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Obit: Arnold Stang at 91...Chunky Chocolate spokesman & voice of "Top Cat"

Re: Obit: Arnold Stang at 91...Chunky Chocolate spokesman & voice of "Top Cat"

Classy guy and a very talented performer as well. And, if you want to see a REAL classic cartoon - there's one of the lesser-known ones (Herman and Katnip) embedded in the link.
 
Re: Obit: Arnold Stang at 91...Chunky Chocolate spokesman & voice of "Top Cat"

Teaming him with Marvin Kaplan in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" was sheer genius. Two guys known for their milquetoast/nebbish roles, together in one scene -- it's like a contest to see which one had the most nasal, whiny voice. ;D (Kaplan, BTW, is still with us at 82.)

Of course, for those of my generation, if Stang had done nothing other than Top Cat, he'd still be fondly remembered.
 
Re: Obit: Arnold Stang at 91...Chunky Chocolate spokesman & voice of "Top Cat"

Marvin Kaplan also did the voice of Choo-Choo
on "Top Cat".
 
Re: Obit: Arnold Stang at 91...Chunky Chocolate spokesman & voice of "Top Cat"

Forgot about that. Makes the rationale behind their pairing in MMMMW even more obvious.
 
Re: Obit: Arnold Stang at 91...Chunky Chocolate spokesman & voice of "Top Cat"

The excellent Hanna-Barbera blog Yowp has a nice feature about Stang. He is quoted there from a 1955 interview, bolstering my belief that good character actors are the most contented in the business:

"The work is wonderful...It’s creative and interesting and the pay is fine. I always have plenty of time for my wife and kids and once a week I get together with Hal March for a card game and bull session. But the poor top bananas never lead lives like that. Sure, they make lots of money but they have all the worries. If anything goes wrong on a show, they [the stars] get the blame. Me, I just do my job, enjoy myself and never have to take stomach pills. I wouldn’t be a top banana at any price. The extra fame isn’t worth the headaches it brings."
 
Re: Obit: Arnold Stang at 91...Chunky Chocolate spokesman & voice of "Top Cat"

I think he would have a lot of company among character actors
re his sentiments. I remember an interview actor Robert Webber
once gave, in which he said that, as a character actor, he had
a certain amount of privacy he couldn't have as a leading man,
worked when he felt like it, and still made enough money to
build a house at Malibu.

Arnold Stang never became a leading man but what he did,
he did very, very well. Godspeed.
 
Re: Obit: Arnold Stang at 91...Chunky Chocolate spokesman & voice of "Top Cat"

bpatrick said:
I think he would have a lot of company among character actors
re his sentiments. I remember an interview actor Robert Webber
once gave, in which he said that, as a character actor, he had
a certain amount of privacy he couldn't have as a leading man,
worked when he felt like it, and still made enough money to
build a house at Malibu.
Click to expand...
...where, as I recall, some of the scenes in Blake Edwards' films "10" and S.O.B., both of which feature fine performances by Webber, were shot...
 
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