Ron Howard's surprising revelation about his relationship with Andy Griffith Show co-star Don Knotts

illustration (detail): Drew Friedman

Decades before Happy Days and his career as a film director, Ron Howard, age 5, was best known as Opie, the son of Andy Griffith, a sheriff in the sleepy burg of Mayberry, North Carolina. Griffith's comic foil was Don Knotts as bumbling deputy Barney Fife. The show ran from 1960 to 1968. Griffith died in 2012 at age 8…