The Ghost and Mr. Chicken is a 1966 American comedy horror film starring Don Knotts as Luther Heggs, the town dunce and a newspaper typesetter who spends a night in a haunted house, which is located in the fictitious community of Rachel, Kansas. Don Knotts' first major project after leaving The Andy Griffith Show, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken uses a similar small town setting and involved a number of alumni from the sitcom, including director Alan Rafkin and writers Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum. It was a box office success, paving the way for a string of other Knotts-fronted comedy films. The working title was Running Scared. The title is presumably a humorous variation of the film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947).