he might have been able
to do with Warren if he'd had more time to develop the character? He did have
his sympathetic moments, such as the episode where he's a sleepwalker. Still,
Jerry Van Dyke had already developed the sweet-but-bumbling character that he
used for Jerry Miller. It was the same type of character he played as Rob's
younger brother Stacy in The Dick Van Dyke Show. So--bottom line--I
personally feel that Jerry Miller could have been a more successful replacement
for Barney Fife than Warren Ferguson was.
Thelma Lou
(Janet)
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