Posted on 12/22/2009 7:30:49 AM PST by AU72
NEWTON, Mass. Arnold Stang, a radio, theater, film and television actor famous for his nerdy looks and demeanor, has died. His son says Stang died of pneumonia Sunday at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Massachusetts. He was 91. The New York City native started his career on the radio as a teenager. He played alongside Milton Berle in the 1950s, starred as Frank Sinatra's sidekick in the 1955 movie "The Man with the Golden Arm," and was a member of the ensemble comedic cast of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" in 1963. He voiced the lead character in the 1960s cartoon "Top Cat," and continued comedy and drama roles into his 80s. Stang, who had lived in the Boston suburb of Needham for the past decade, is survived by his wife of 60 years, JoAnne; son, David; and daughter, Deborah.
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Sorry. look like the image didn’t post - (Damn you Angelfire!!)
Ah, Farfel the Dog!
RIP Arnold Stang. He attended my alma mater, New Utretcht High School in Brooklyn, New York.
Ray: [after hitting Pike unconscious with a pop bottle] Holy mackerel. When he started... Listen, we better get him tied up. What are we gonna do when he comes to?
Irwin: Hit him again.
Ray: Oh, I couldn't!
This classic movie (1960s) had many actors who appeared in television comedies, and also in this movie. One person in particular starred in a television sitcom, had another sitcom based on his original, and also appeared in this movie. Ill call him Mr. X!
Here is where it gets confusing:
Considering the thread topic this should be easy to figure out.
He and Marvin "Choo Choo" Kaplan were hilarious as two gas station attendants menaced by Jonathan Winters in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World!
“Close friends get to call him TC....”
####
...Pro-vi-ding its with dignity...
ping
Classic scene and utterly hilarious.
Did you know the other attendant was the voice of Choo Choo, also from Top Cat?
Wasn’t that Jimmy Nelson and Farfel?
Only thing I know him from is he was one of the gas station attendants that got his ass whipped by Jonathan Winters in “It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World”.
SnakeDoc
Point to note: Arnold Stang has a broken left wrist in that scene. I mean, it was REALLY broken. He put a glove over it so that he could work.
your right, and the dogs mouth claps closed! loved it.
I don’t know, thought it was Stang, but you may be right!
More of The Henry Morgan Show.
Even more of The Henry Morgan Show.
He was in pretty good company on this show, too: castmates at various times included Art Carney, Florence Halop (formerly Miss Duffy on Duffy's Tavern and eventually the second lady bailiff on Night Court), Pert Kelton (eventually the original Alice in Jackie Gleason's "Honeymooners" sketches on Cavalcade of Stars) . . .
Stang's other classic radio credits: The Goldbergs (as Seymour Fingerhood, briefly interested in Rosalie Goldberg), The Horn & Hardart Children's Hour (from the early 1930s, which may have been his first big break---as would also come true, in due course, for such eventual radio and other showbusiness mainstays as Eddie Fisher, Bea Wain, and Connie Francis), The Remarkable Miss Tuttle (classified as a "light" drama, which is probably putting it politely), and---briefly, in the title role---That Brewster Boy.
Stang also did Milton Berle's final bid to make something of himself in radio. The final radio Milton Berle Show, under that title and, with a very slight revamp, under the title Texaco Star Theater (a title that had been used last for Fred Allen's 1940-44 series on CBS), was a ratings bomb that might stand best as the vehicle through which Berle brought aboard Stang (who was working The Henry Morgan Show at the same time) and through which Berle began refining some of the format by which he'd become a television hit.
Berle was really suited better to television, however much he and Texaco weren't sure television was coming in to stay. Television was, even if Berle was probably bound to burn himself out within a very short time, which is exactly what he did within five years.
Stang was smart enough to stay within himself (which was pretty damn versatile when all was said and done; he usually shone in even the most trite vehicles and was one of the greatest supporting players in radio) and avoid the mistakes made by many of the stars he supported. He was rarely out of work for very long in those years and, from all indications, those who hired him thought it was smart to have hired him.
A footnote about Florence Halop: She was the second Night Court bailiff to die of cancer within little more than a year after taking the role; she succeeded another old-time radio semi-legend, whose reputation was made as a comedy writer (among other things, she was a protege of comedy master Goodman Ace on first The Danny Kaye Show and, later, The Big Show) and a magazine humourist: Selma Diamond.
Have you considered starting an old time radio ping list?
If you do, please add my name!
That’s how I remember him: Chunky Chocolates.
Didn’t that ad run on Howdy Doody shows?
Have you considered starting an old time radio ping list?I'm tempted . . .
If you do, please add my name!
I’ve never heard of Top Cat.
I remember him from an episode of Bonanza though.
RIP
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