There are movies that are funny and there are movies that are spooky. Somehow The Ghost and Mr. Chicken managed to be both.
This 1966 movie was one of Don Knotts’ first big steps after leaving The Andy Griffith Show, and there was a lot riding on it. He had left Mayberry to pursue a movie career with Universal, and this one reportedly cost about $500,000 and grossed around $4 million in its first five months.
Not a bad start.
A lot of Mayberry followed him over. Andy Griffith helped with the story without taking credit, writers Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum came from The Andy Griffith Show, and Don personally wanted Alan Rafkin to direct.
Andy even suggested one of the movie’s most remembered running jokes:
“Attaboy, Luther!”
But I think one of the reasons this movie still works so well is the music.
Vic Mizzy wrote the score in only four days. He was also the man who wrote the themes for The Addams Family and Green Acres, and you can certainly hear his style here.
He used organ, xylophone, fuzz guitar and even bass harmonica, but nothing beats that creepy haunted organ inside the Simmons mansion. You could be laughing at Don Knotts one minute and genuinely getting creeped out the next.
And that bloody organ produced another great story. Universal spent weeks trying to clear the Bon Ami joke, so Don Knotts finally called the company president himself. He explained the joke and got permission almost immediately.
The movie was filmed in only 17 days, but nearly 60 years later people are still saying:
“Attaboy, Luther!”
Do you still watch The Ghost and Mr. Chicken around Halloween?
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