With the addition of comic characters like "Windy", the show continued to sell cereal until 1955. On the air since 1932, Bobby Benson was one of the earliest juvenile Westerns, but the format was in danger of falling out of favor and young audiences became more sophisticated. He landed the role of "Windy Wales", a wisecracking know-it-all on Bobby Benson and the B Bar B Riders. He moved to New York again, and with greater maturity and connections from his days with the Special Services Branch, this time he was able to find paying work and began to develop a showbiz career. Bill funds to complete his studies at the University of West Virginia, graduating with the Class of 1948. Technician Grade 5 (Corporal equivalency) Donald Knotts was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, Philippine Liberation Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (with 4 bronze service stars), Army Good Conduct Medal, Marksman Badge (with Carbine Bar) and Honorable Service Lapel Pin, and discharged on January 6, 1946. He swore he could hear the dummy calling for help. After two years of "playing straight man for a hunk of wood", and at the end of the War he tossed "Hooch" over the rail of the troop ship carrying him home. His act included a dummy named Danny "Hooch" Matador, and although he never saw combat, the show traveled through most of the Pacific Theater. Obviously not front-line material, Private Knotts was assigned to the Special Services Branch and became part of a G.I. He returned to enter the University of West Virginia but was drafted into the Army after his freshman year. After graduating from Morgantown High School, Don made his way to New York to win his fortune as a comedian and failed miserably. Perhaps as a means to bring her son out of the shell he had developed to protect himself from his deranged father, Elsie encouraged you Don to develop a ventriloquist routine which he performed at local church functions. The old man died of pneumonia when Don was 13. By this time, Elsie had taken charge, moved the family off the farm and into Morgantown where she ran a boarding house. He eventually became bedridden, but not before terrorizing his youngest son, sometimes at knifepoint. When Jesse Donald was born in the summer of 1924, his father, already showing signs of schizophrenia and alcoholism, suffered a nervous breakdown. Although she was delighted by the news, the thought of another mouth to feed on the hardscrabble plot he farmed outside of Morgantown, West Virginia, was too much for her husband to bear. William Jesse Knotts had been married to Elsie Luzetta for nearly 25 years and had three grown sons when forty-year-old Elsie surprisingly became pregnant for a fourth time. Knotts did serve during the War, and eventually became one of the most loved and respected figures in Hollywood, but he was hardly ever feared. The thought is so mind boggling that it must be true, but it is not. Just imagine, the guy who Sheriff Andy Taylor would only trust with one bullet in the real-life role of "Gunny" R. There is an entertaining myth going around that during the Second World War, Don Knotts served as one of the most feared Drill Instructors at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island.
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