Barney Fife

Barney Fife is the bumbling deputy sheriff from the 1960s television series *The Andy Griffith Show*, played by Don Knotts.

The name has become shorthand for an incompetent, overzealous law enforcement officer—someone who takes himself far more seriously than his abilities warrant: The security guard was a real Barney Fife, hand on his holster over a parking violation.