On the Fourth of July in 1975, The Apple Dumpling Gang was released to theaters, a rip-roarin’, hyde-tinglin’ funny flick that took a fictitious look at America’s old west. In addition to the great Bill Bixby and Susan Clark, the film starred Clay O’Brien, Brad Savage, and Stacy Manning as the lovable little orphans who become known as the Apple Dumpling Gang due to their favorite all American meal of apple dumplings. The film also launched the start of a beautiful duo, the comedy team of Tim Conway and Don Knotts, who played Amos and Theodore in both the original film and the sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again. Recently, Conway got serious with D23’s Scott Wolf to speak about his longtime pal. “Don and I got thrown together at Disney and we did a few pictures for them, I think we did about five together. It just blossomed into a great comedic romance. I wrote three pictures for Don which we did… independent things, and they did well, too, so we became very, very good friends. I had always admired Don because he had a terrific outlook on what he thought was funny and what he wanted to do in the business, which was to play good, clean humor, funny humor, just family stuff which is where I was pointed. We just got along very well and did a lot of successful stuff together.”
