An unfinished statue of Barney Fife apparently won't be heading to Don Knotts' hometown of Morgantown, W.Va., after all.
Knotts' widow endorses a statue but says the monument should be of her husband, not of the bumbling deputy he made famous on "The Andy Griffith Show." Knotts died in February at age 81.
"We consider the dissemination of his image to be a big responsibility that we take very seriously," Francey Knotts and Andy Griffith said in a statement. "No one cares more about Don's image than we do. It would be wonderful to have a statue in Morgantown, W.Va., of Don Knotts as Don Knotts.
"But this particular image does not fit with our understanding of Don's experience growing up in Morgantown."
Efforts to get a Fife statue in Griffith's hometown of Mount Airy, N.C., which was used as the model for the fictional town of Mayberry, also have been unsuccessful.