The Reluctant Astronaut

The Reluctant Astronaut
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Edward Montagne
Written by	Jim Fritzell Everett Greenbaum
Produced by	Edward Montagne
Starring	Don Knotts Leslie Nielsen Joan Freeman
Cinematography	Rex Wimpy
Edited by	Sam E. Waxman
Music by	Vic Mizzy
Production company	Universal Pictures
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	June 16, 1967 (1967-06-16)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$1,500,000 (US/ Canada)[1]

The Reluctant Astronaut is a 1967 American comedy film produced and directed by Edward Montagne and starring Don Knotts in a story about a carnival ride operator who is hired as a janitor at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston and is eventually sent into space.

Comedian Knotts had won several Emmy Awards as small-town comic sheriff's deputy Barney Fife in the 1960–1968 television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show but left the show as a regular at the end of its fifth season (1964–1965) to pursue a career in feature films with Universal Pictures. The Reluctant Astronaut followed Knotts' first Universal film venture, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966). Actor Paul Hartman appears in the film and would later star in The Andy Griffith Show. The film's screenplay writers Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum had served as teleplay writers for the television series.