Arnold Stang and T.C.

No one is ever going to call Arnold Stang “The Man of a Thousand Voices.” But, then, he didn’t need a thousand voices. One was funny enough.

Stang shone on network radio. His New York whine leaping up high until it cracked, Stang’s Gerard related the pitfalls of his life to Henry Morgan, who forsook his acerbity and jadedness temporarily for the unaccustomed role of straight man. Morgan was smart enough to know the stooge would easily get the laughs and thereby make him look better. Stang shone on early TV as Francis the make-up plasterer with his boisterous cut-downs of the smug and mugging Uncle Miltie. Arnold Stang was, besides very funny, very distinctive, though columnist John Crosby once compared radio newcomer Jerry Lewis to him. Stang even shone, the critics nodded, opposite Frank Sinatra in a dramatic role in The Man With the Golden Arm (1955).

Stang also shone as the Katnip-besting Hoiman (as Stang preferred to call him) at Famous/Paramount studios. Perhaps it was Herman’s Brooklyn street-smarts that inspired Joe Barbera and Alan Dinehart to cast him as con-mannish lead in Top Cat, which debuted 50 years ago this month. Regardless, Stang led a small group of “Man of One Voices” actors, all with a distinctive sound—Maurice Gosfield, Marvin Kaplan and Allen Jenkins, none of whom had worked in cartoons—along with nightclub comic Leo DeLyon and actor John Stephenson, who provided extra voices when needed.

He almost didn’t lead them. Thanks to newspaper clippings, here’s a bit of a time-line. It’s quite unofficial and incomplete, but it gives you an idea.

● March 2, 1961. Richard O. Martin of the Salt Lake Tribune says ABC has bought Top Cat and will air it Wednesday nights.
● March 11. Bob Thomas of the Associated Press proclaims “the cast of one of next season’s most promising TV series: Top Cat, Choo Choo, Brain, Benny the Ball, Spook and Fancy Fancy.”
● April 24. Elayne Schwartz of the Provo Daily Herald states the show had been in production for six months.
● April 29. Joseph Finnigan of UPI interviews Stang about completing the role of a Chinese cook on Wagon Train. One newspaper’s sensitive headline: “Bulge-Eyed Arnold Stang Slant-Eyed”. No mention of Top Cat.
● May 5. David John Griffin of the Hearst papers says Michael O’Shea won the role of T.C.
● May 9. John N. Jones’ syndicated column indicates Gosfield, Jenkins and DeLyon (as Spook) had already been hired before O’Shea.
● May 17. Jones and Fred Danzig of UPI report Stang had replaced O’Shea.
● May 24. Jones says casting complete with Kaplan, Stephenson and DeLyon (Brain).

But picking Stang wasn’t that easy by his own recollection. This story from King Features Syndicate appeared in the papers around September 16, 1961.

Stang and Doberman Cavort as Cartoon Cats
By CHARLES WITBECK
HOLLYWOOD — Even though Hanna & Barbera have fooled around successfully with Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and those sophisticated Flintstones, H & B are kings with cats. Remember the delightful Tom & Jerry movie cartoons, made by H & B that used to accompany M.G.M. musicals with Esther Williams and June Allyson? Well, the cartoons made most of the musicals look sick and Tom & Jerry even woke up the sleepers.
This October, on Wednesday nights over ABC, the sleepers should catch a new Hanna & Barbera product, “Top Cat,” or “T.C.” to all the kids. “It’s about cats who live in a New York back alley,” said T.C. voice Arnold Stang, the little turtle-like fellow who used to say “Big man, big deal” to Milton Berle.
Copy Cats
“As T.C., I have the mansion,” Arnold continued, “an ash can. I am the leader and these cats follow blindly. They’re not idiots just because they follow blindly either. I say let’s get on the ball. Go, go, go. Let’s do it and away the gang goes.”
Top Cat’s pals include Fancy Fancy, a very Cary Grantish type fella who wears a scarf. Then there’s Choo Choo, a dreamer, a Brooklyn poet who is played by Marvin Kaplan. Benny the Ball is a sweet little fat guy with the voice of Doberman from the Sgt. Bilko series, Maurice Gosfield. Officer Dibble is no cat but a man with a big stick and he’s played by Allen Jenkins. Other cats include Spook, a real beatnik and the Brain who is vague and dumb.
There are very few girl cats, says Arnold Stang, because the female characters are incidental. “One time I go for a cute nurse,” T.C. said, “when Benny the Ball has his tonsils out and I visit him at the hospital. But the affair doesn’t last.
“You see, T.C. comes up with the wildest dreams, but he never quite makes the dreams come true. I end up being most sentimental, I have lots of heart.”
Hip Cat
There’ll be other cats coming and going on the series, and one, A. T. Jazz for All That Jazz, (voice by Dawes [sic] Butler) got to Mr. Stang and he hopes A.T. will return often. “The kids will dig A.T.,” says T.C.
When Top Cat first got off the drawing board Hanna & Barbera began hunting for the right voices to fit these characters and half of Hollywood was called in to talk like cats. “These cats don’t think they're cats," explains Arnold. “They think they’re people.” Right away it begins to become confusing.
Cat-a-Rooney
Mickey Rooney was Top Cat for a while. Arnold Stang turned up and he was number one for a while. Even Jack Oakie stopped roller skating on his tennis court long enough to come into town and audition.
Judging from the list, the casting now seems topnotch, but H & B went to much trouble to get it right. Stang, for, example, was called back so often he finally said he wouldn’t come in again at night and audition. “Call my lawyer,” said Mr. Big Deal. 40 calls followed between the creators and the lawyer, and finally, Stang became the permanent T.C.
“I was playing a Chinese in Wagon Train (to be seen this fall), said Arnold, “and it took me two hours to put my makeup on. After playing a Chinese all day, I’d rush back to record for Top Cat and we’d stay until 3 a.m. I did that for a couple of weeks.
Then Stang moved over to Bonanza and became a little pickpocket. At night he’d record, changing dialogue when he felt like it. Officer Dibble became Officer Dribble, and phrases like “Oh, that’s beautiful—be-auti-ful” crept in. Or, “thank you very much. Now would you mind putting me down” was another Stang addition. “I like to fool around a bit with the dialogue,” says Arnold, who has a very good ear. This means re-drawing the storyboards, but H & B agreed.
Prolific Cat
It’s gotten to the point where Mr. Stang will also write a Top Cat, and this writing talent fits because Arnold is so immersed in the character and he has credit working on animated cartoons. One called Herman the Mouse, a theater cartoon, was sold to TV on the condition Slang’s name wasn't to be used. Why, Mr. Stang didn’t say.
“You have to think in terms of funny pictures in this business,” says writer-actor Stang. “T.C. has lots of right thinking in it.”

Say what? Mickey Rooney was Top Cat? Or the top Top Cat contender? Well, if Arnold Stang said so, it has to be true. But I’ve found nothing so far about it during my hunts in Old Newspaper Land. Hey, Mick, if you’re reading, drop me an e-mail and we can talk about it.

It seems odd the story would mention Stang’s lack of credit on the Herman and Katnip cartoons when they went to TV. He never had one when the cartoons appeared in theatres (did Paramount ever give a voice credit, other than maybe for singers?).

As you can tell by the time-line and Stang’s comments, he was auditioning for T.C. in April when he was doing Wagon Train before the role was handed to Michael O’Shea. We’ve talked about O’Shea before. If you missed the post, go HERE.

It’s inconceivable today that newspaper articles enumerating the accomplishments of someone involved in voice acting would omit a chunk of their career. But until Baby Boomers grew up and started writing about the cartoons they loved as children, that was the fate of one’s work on animated shorts, with the possible exception of Mel Blanc. Cartoons weren’t something to be taken seriously by feature-writing adults. They were old things that were run over and over and over on TV to keep kids occupied. Here’s an April 30, 1957 story with nary a peep about Stang as Cousin Hoiman.

Arnold Stang Is Handling Stable Of Personalities
By CHARLES BENTON
HOLLYWOOD, April 30—(INS)—Most of us have trouble enough handling one personality. Arnold Stang has dozens.
Some of them he developed himself. Some were created for him. Others just grew by themselves.
But basically they are all Arnold Stangs — pipsqueak-size characters with enough intestinal fortitude to look the world in the eye and deliver a resounding razzberry.
Should See File
“You should see the file of Arnold Stangs I have at home,” the diminutive, bespectacled, concentrated version of all these personalities said during a break in rehearsals for tonight’s Red Skelton Show on CBS-TV.
“You know what I mean—scripts where the writer has described one of the characters as ‘an Arnold Stang type.’ A lot of them I haven’t even played. They didn’t even bother to ask me. They call in 30 people to audition and never call me.”
Perhaps the best known Arnold Stangs today are the adenoidal character who specialized in gouging holes in Milton Berle’s ego on television and the odd, pathetic Sparrow of the movie “Man With a Golden Arm.” [sic]
The first Arnold Stang was a scrawny 10-year-old who walked into an audition for a children’s show 22 years ago and started chirping a serious dramatic reading. The audience roared.
“I.guess it was pretty funny all right—this little pipsqueak trying to give a dramatic reading,” Stang recalled with a shrug. “So they had me to do a comedy monologue. I just wanted to get into the business, so I went into the comedy.”
Remains Comedian
Stang has remained a comedian since then — although not because he wants it that way.
“The Arnold Stang I’m called on to do most really started on ‘The Goldbergs’ radio show,” recalled Stang, a serious, thoughtful and intelligent man.
“Then there was ‘Meet Mr. Meek,’ which has a variation, and ‘Duffy’s Tavern.’ Everything you do leads to another extension, you know. There’s a little bit of me in each character, along with many things that are foreign to me.
“Funny thing is that no one even remembers the best Arnold Stang I ever did. That was Gerard on Henry Morgan’s old radio show, a beautiful character.”
The Milton Berle-type Arnold Stang is probably the one to which Stang devoted the most attention—and is having the hardest time abandoning.
One Role Disappointing
The most disappointing Arnold Stang in the comedian’s brood of personalities is the one that brought him rave reviews in “Man With a Golden Arm.”
Stang had known about the story and the role for nine years—when Hollywood finally beckoned him to a sound stage for the part.
“I remember I said to my wife when I went to the studio that first day, ‘That’s the end of the Berle stuff. From now, even if I lay off for a year, I’m not going to take anything that doesn’t have my heart and interest.’”
Stang shook his head at the puzzling memory.
“Before the picture was finished, everyone was predicting that I’d win an academy award. The producer, Otto Preminger, was willing to bet money on it.
“I didn’t even get a nomination. The truth is, I guess, that The Sparrow was an odd-ball.”
After that, for a time, Stang clung grimly to his determination to switch to dramatic acting, or a least serio-comic parts.
“Then one day I said to myself ‘What is all this? What am I doing?’” he said. “I decided to go back to doing what they want me to do. I figure you’ve got to take it where it is and like it, and I’m having fun doing comedy."

Top Cat and the next two half-hour shows that Hanna-Barbera produced all seem to have this in common—they were prime time failures, but grew into successes when they moved to Saturday mornings and kids could watch them week after week after week. That took a bit of time. Perhaps that’s the reason only a few years later, Stang didn’t mention T.C. amongst his accomplishments in this June 26, 1969 interview. It was done by Newsday’s Leo Seligsohn, filling in for vacationing Gerald Nachman.

Arnold a Mighty Mite of Show Biz
Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night worrying about Arnold Stang, his pulse, his blood count, whether he could use a CARE package or maybe even just a nice bowl of hot chicken soup?
Don’t. The bantamweight Barrymore with the meanest snarl this side of Mickey Mouse doesn’t need help.
Towering over a cup of instant coffee he was preparing for a guest, the five-foot, three-inch actor stood in a dressing room recently in the Ethel Barrymore Theater in Manhattan, where he is playing in “The Front Page,” and dashed any fears that he needs tending to.
Unlike many a role-seeking leading-man type hiding a hangover behind a perfect smile, Stang is as fit as a miniature fiddle and as busy as an ant at a picnic. Since he made his first diffident appearance at the age of 9 on radio’s Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour, Stang has appeared in scores of television shows, Broadway productions, road shows, and films. Of the 20 movies he has done, including “The Man With the Golden Arm,” he has starred in 13.
♦ ♦ ♦
If, despite the long public exposure, Stang is still often recognized only as what’s-his-name, it doesn’t bother him. Pouring steaming water, into his cup, Stang explained that his image, if not his name, often precedes him on cross-country tours.
“I’m not a distant star,” he said. “Fans meet other actors after a show and ask for their autograph. To me they say, ‘You’re coming home with us for a nice home-cooked meal.’ Sometimes I go.
“Often people come to me with that knowing look in their eye and say, ‘Hiya, Woody.’ Or, if it’s not Woody Allen, then they think I’m Wally Cox.”
But, unlike the professional Stang who would probably whine and sound hurt in the manner of the Gerald [sic] he used to do on the Henry Morgan Show, or appear arrogant and carping, like the Francis he did on the Milton Berle TV show, the offstage Stang takes it all gracefully. “I never tell them they're wrong,” he said.
♦ ♦ ♦
Stang is as eager as anyone to joke about his might-mite image. In his dressing-room mirror is pasted a picture of his favorite hero, Charlie Brown of “Peanuts.” He lauded creator Charles Schulz as one of the country’s best psychiatrists. The cartoonist, the diminutive actor said, really understands how the little guy feels.
“Stang’s patience shows signs of wearing a little thin only at the assumption that Arnold Stang, married 19 years, the father of two teenage children, the owner of four basset hounds and a home in New Rochelle, is really the Arnold Stang type.
The offstage Arnold doesn’t look or sound like any helpless soul who needs his mother running interference. He looks far more mature than he seems onstage, though he prefers not to reveal his age. He operates without a press agent, writes when he’s not acting, and speaks of his wife and children with genuine pride.
Emphasizing that he leaves Arnold Stang, little guy, behind when he’s not working, he said, “I don’t feel that if I were playing the hunchback of Notre Dame I’d have to take the hunch home with me.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Nor does he see the images he creates on stage or before cameras as necessarily typifying the all-time loser. Referring to his role in “The Front Page” of a befuddled little process server seemingly intimidated by the mayor of Chicago, whom he eventually demolishes, Stang said,
“Actually, I’m Jack the Giant Killer, I can’t reach high enough to sock him in the jaw so I cut off his legs and lower him until I can.”
“No, I never yearned for a leading-man role. It’s illogical. I’d flunk the physical. Of course, I’m a great lover but when they cast romantic roles they usually want those big, California vegetables. They look beautiful but have no flavor.” It’s one thing you can’t say about the tiny titan of show business.

Let’s watch “one of TV’s brightest comedy lights” in 1954 as the subject of The Name’s the Same with Robert Guess-What-the-Q-Stands-For Lewis.



And here’s a great story from Michael Sporn about voice directing Mr. Stang which, under normal circumstances, shouldn’t be a problem.

Stang left behind some klunkers (Pinocchio in Outer Space is no It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) but who didn’t? Top Cat isn’t one of my favourite shows by a long shot but you can’t blame Arnold Stang. Nor the other voice artists, some of whom we’ll be talking about as we get closer to T.C.’s 50th birthday.

And, Stang-lovers, feel free to click on the “Topics” section of the blog for more.

P.S.: A big Yowp to Steve Sherman, from whom was extricated the TV magazine cover. You’re beautiful. Be-auti-ful.

Arnold Stang on Top Cat

Arnold Stang was busier outside the studio than in it in 1961.

Variety of July 19th of that year reported he was hitting the promo circuit for the animated feature film Alakazam the Great. Then it blurbed on September 29th that he’d be doing the same thing for Top Cat.

Stang was assisted on his tour by Arnie Carr’s press kit. The same phrases and quotes are found in various local newspaper interviews with Stang, such as the tale about “The Raven.”

The column below was published by the Akron Beacon Journal on December 17, 1961. Already, T.C. was in trouble in the Neilsens. The story talks of 28 episodes but a total of 30 appeared in prime time. His selection actually was a complex thing, but he doesn’t get into it in this particular interview. One of the syndication services revealed (this comes from the North Adams Transcript of October 21, 1961):

Arnold Stang was the last actor to have an audition for the voice of "Top Cat," the cartoon feline. Dozens of actors were tested and complete shows were made with other actors Michael O'Shea, Mickey Shaughnessy and Daws Butler. They had about settled on Butler when Stang was given a chance. After one reading, he was signed.

Fred Danzig of UPI reported on May 17, 1961 that Stang had replaced O’Shea. Evidently O’Shea didn’t have the role long. Variety reported on May 9th that O’Shea had the job (there was no mention of Butler but mentioned other actors previously cast).

Top Cat, to me, is one of those the-parts-are-greater-than-the-whole shows. The voice casting was very good and I love the cues Hoyt Curtin wrote for it, but the stories and characters don’t really connect with me. They did with others and T.C. still has a loyal band of fans. Stang does, too. Count me as part of that one.

Stang Is 'Top Cat's' Meow
Work's Steady But Nobody Sees Him
By RICHARD LAKE
After knocking around the comedy world for all but 10 of his 37 years, bespectacled little Arnold Stang finally has landed a steady job in a major role.
But now that he's on television regularly, nobody ever sees him.
Stang provides the voice of ABC's Top Cat in the animated cartoon series of the same name. It's seen here Wednesdays at 8:30 on WEWS. His selection for the role of "Top Cat" was "a complex thing," he quips.
"They called and asked if I'd like to do a show. I said, 'Does it pay? and 'I'll take it'."
Most of his jobs didn't come that easily. Like many other comedians, Stang, at the ripe old age of 10, thought his true calling was serious drama.
The skinny, squeaky-voiced boy stood before producers of a big-time New York radio show and recited Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven." The producers doubled up with laughter.
"The Raven" isn't supposed to be funny. But Stang's audition fractured them.
"I was heartbroken when they laughed," says Stang. "But the wounds healed quickly when I was given a part on the show."
Somehow it's hard to picture Stang as a show biz VIP.
He's five-three and weighs 120 pounds with his horn-rimmed glasses on.
You could mistake him for a pin boy who has been out of work since automation hit the bowling alleys.
He also has popping eyeballs, a receding chin and a funny voice and could get laughs almost regardless of what he says.
Over the years, Stang has done about everything from acting in soap operas on radio to selling chocolate bars on television.
In radio days, he played Seymour in "The Goldbergs" and Gerald [sic] on the Henry Morgan show. In addition, he made guest appearances with comedians Bob Hope, Eddie Cantor, Milton Berle and the late Fred Allen.
When show business jobs were meager, he delivered telegrams and later packages for a New York ski shop.
For a while he pushed chocolate on a TV commercial. ("Whatta hunk-a-chocolate.")
In one of his first TV roles, Stang became Francis, the wise-cracking stagehand on "The Milton Berle Show."
Now working for Hanna-Barbera Productions, Stang has made 28 "Top Cat" shows and is still putting them out.

"We spend more money on writers alone than many of the big specials on TV," say Stang. "Each show costs about $67,000."
It took a staff of about 200 four and a half months to do 14,000 drawings and the scripts Top Cat has used so far. Dubbing in voices takes another eight hours for each show.
Stang stopped briefly in Cleveland recently to plug the show which apparently needs some sort of a boost. "Top Cat" is opposite the Joey Bishop Show and Checkmate and has the lowest rating of the three.
"I don't believe much in those ratings or that they are necessarily representative of the show's popularity," Stang snaps.
Stang agrees that the success of the "Flintstones" in 1960 brought the onslaught of the animated cartoons this season. However, he says, "The "Flintstones," (no pun intended) is much more "primitive" than "Top Cat."
Does he think there are too many cartoons? "Definitely not!"
"If there are two poorly produced shows on TV then there are two too many, Stang adds. "This goes for any type of show."
Stang feels "Top Cat" is a well-produced family show.
"The dialogue appeals to the adults and the pictures appeal to the children. I think it's a very happy marriage."
Stang uses a new personality for Top Cat to differentiate the cat from his "Arnold Stang type character." "I'm trying to develop new Arnold Stang catch phrases for Top Cat."
"Top Cat is someone the viewers can easily identify with someone else they know. Maybe it's the guy down the street or their boss or even their mother-in-law," he says.
"It's been proven that the shows that last and are popular must have a strong identification with the audience."
After signing for the "Top Cat" role, Stang moved his family from New Rochelle, N. Y., to Hollywood. It was a bad move for the Stangs.
They lost their home in the Bel-Air fire this Fall. "The only one at home was the maid," says Stang.
"That's the thing about these fallout shelters," he quips, "the only people that'll be saved are the maids."
He hopes to rebuild in the Spring.
Stang and his wife JoAnne have a son David, 11, and a daughter, Deborah, 10.
"We spend a lot of time reading, and often in the evening after we've read the paper we'll all sit down and discuss it," says Arnold.
TV is out for the kids on school nights except, of course, for "Top Cat."
What do they think of pop's show?
"They like it," says Stang, "but they let me know when there's something on the show they didn't like."
A confirmed do-it-yourself fan, Stang wired his California home for hi-fi by crawling through the attic "because I didn't want to cut holes in the wall."
He learned his lesson at his New York home. After knocking a hole in the wall, he found a wooden beam that wasn't supposed to be there.
So he called in a carpenter to tackle this job, and then the hole was so big he hired a plasterer to fill it.
In the meantime, Stang bought a large picture to cover the gaping hole.
Besides his work with "Top Cat" Stang is making occasional appearances on other TV shows such as Wagon Train and Ed Sullivan's.
And he's working on an MGM film, "The Brothers Grimm." He plays Rumpelstiltskin.

Arnold Stang, Top Cat, Dead

I should pass on word via the AP wire that the very funny Arnold Stang has passed away at age 91.

This blog deals in old Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but that’s not the only place where Stang made his mark. Not by a long shot.HERE is great interview he did on an Old Time Radio show about his career on the air in the ‘40s. Stang-ophile Kliph tells you about his career and stuff you may not have known HERE.

Mark Evanier is a great fan of both Kaplan and Stang from It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He worked with Arnold. Click HERE for Mark’s story.

Stang’s first job in animation was at the Famous (later Paramount) Studio in New York, where he did the bulk of his radio work. His first job at Hanna-Barbera in 1961, not only as Top Cat but as a wolf in the 1961 Loopy De Loop cartoon Kooky Loopy. But there was a cartoon role that Stang didn’t get in 1962. Comic strip artist Mort Walker told Jason Whiton in his autobiographical Conversations:

They [Paramount] wanted to get Arnold Stang to do the voice of Beetle Bailey. And I said Arnold Stang is Brooklyn, Beetle Bailey is Tom Sawyer. He’s got a soft drawl. So they didn’t hire Arnold Stang, but they hired Howard Morris. And Howard Morris did an imitation of Arnold Stang!

Stang may have been Herman the Mouse for Famous Studios and Top Cat for Hanna-Barbera, but he'll be tops to me from his work with Henry Morgan starting in 1946 and then with Milton Berle on radio and later television. As an actor, he was just about perfect. His voice was perfect for radio—distinctive with marvellous inflections. The same applies for cartoon voice-over work. And for children’s records, too; who doesn’t remember Stang in “Shloimy the Subway Train” and “The Happy Hippo” (1953), spinning on a Coral 78? His face was perfect for television—an instant, unforgettable character the moment you laid eyes on him. In the 1940’s Stang described himself as “a scared chipmunk who forgot to come out of the rain.”

As you know, cartoon actors in the Golden Age of Television came from radio. Stang was among them. So it shouldn’t be surprising that two future Hanna-Barbera stars who didn’t work together on cartoons worked together in radio, even though Stang spent much of his career in the east. He was 23 and had graduated from children’s shows to playing the teenaged Seymour in The Goldbergs by late 1940 when this story appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette of October 26, 1941:

Put Arnold Stang down as the radio best bet of the year . . . kid was discovered by Director Don Bernard when Bernard hired him to do the commercial on CBS’s Meet Mr. Meek program. In a voice cracking between soprano and bass, Arnold wowed the Meek cast with his reading.
When Bernard decided such a comedy reading would hurt the Meek commercial, he substituted another youngster and ordered Meek scriptwriters to think up a role for Arnold. Stang becomes a permanent member of the Meek program on Oct. 29.

Mr. Meek had a top cast including a chap named Teddy Bergman, who preferred the stage name that you know him as—Alan Reed.

If you ever wonder what Stang thought about not being a big TV star, say in the Uncle Miltie category, he told the Ottawa Citizen in a 1955 interview:

“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.”

During the interview, he supplied his own visual proof of the benefits of fame without the headaches. He was mobbed by teenaged fans at Rockefeller Center.

Arnold Stang really was unique. And he’ll be missed by fans of great comic acting, cartoon lovers included.

Some Words From Top Cat

It’s been four years since the voice of Top Cat, Arnold Stang, passed away. There’s something about the show “Top Cat” that doesn’t do it for me, although I love Arnold Stang and I love Marvin Kaplan and think Hoyt Curtin’s music on the series is brilliant.

Anyways, I won’t try to analyse the pros and cons of the show, which was Hanna-Barbara’s first real failure (in that it couldn’t make it in prime time). Instead, allow me to go into my Stang file and post some photos (some may have already been posted) and two interviews from the ‘60s. Unfortunately, he doesn’t touch on Top Cat, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy what he has to say nonetheless.

This first interview was for the syndicated “TV Key” service, which provided newspapers with a Q-and-A style show biz column and an another written in the feature story format. This was published by the Binghamton Press on January 6, 1962, when “Top Cat” was in first-run. The fire, incidentally, was in Bel Air, California, in spite of the New York dateline.

Radio Fine Medium, Stang Feels
By HARVEY PACK
Arnold Stang was in New York recently between houses. The voice of ABC’s Top Cat was one of the many members of the movie colony burned out during the disastrous fire.
“I was in Boston doing a show and my wife was in New York when it happened,” explained Stang. “It’s a funny thing, though, how people react to tragedy. My neighbor’s house was on fire and burning to the ground, and what do you think he was doing? He was on my roof spraying it with water hoping to protect my house. Of course when the news reached me my first thought was my children, but I must have forgotten how many wonderful friends I have.
"When the kids came out of school that day three of our friends met them and prepared to to take them to their houses to live. I understand it almost ended, up a tug of war for possession of the Stang brood.”
The first reaction from the public when they read about a fire like this is that everything is insured anyway. But as Arnold asked, “How much insurance do you think I carried on a gift I received from FDR? And could I insure a letter from Churchill? Not to mention hundreds of personal belongings and the scripts of every show I’ve ever done, plus recordings of many of them.”
Although he only weighs in at 103 pounds and buys his suits at the boy’s department, Arnold Stang has better than 25 years experience in this business.

He ran away from his home in Chelsea, Mass., at the age of 9 when he wrote a letter to a radio program in New York asking for an audition and they replied that they only audition on Saturday.
Little Arnold hopped a bus, landed in New York, read a serious poem and was signed on as a boy comedian at $10 a week. He made a deal with his folks that he would never miss regular schooling if they’d let him pursue an acting career and he was off.
“Radio had it all over TV,” said the veteran of the microphone.
“The listener was able to draw his own mental images and the actors had the audience imagination working for them. Take Jack Benny’s safe . . . on radio you’d hear five minutes of sound effects including rattling chains, dungeon noises and creaking doors and it never failed to get laughs.
“On TV Benny has to show you what goes on in his vault and, in spite of some wonderfully creative tricks, it’s never as effective.”
Arnold’s favorite radio job was on the Henry Morgan show. No devotee of radio comedy could argue this point with him because, in spite of the nonsense Morgan subjects himself to on I've Got a Secret, his radio program was one of the outstanding achievements of radio’s final decade of supremacy in home entertainment Stang’s voice? In person it’s quite normal but a 103-pound actor with a normal voice could only play a jockey, and Arnold has a family to support.

Prior to “Top Cat,” Stang’s cartoon career had mainly consisted of voicing Herman the Mouse for Famous Studios (which didn’t believe in giving fame to its voice actors as none were credited). He provided a voice in the 1961 feature, “Alakazam the Great,” which hit theatres just before T.C. debuted. But with “Top Cat,” his cartoon career had peaked. Unless someone thinks of “Pinocchio in Outer Space” (1965) as a high point in animation. Stang hit the publicity circuit to push that piece of animated dreck which he once called “a first-class Christmas release film which the kids will love and which will pleasantly surprise the parents.” This is the most complete version of the story I can find but it appears awfully brief.

Cartoon Picture Drawn to Go With Voice
By DOUG ANDERSON
United Press International
NEW YORK, Jan. 26 [1966] (UPI) — When Arnold Stang speaks for a cartoon character, he doesn’t time his lines to fit the picture. They draw the picture to match his voice.
The usual procedure in dubbing is for the actor to sit and watch it being projected and synchronize his voice as nearly as possible with the lip movements on the screen. Stang doesn’t work that way.
“I find there are almost always changes I want to make in the lines, for reasons of style or characterization,” he said at lunch here recently. “Changes in words, changes in timing. No two actors ever read the same passage in exactly the same way.
“So I have an understanding that, when I do a cartoon, I record the voice first and then the picture is drawn to conform to the lines.”
Stang is perhaps best known just now as the voice of television’s “Top Cat.” He also spoke for Nurtle the Twurtle in “Pinocchio in Outer Space” a Universal Pictures’ release.
(A twurtle is a space creature that looks the way a big turtle would if it were closely related to Arnold Stang.)
The performing credits Stang has accumulated in 20-odd years include half a dozen Broadway plays, more than 20 records, nearly that many feature films and so many radio and television shows he has lost count.
“I am usually called in on a guest basis (on television shows),” he says. “I have all the excitement and the public acceptance without the crushing responsibilities that plague comedians with their own programs.
“Most people tell me they remember me best for one thing,” he says, “but it’s rare to find two people who remember the same thing.”

This column is a little odd in that the soundtrack of a cartoon is generally recorded first; it certainly was at Hanna-Barbera. Some of the New York studios used to have the dialogue done last but I don’t know when that practice stopped. It had to be well before 1965.

Stang had some experience as a turtle. He played the voice of Socrates, a turtle with 500 kids and a wife who looked like his brother, on a Sunday afternoon show called “Washington Square.” Ray Bolger starred and it aired every other week on NBC in the 1956-57 season. Interestingly, Stang once told TV columnist Steven H. Scheuer that it was originally supposed to be a cat puppet.

There’s one connection between Hanna-Barbera and “Pinocchio in Outer Space” that’s so obscure, it’s really too geeky to mention. In the scene when Pinocchio first meets up with Stang’s twurtle on Mars, the soundtrack plays a toodling sweet-potato cue. It’s the same stock music cue on the Augie Doggie cartoon “Mars Little Precious” where the Martian baby climbs Doggie Daddy’s wall.

Here are a couple of great TV magazine covers featuring T.C. The one on the left is courtesy of Jerry Beck; I apologise for not noting who sent me the one on the right.



By all accounts, Stang enjoyed his time on “Top Cat.” Maybe one of the reasons was it played against his little runt type on camera. But it could well be because the soundtracks were recorded with all of the actors in a studio playing off each other, just like in radio. Radio was Stang’s favourite medium and one where he truly shone.

A Story of Stang

Arnold Stang was no stranger to voice acting, cartoon or otherwise, when either Joe Barbera or Alan Dinehart decided the guy they hired as Top Cat just wasn’t right and someone else was needed. (Dinehart was the voice director on the show). In the early ‘40s, he subtracted a few years off his age and won auditions for a variety of juvenile roles on network radio before graduating to The Henry Morgan Show as the somewhat apathetic Gerard. As for cartoons, he played Popeye’s accident-prone buddy Shorty in a few shorts before he and Sid Raymond co-starred in the long-running Herman and Katnip series released by Paramount, uncredited the whole time.

People only familiar with his work on Top Cat may not be aware of the busy career Stang had in the ‘40s and ’50s. So here he is talking about it to the Philadelphia Inquirer of April 29, 1962. About six weeks earlier, it was announced the show was leaving prime-time and going into Saturday morning reruns.

'The Arnold Stang-Type', In Person
By HARRY HARRIS
ARNOLD STANG is a walking, talking zoo. Currently furnishing the voice of the title tabby in "Top Cat," ABC's animated comic strip Wednesdays at 8:30 P. M. (Channel 6), he has impersonated a Noah's Arkful of non-humans.
For some five years he was Hoiman the mouse in a "Funday Funnies" cartoon series. He was Aristotle, the philosophic turtle, in Ray Bolger's "Washington Square," speaking for a look-alike Bil Baird puppet. He has also portrayed Jasper, a 900-pound gorilla.
"Jasper was on radio," he told us with deceptive mildness (although he's now earning a weekly stipend purring like a cat, he can, when launched on a favorite topic, rotor like a lion). "I couldn't play a 900-pound gorilla on television very convincingly. I only weigh 103."
On records he's been cast as the White Rabbit in "Alice in Wonderland," an elephant who couldn't remember, a seal who didn't want to eat with his flippers and a merry-go-round horse tired of going round and round ("He wanted to go up and down for a change?). He has narrated "Peter and the Wolf" and "Ferdinand the Bull."
He played the title role in radio's "Eager Beaver," but he wasn't a beaver—"just a young fellow with a lot of ginger," and he won critical praise for his serious movie acting as the non-bird Sparrow in "The Man with the Golden Arm."
Also, he's continually being likened—because of his size (5'4) and the popping eyes behind the horn-rimmed specs—to chipmunk and owl.
The Bilko-like T. C. in "Top Cat" (Stang resents the comparison, growling, "You might just as well say Aldous Huxley is like me because he wears glasses!") marks his first stint as a cat.
"Of course," he adds, "the character doesn't think of himself as a cat. He thinks of himself as a very intelligent person."
Stang was tapped for the assignment after a long list of "names" had auditioned and first Daws Butler, whose voice is used in many of the other Hanna-Barbera cartoon shows, and then Michael O'Shea had been selected.
"They had made five episodes with Daws and then five with O'Shea," Stang reports, "but they weren't satisfied. When they decided to use me, they discarded the earlier animation. They felt I brought a new quality to the part, a sort of seedy grandeur, a shabby aristocracy.
"So they changed and redrew the character. Instead of a torn hat, he wore a straw with an Ivy League band. Instead of old clothes, he was given a colored weskit and an old school tie, so that he achieved a kind of shabby sophistication."
Although T C. doesn't look like Stang, he has acquired gestures and mannerisms usually associated with what Arnold terms disparagingly "an Arnold Stang thing." "There is an 'Arnold Stang type'," he concedes.
"I have a collection of scripts, a 15-foot shelf, from shows I've never done in. which a character is described as 'Arnold Stang type.' In many cases they're far away from my conception, but the phrase has become part of television and radio show business language.
"I'm usually thought of in terms of Gerard, the part I played with Henry Morgan, or of Francis, with Milton Berle, but they weren't at all alike. Gerard was soft-spoken, introverted, quite naive, but with a native sophistication. Francis was a loud, extroverted cynic.
"One's talk was just monosyllabic. The other used the jargon of Broadway. You can't get characters any farther apart.
"Depending on the show, the 'Arnold Stang' character is usually Gerard or Francis.
I'm often called in for these parts and in each case have a definite conception of how I should play it. Often it's opposite what other people had in mind. "I try to stay as far away from any one type as I can. I have never considered myself a comic or a second banana. I have always been an actor. I always do character lines, never jokes. I analyze every show, and I prepare the same way for comedy or tragedy. I have carefully diversified my efforts.
"Comic or serious, I have no preference. If I had my 'druthers, I'd divide my time between the serious and the light.
"Whatever I'm doing currently, I enjoy. I enjoy being a working member of show business. I like everything, even panel shows. They're very stimulating."
His greatest impact on the public, he believes, came from his association with Berle, but he considers his best comedy efforts his work on Morgan's radio and TV shows.
"I see Henry whenever I can," he says. "He's a brilliant man, though like many gifted men a difficult guy to get to know. He's well-read, intelligent, a fine judge of comedy and a helluva performer. Limiting him to sitting on a panel is a terrible waste."
Other favorites of Stang, who considers himself "a good audience, but not a loud one. for comedians; I can appreciate, but I don't guffaw," are Red Skelton, Jonathan Winters and Art Carney.
If "Arnold Stang type" has entered the show biz lexicon, many a word or phrase Stang introduced during extended engagements with Morgan, Berle, Perry Como, Ed Sullivan, "December Bride" (he played the then-unseen Gladys' brother Marvin) and other programs have become popular parlance.
Samples: "Hoo-hah!" "What's to like?" "Big deal!" "Oh, I'm dying!"
"One of the biggest yocks I ever got," he recalls, "was from an ad lib on Morgan's radio show—my first 'Ikkhh!'
"On the Berle show 'chip-chip-chip' stopped the show cold, and I had to use it from then on. I even had fan clubs that called themselves the Three Chip Clubs, I used 'You're sick!' with Berle on radio, and suddenly "sick' was all over and Frank Sinatra was taking out 'Sick, Sick, Sick' ads."
The former Seymour in "The Goldbergs" and Harold Harcleroad in "Duffy's Tavern" once won a "best actor" award for portraying a halfwit murderer in Ring Lardner's "Haircut." He's pleased that his "Top Cat" working schedule allows him time to accept outside movie and TV jobs, including "Wagon Train," "Bonanza" and "Checkmate" stints.
Now 38, Massachusetts-born Stang [Yowp note, he was actually 43 and born in New York] has been a performer ever since he auditioned for New York's "Children's Hour" with a serious reading of Poe's "The Raven." His voice was changing, everybody roared and he was offered comedy parts.
"My wife," he notes, "says I've been discovered more times than cures for the common cold. First I was discovered as a kid and had parts in three pictures and a lead on Broadway.
"Suddenly I was discovered as another thing, as if I were just out of bed. There was a lot of radio, and I don't think there's been a time that I wasn't involved in television in some way.
"I remember an experimental NBC show in 1936 with Hildegarde as m.c. I did a dramatic vignette with Gertrude Berg and George Tobias. Every 15 minutes they would stop the show and put on a spiral pattern—so the audience could rest its eyes. People thought then that constant looking at a TV screen might strain their eyes."
Arnold lives in California with his wife Joanne, a former newspaperwoman who came to interview him, and their two children, David, 11, and Deborah, 10. Do the kids find him funny?
"I suppose they've been amused at one time or another," says Stang, "but as a rule they take me very seriously!"

You may be reading about Michael O’Shea as Top Cat for the first time. What happened? Read about it at this post from 2009. As for Daws, I suspect the reason he didn’t end up with the role was because of a comment that Joe Barbera made in the ‘60s (it appears on this blog somewhere) that Daws was responsible for too many of the studio’s main characters.

Here’s a gallery of some publicity shots for Stang; some of them may have been posted here before. The one in the top left was used in 1941 when he was on The Goldbergs. The artist’s rendering was found in trade ads in 1943 and the one next to it is from 1954.



It’s Stang as Juliet to Red Skelton’s Romeo in a Skelton TV show from April 2, 1957.



T.C. never did appeared in drag on his show, but if it had carried on for a few more seasons, you never know. If it was good enough for Fred and Barney...

Top Cat's Debut and What Arnold Stang Hated

Top Cat debuted on the ABC-TV network on Wednesday, September 27, 1961 with the episode “The $1,000,000 Derby.” Like all the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, T.C. was shot in colour but broadcast in black and white.

It would appear some stations aired the series on a different night, as 16 mm. black-and-white prints exist of the show, complete with commercials. One of “Derby” is for sale on-line as of this writing.

The seller has these neat shots of the actual film. The first film strip below has the unmistakeable earmarks of being animated by Carlo Vinci. The mouth on Top Cat gives it away. He gave Fred Flintstone the same kind of angular expression. Variety’s review at the time claimed Ken Muse animated the episode. I haven’t seen the cartoon in eons, so I don’t know if he worked on it (he animated the series opening), but there is no way Muse did that first scene below.

We mentioned commercials. Here are some frames from a spot for Kellogg’s Special K I’ve never seen before. (Other ads for Bristol-Myers products are live-action). The characters sure don't look like the H-B house style, do they? The teenager looks a bit like Waldo from UPA’s Mr. Magoo shorts.

Below are some frames from the opening and closing. The ABC title card isn’t on the DVD version (the one with the credits all screwed up).

The series leaves me a little cold, despite Top Cat’s cue library by Hoyt Curtin being really enjoyable (especially his mock Gershwin) and a superb voice cast. I love Marvin Kaplan. I love Arnold Stang. What better, then, than to reprint an interview Stang did about the show, and his family. He also makes a startling revelation of one of his best-known on-camera roles up to that time. This appeared in the January 6, 1962 edition of the Charlotte News.

IT’S DISTRESSING
Arnold Stang: Cat's Meow
By VAL CAREW
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
HOLLYWOOD — Arnold Stang, in his time, has played almost every kind of animal. Currently he is gainfully employed as Top Cat, the title puss on the cartoon show (ABC and WSOC-TV) of the same name.
Playing a cat is, he says, a challenge. Not because of the character's felinity, but because he is just serving as a voice for animation.
"Ordinarily," says Stang, "I act with my body, with my face and with my hands. But here I can only use my voice. It is a great challenge."

WHILE IT IS obvious that Stang likes his job — the hours are good and so is the pay — he is still a bit unhappy that he is not accorded the chances he'd like at heavier parts.
"It is distressing," he admits. "Everybody thinks of me automatically as the character on the Milton Berle show. And I hated that part more than anything I did.
"I quit several times, and the last time I quit I went right into 'The Man With the Golden Arm.' That was a fine picture and I had a fine part.
"I thought that was an important role. And, since then, I have had some other serious things to do on TV, in the movies, on the stage But, despite that, it’s still the Berle thing people remember. And I seldom get thought of in serious terms."
STANG AND HIS family moved to California for the Top Cat assignment. They are all adjusting nicely to the West Coast, although the house they bought burned down in the Bel Air fire.
Happily, they were all away at the time, but they lost everything they owned — including some souvenirs which are irreplaceable, such as a letter from Sir Winston Churchill.
The two Stang children — his 1-year-old son and 1year-old daughter — like the California climate, although they miss their friends back east.
ARNOLD'S SON at the moment wants to be an archaeologist, and "seems to be quite serious about it." The little girl is going through the ballerina stage.
"Up until a year ago," Arnold says, "if you asked her what she wanted to be, she'd say, 'A person.' I always thought that was a very good answer."
Stang has been kept quite busy with things other than Top Cat — he's made three movies and starred in several other TV shows. The Top Cat recording schedule is always arranged to suit him — it can be in the evening or on weekends, if he's otherwise occupied. And he sometimes does three a week, so he can go back to New York for a week or so.
AS FOR STANG'S intimacy with cats — he has none.
"I don't own a cat. I've never owned a cat and I doubt if I ever will own a cat," he says. "We have a dog, you see.
"Actually, I don't think that observing a cat would be of any help to me in this show. The fact that Top Cat is a cat is incidental; he thinks and acts like a human being."

Things looked good for T.C. for a bit. ABC ordered additional episodes but stopped at 30. The ratings weren’t good enough; during one week in San Antonio, the alley cat gang was beaten by a syndicated show. Top Cat was part of an anticipated prime-time animation boom caused by the success of The Flintstones the previous year. Instead, it fizzled and network soured on animation. T.C. was moved to Saturday mornings the following year. With no new episodes (and no residuals for actors), the series was now reasonably cheap and therefore attractive to companies that wanted to aim solely at kids (in other words, no more ads for Alberto VO-5 like in prime time).

The characters have popped up on occasion since the original series 60 years ago but it’s somehow not the same without Arnold Stang and Curtin’s Rhapsody in Blue-ish clarinet opening an episode.

My thanks to Austin Kelly for his tip that resulted in this post. The blog resumes its retirement.

A Final (?) Note About Arnold Stang

A couple of months ago I promised to reprint a news story about Arnold Stang and, with his passing a few days ago, now may be as good a time as many to pass it on.

The Hanna-Barbera PR machine was well-oiled by the time Top Cat was heading toward its debut. Unlike any of the previous series, where Joe and Bill did the talking to reporters, the star himself was enlisted to push his new cartoon show in media interviews. Maybe it was because of Stang’s name recognition.

Here’s the interview I promised, un-bylined in this version, from a couple of months before the show aired. You can see that the voice cast still wasn’t quite settled; I don’t think Bea Benaderet did anything on the show; Jean Vander Pyl did.

TV Toppers: Is He Man or Mouse?
NEW YORK, June 13 (UPI) —The usual question, “Are you man or mouse?” won’t do for Arnold Stang.
In his case, you have to ask, “Are you man, cat or mouse?”
And he just might have trouble giving a snap answer.
The complication in the career of the slight, begoggled performer arises from the fact that besides being constantly employed as comedian Arnold Stang, in person, or as an actor creating a human character for stage, screen or TV, he has become prominent in the animated cartoon field.
STANG HAS been the voice for “Herman the Mouse,” a series of filmed shorts widely used in theaters and on TV programs, and now he has the important assignment of voicing the title role in “Top Cat,” a half-hour weekly animated series made especially for television that will be a new entry on the ABC network schedule next fall.
“Actually, I received no billing from the ‘Herman the Mouse’ series,” Stang explained, “and now, of course, I’ll make no more of them.
“However, everyone who saw one of those shorts knew, right away I did them. On account of the voice.
“They recognized it.
“But I’m not using the ‘Stang voice’ for the ‘Top Cat’ series. I won’t sound like me. When we first started making them, the question came up as to whether I shouldn’t voice T.C.—that's the way the cat is usually referred to—in my natural manner, but I talked them out of it. I don’t think my natural tone quite fits the character of T.C.”
“TOP CAT” IS another major cartoon creation by the Hanna-Barbera Firm in Hollywood that made a splash this season with “The Flintstones” on ABC, the first “adult” animation series especially created for television.
“Top Cat” also is intended to be a bit above the “kiddie level,” with a certain sophistication.
T.C. is a big-city vagrant with a leadership quality that binds assorted felines to him.
They get involved in stories which might just as well be played by humans. A policeman will be the only regular human character of the show.
“Some of the other well-known actors providing voices for the show,” Stang said, “are Maurice Gosfield—you know, the Doberman of Phil Silvers’ old series; Allen Jenkins, who talks for the cop; Leo de Lyon, who speaks for a beatnik-type cat, and Bea Benaderette [sic], who also does one of the voices on ‘The Flintstones.’
“We have a dozen of the episodes completed, and I have to go right back to work this week.
“We record on tape from script in a studio, and the technicians blend the lines with the animation frames.
“I came back here for a few days to close up my home in New Rochelle and move the family out to Bel Air, where we bought a house.
“I’VE BEEN commuting so much in recent years between New York and Hollywood, as more and more of the television work centered there, that about the only way. I could expect to have much time with my wife and two children was to set up our home out there.”
Cat lovers will want to know whether Stang really likes cats.
“Well,” he replied cautiously, “let’s say I’m very fond of this cat character.”

Something just doesn’t seem right with the interview, though. The show is about a conning cat that uses Bilko-like flattery, has Bilko’s sidekick (Gosfield) and was written at times by a Bilko writer (Barry Blitzer)—but the studio wanted him to sound like Stang and not Bilko? Call me a little sceptical.

Top Cat debuted on Wednesday, September 27, 1961. The Big Cartoon Database says ‘Hawaii—Here We Come’ was the first show. But that’s not what the TV listings of the day say. You see to your left a TV ad which suggests the first show was really ‘The $1,000,000 Derby.’ In fact, a couple of newspapers in their “week ahead” TV listings the previous weekend give that cartoon in their plot summary. But on the day of the show, the papers changed their minds. Here’s a typical summary:

7:30—2 Top Cat: (Premiere) New half-hour animated cartoon series about the adventures of a band of felines in Manhattan. Tonight: "Top Cat Falls in Love" — Benny the Ball has his tonsils out but, after one glimpse at the nurse, smitten T.C. is stricken with a rare ailment to keep him hospitalized.

That, according to BCDB, was supposed to be the seventh episode. So which one aired? It’s tough to say. The Chicago Tribune’s Larry Wolters had this review the following morning:

Top Cat, also known as Ali Khat or alley cat, is a happy addition to all of TV's animated cartoon characters TV's animated cartoon characters. He gets mixed up with some pretty mixed up characters including "a compact horse" which he manages to run in a derby. Arabelle, the nag, came in second—she stopped to have her picture taken.

Whether Wolters actually saw the show the night of the debut or received an advance copy and wrote his column from that, I don’t know. But nowhere can I find evidence that ‘Hawaii—Here We Come’ aired first.

Incidentally, Jack Gould of the New York Times panned the show the following morning. He was the guy who called The Flintstones “an inked disaster” the day after its premiere. After moaning about how Steve Allen’s new show was too slapstick—yes, he panned Steve Allen, too—he wrote:

‘Top Cat’ in Debut
Following Mr. Allen's mishap on Channel 7 was another one: a cartoon series called "Top Cat." The central animal is an unattractive-Tommy-run feline and his bewhiskered minions are a dreary lot. Their adventures last night were dull enough to have been performed by humans.

And the Tribune capped the debut with this note in Herb Lyon’s column two days later on September 29th:

Silliest promotional stunt yet: ABC-TV publicized its new cartoon series Top Cat by sending TV critics, columnists, etc., jumbo sized garbage cans, with the lids done up in blue ribbons. Anybody need a JSGC? I can’t get past it to my typewriter!


Ah, but we’re getting away from the topic of Arnold Stang. Suffice it so say, he entertained many people in different media—radio, feature films, television, cartoons—for decades. Fortunately, his work is still around for us to enjoy even though he has gone.

Top Cat is a little beyond the time limit that this blog is supposed to focus on, but I’ll pass on one more set of clippings soon about Stang’s funny mate from Brooklyn, Marvin Kaplan.

Promoting Top Cat With Arnold Stang

Top Cat had a top cast.

Marvin Kaplan (Meet Millie) and John Stephenson (The People’s Choice, Bold Venture) had both worked on television series. Leo DeLyon appeared in nightclubs. And since Top Cat was meant to invoke memories of Phil Silvers’ quick-talking Sgt. Bilko, who better to cast as the main sidekick than Maurice Gosfield, who performed the same function on Bilko as Pvt. Doberman.

Casting T.C. himself was a bit of a challenge. Film actor Michael O’Shea was tried out but couldn’t handle the dialogue. You can read more in this post. Daws Butler was tried out but he was already doing a Silvers-like voice as Hokey Wolf. Finally, Arnold Stang won the part.

By 1961, when Top Cat first aired, Stang had distinguished himself on radio, television and film (live action and cartoon). And like many stars, he was pushed out onto a publicity tour for his show. During a stop in his hometown of New York City, the Daily News talked to him about the series, his career, the Hanna-Barbera studio, and cats. It was published November 12, 1961.

Arnold Stang Likes Doing Voice of ‘Top Cat’ on TV
By BEN GROSS
Appearances are deceptive. There's Arnold Stang, for example. For years you've laughed at him; you've thought of him as such a funny, helpless, lovable dope, a pint-sized schlemiel. But you've been wrong. He's really a very smart fellow.
Arnold proved that emphatically, when as a pupil in our town's Townsend Harris High School he won a gold medal for the highest state-wide scholastic average. He also gave evidence of his capabilities through successful appearances on radio shows, among them those of Joe Penner, Henry Morgan and Orson Welles, plus many hilarious TV stints with Ed Sullivan, Perry Como and other stars.
The distraught, squeaky voiced, rabbit-like youth with horn-rimmed glasses seen on television bore no resemblance to the serious, sedate man who sat beside me in the Beverly Hills Trader Vic restaurant. There, amidst the Polynesian surroundings, he told me why after many years of appearing as Arnold Stang, he had consented to become a mere voice, that of the title role in the new cartoon series. "Top Cat" (ABC-TV, Wednesdays, 8:30 to 9 P.M.).
Accepts Challenge
Speaking in low, well-modulated tones, he said simply: "It's a challenge and I've accepted it."
"But aren't you doing what most actors hate to do—eliminating your personal identification?" I asked.
Arnold, a mere five-foot-three and weighing only 103 pounds, squinted his brown eyes and answered: "Although I've been starred and featured, I've never tried to have a show of my own. Doing a series before the TV cameras is the surest way of eliminating yourself.
"Just look at the list of comedians who used to be on the air week after week, years ago—Wally Cox, George Gobel, Henry Morgan and others. They were consumed by television. Jack Benny and Red Skelton are about the only survivors.
Real Characters
"As for 'Top Cat,' in my opinion, it's not only a highly amusing animated feature but it presents characters who are just as real as a show in which people appear before the cameras."
"But the fact is that the audience only hears your voice." I said. "They don't see Arnold Stang." "That's where the challenge comes in," he answered. "Just through my words I have to create a three-dimensional cat out of a one-dimensional picture.
Good Radio Actors
"And believe me, you've got to be a good actor to do that. But come to think of it, that's what performers and sound men had to do all the time in radio. Nothing on the air was ever as funny as some of those sound effects on the old Jack Benny and Fibber McGee and Molly shows."
"How does a fellow act the role of a cat in one of these cartoons ?" I wanted to know.
"It's quite a job." Arnold explained. "But the firm of Hanna and Barbera, who created ‘Top Cat,’ are geniuses when it comes to producing animated cartoons. You know what they did with ‘The Flintstones’ and ‘Huckleberry Hound.’ So they've worked out a good system for their live actors.
‘Story Board’
“First of all, there's a 'story board.’ It's a sheet of paper containing about 30 frames of pictures. These represent the key incidents of the action. While looking at this, we actors have a script of the dialogue; in this way we can visualize the scenes in which our lines are spoken.
"This takes place in a recording studio. We read the script and our words are taped. We convey character through our tones. For example, as Top Cat, I have a low, throaty voice, one that suggests a lovable con man."
"Now that you play a feline, are you fond of cats?" I asked.
"Oh, I like 'em; but I can take ‘em or leave ‘em," Arnold told me. "I've always owned dogs; but some of my best friends have cats."
Cats Aren't Villains
"Why is it that cats are so often portrayed as villains?"
"I don't think they are anymore," he said. "Today, most persons regard cats as very intelligent animals, strong-minded, determined and independent. Why, even such a virile fellow as the late Ernest Hemingway was fond of them.
"Incidentally, this is not the first time I've been associated with an animal. In one show I was the voice of a gorilla, and some years ago, I appeared in an NBC color special, ‘Jack and the Beanstalk,’ in which, believe it or not, I portrayed the giant. And that production had an animal ballet. And guess who played the hind half of a cow? None other than Jason Robards Jr!"
Audience Laughed
The son of an attorney, and the nephew of a man who at one time headed a New York City school district, Arnold was born in Chelsea, Mass. Sept. 28, 1923. Many years ago, he sent from there a postcard to the famous Children's Hour radio show asking for an audition. Getting an affirmative response, he appeared garbed in knickers and wearing glasses, to give a serious reading of Poe's poem, “The Raven.” But his voice was changing at the time. "No sooner had I read the opening line than the audience roared. From that time on, although a serious youngster, I was tabbed as a comedian," Arnold recalled.
Soon he was on radio as a regular with Bob Hope, Eddie Cantor, Fred Allen and Milton Berle. He created what is now known as the "Stang type" of characterization in "Duffy's Tavern" and the "Easy Aces" series. When TV came, Arnold made a hit as Francis, the stagehand, in the Berle shows.
A 'Serious' Actor
Arnold also appeared in many Broadway plays including "Sailor, Beware," and not long ago scored as a serious actor with his moving portrayal of Sparrow in the movie, "The Man With the Golden Arm." His success in that role was one of the highlights of Arnold's life. For despite the laughs he evokes, like most comedians, he has always wanted to be a "serious" actor.
"As a matter of fact, I'm a serious guy," he said. And always a student, he might have added. That's why, after his family had moved to New York, he was able to win that scholastic honor at Townsend Harris High.
Lives on Coast
Following years of shuttling between New York and Hollywood, Arnold, his wife, Jo Anne, and their two children, David, 10, and Deborah, 9, have finally moved to the Coast. There they bought a house in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles which, unfortunately, was destroyed by fire last week.
Stang, unlike some stars, has a special fondness for the press. He said: "My wife once worked for the Sunday section of The News and I met her the first time when she came to interview me for the now-gone Brooklyn Eagle."

Stang was one of a number of actors who fudged about their age, likely to get younger roles in radio in the ‘30s and ‘40s. He was five years older than he let on.

Screen Gems tried a different kind of publicity tour involving Stang before Top Cat aired. Here’s a description from Variety, Sept. 27, 1961.

A Screen Gems Primer On How to Promote A Cartoon ('Top Cat')
ABC-TV is preeming "Top Cat" tonight (Wed.), but there was a problem originally of how to promote the cartoon series via one of tv's traditional pre-preem road tours to warm up local audiences.
Screen Gems, the outfit that sold "Cat" to the web, solved the touring problem. SG flack chief Gene Plotknik, giving his show the edge over the three other cartoon series preeming this fall, got producer Hanna-Barabera [sic] to have Arnold Stang and Maurice Gosfield, the show's main voices, prerecord five-minutes of banter with local tv emcees. Gosfield and Stang ask the questions and spaces are left on the disk for answers, which any local performer can answer.
That accounts for the voice part of promo. As for "bodies," Plotnik got Eaves to turn out costume replicas of the cartoon characters involved, Top Cat and his pal Benny the Ball, which are being bicycled around to ABC affils in special containers. Costumes have been worn by office boys and flack gals at the local station level, who have gestured, mimed and danced to the words of Stang and Gosfield.
The "Cat" has played nine major markets since Aug. 15.
Main trouble? Plotnik says that there were no press interviews as on other promo tours. "With the press these days," he says, "you can't get down the answers in advance."

Despite the fine cast, which also included veteran Warner Bros. character actor Allen Jenkins, and an effective music library by Hoyt Curtin, the show didn’t survive. Daily Variety reported less than two months after Top Cat debuted that ABC was negotiating for a revival of The Rebel to replace the cartoon series in mid-season. That didn’t happen, but ABC announced reruns would appear on Saturday mornings the following year (Variety, March 14, 1962).

Fans will argue the show was just as popular as H-B’s other prime time animated half hours, and they might have a point. Reruns showed up on small screens season after season, first on regular TV then cable; a flash-animated movie was released in 2011; an “origin story” computer-animated film came out to major yawns several years later; and he’s one of the characters in the Jellystone! streaming series.

Arnold Stang is no longer with us (Leo De Lyon is apparently the only cast member who is) but you can always pull out home video with the 30 episodes and enjoy him one more time.

TC in the Mirror

Prime-time cartoons were all the rage in 1961, and the TV Radio Mirror was there to cover the story.

The Mirror was a precursor to the supermarket tabloids of today. It contained newsy items of what was happening in television but was more into stories such as (and these are actual titles) “Why I’m Still a Bachelor”, “Why I Quit The Edge of Night” and “The Day They Told Marty Milner ‘You’ll Never Walk Again’,” interspersed among ads for hair colouring products, tampons and books with marriage advice. The actor profiles are fairly fluffy and far more innocent than the preoccupation with sex, rehab and “celebrity” gossip that seems to circulate in successor publications in this day and age. They’re a great little time capsule and it’s neat to read something about, say, Don Knotts at home.

1961 saw the debut of “Top Cat,” “The Bullwinkle Show,” “The Alvin Show” and “Calvin and the Colonel” in prime-time, thanks to the success of “The Flintstones” and “The Bugs Bunny Show” the season before. The first three soon ended up on weekend mornings and the fourth became an Amos ‘n’ Andy footnote. The Mirror’s fall preview issue had brief mentions of them (with publicity art for “Top Cat” and “Calvin”) and then featured T.C.’s Arnold Stang in a two-page spread in its October edition. One page was a full-colour drawing of T.C. and Benny the Ball. The other had a family photo and the following text about Stang. Fans reading this post probably know all this information but I post it nonetheless.

HOT VOICE FOR A COOL CAT
Arnold Stang’s high-decibel tones send strong and clear from the back fence for a loveable backslid feline
Arnold Stang, the funny little man with the famous falsetto, takes on a new job this fall as the voice of a battling big-city feline known as "Top Cat" or "T.C." to his furry friends in the ashcan set. Stang, who weighs in at 106 and stands five-three, has parlayed this unprepossessing exterior and unique voice into a steady success as an actor-comedian. With oversize lens-less glasses ("Who needs glasses?") perched on his parrot-like nose, Stang has panicked the customers on TV and in movies—enacting roles sometimes requiring comedy facility, sometimes dramatic talent in touching characterizations. . . . Movie-goers may recall him best for his superb acting as Sparrow, the little punk who was Sinatra's sidekick in "The Man with the Golden Arm." TV viewers will probably recall him as the stagehand who regularly frustrated the star on The Milton Berle Show. And, on radio, Stang was well established as Seymour on The Goldbergs. In more recent years, he did a regular comedy stint on Bert Parks' Bandstand show, sandwiched in with numerous dramatic roles on major TV shows. . . . Top Cat is a new cartoon animal comedy series from the Hanna-Barbera studio, which originated that successful Stone Age romp, The Flintstones. Along with "T.C." Stang, there is a roster of famous voices. Benny the Ball, T.C.'s straight man, has the voice of Maurice Gosfield of "Doberman" fame. Allen Jenkins talks for a "human" policeman, Officer Dibble. Fancy Fancy, a feline Don Juan, is played by John Stephenson. Spook and Brain—two far-out cool cats—are spoken for by comedian Leo DeLyon. Choo-Choo, an impetuous tom more daring than wisdom dictates, is voice-fed by Marvin Kaplan. . . . With his commitment for this series, Arnold Stang has moved his family from their home in New Rochelle, near New York, to the Los Angeles area—a cross-country trek which represents a change of home and school life for JoAnne, Arnold's pretty wife, and David Donald, 10, and Deborah, 9 ... as pictured above with "T.C."
_______________________________________________________________________________ Beginning Sept. 27, Top Cat will be seen on ABC-TV, Wednesdays, 8:30 P.M. EDT, as sponsored by Bristol-Myers Company and the Kellogg Co.



The Mirror used its pages for a promo piece on “The Flintstones” earlier in the year but there’s also a mention of the Modern Stone Age Family in an article by Jo Ranson in the December issue, where 10-year-olds talk about their favourite TV shows.

Youngsters of all ages are infatuated with the production of The Flintstones, each episode of which costs $65,000 to produce. Surveys have shown that children will watch cartoons over and over again, each time with glassy-eyed receptivity. This, however, is not true of The Flintstones—this reporter's survey reveals that it is greeted with the enthusiasm children usually reserve only for a super-duper royal banana split.
Joe Barbera, who is responsible for the creative end of The Flintstones, remarked recently: "Cartoons have changed. They've grown up. It is very difficult now to write just for kids. The kids today are too smart. We use updated dialogue, updated situations. Right from the start, we steered away from the icky, juvenile stuff of the past." As a result, The Flintstones has a following from six to sixty. Opined one tousle-haired ten-year-old from Levittown, Long Island:
"Yummy, yummy, yummy! The Flintstones! They're cute! They live in the Rock Age! They are cavemen! They are like cartoons! It's a Suburban Rock Age! It's a half-hour program! It's on at eight-thirty! It's keen! It's yummy! That's all!" This is the manner in which most of the youngster generation appears to express itself about television programing today.

I don’t believe I’ve seen Joe Barbera use the word “icky” before. He wasn’t specific about which cartoons he was referring to. Certainly not Quick Draw McGraw, I imagine. Unfortunately, the word might be used to describe some his own studio’s product in later years.