Arnold Stang

Arnold Sidney Stang, born September 28, 1918, in Manhattan, New York City, was an American actor, comedian, and voice artist who worked across stage, radio, television, film, and animation for seven decades until his death on December 20, 2009. Raised in Brooklyn by his parents Anna and Harold Stang, he began performing on radio at the age of nine and built a career distinguished by his small physical stature and a squawky, Brooklyn-accented voice that became one of the most recognizable in American entertainment.

Stang's radio career began in childhood, with appearances on programs such as The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour and Let's Pretend. By 1940 he had advanced to the recurring teenage role of Seymour on The Goldbergs. In October 1941, director Don Bernard brought him into the CBS program Meet Mr. Meek for commercial work, and when Bernard determined that Stang's cracking voice was unsuitable for advertisements, he instead had writers create a character role for him. Stang subsequently appeared on the summer replacement program The Remarkable Miss Tuttle with Edna May Oliver in 1942 and stepped into the title role of That Brewster Boy in 1943 after Eddie Firestone Jr. left to join the U.S. Marine Corps. Comedian Henry Morgan made Stang a sidekick on his program in the fall of 1946, and Stang performed in similar supporting capacities the following year alongside Eddie Cantor and Milton Berle. He also voiced Jughead on the NBC broadcast of the Archie Andrews radio show, appearing opposite Bob Hastings as Archie.

Stang's Broadway career extended from 1942 to 1969 and included appearances in the musical You'll See Stars, the comedy All in Favor, and a 1969 revival of the play The Front Page alongside Peggy Cass. He also starred in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, though his involvement with that production was primarily with the national touring company rather than the original Broadway run. He departed the tour on October 3, 1964, with Gil Lamb assuming his role for the remaining six weeks of the engagement, in order to join the television series Broadside.

His film work included early credits such as My Sister Eileen, So This Is New York, and They Got Me Covered, as well as a notable dramatic role as Sparrow in Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm in 1955, in which he appeared alongside Frank Sinatra. Producer Stanley Kramer cast Stang in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in 1963, pairing him with Marvin Kaplan as the co-owners of a service station who become targets of a destructive rampage by Jonathan Winters. That film stands as Stang's most widely seen theatrical feature. Additional film credits from this period include Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar in 1965, featuring Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey, and Hercules in New York in 1970, in which he appeared alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, then billed as Arnold Strong.

Television brought Stang considerable visibility beginning in the late 1940s. He held a recurring role on The School House on the DuMont Television Network in 1949, appeared as a regular on the situation comedy Doc Corkle in 1952, and played the comic character Clumsy McGee on Captain Video and His Video Rangers. He joined Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theater as a regular in September 1953, playing Francis the Stagehand, a role that involved heckling and berating the star. He also served as a panelist on the Goodson-Todman game show The Name's the Same beginning in 1954. On Broadside, the McHale's Navy spinoff produced by Edward Montagne, Stang co-starred as master chef Stanley Stubbs in the final eleven episodes of the series.

Voice acting represented one of Stang's most enduring contributions to popular culture. In the early 1940s he worked for Famous Studios, providing the voice for Popeye's companion Shorty, the character Herman the mouse, and Tubby Tompkins in several Little Lulu animated shorts. His most prominent animation credit came with Hanna-Barbera's Top Cat, which ran for thirty episodes from 1961 to 1962 and continued in rebroadcast through the 1980s. The series was modeled on The Phil Silvers Show, and Stang was initially directed to imitate Silvers's delivery before the sponsor intervened, insisting on Stang's own voice. He later voiced Nurtle the Turtle in the 1965 animated feature Pinocchio in Outer Space, appeared as Catfish in the 1976 series Misterjaw alongside Arte Johnson, played Queasy the Parrot in the 1977 film Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure, and served as the original voice of Buzz the Bee in Honey Nut Cheerios commercials from 1979 to 1992. In 1959, ABC Paramount Records released an album of his work titled Arnold Stang's Waggish Tales.

Stang was also widely recognized through television advertising, most notably for the Chunky candy bar, for which he delivered the tagline identifying the product's many ingredients, and for Alcoa aluminum window screens, where he was associated with the phrase "Arnold Stang says don't get stung." He continued to appear in commercials until his death in 2009. Born in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn, Stang maintained an active presence across multiple entertainment mediums throughout his life, working consistently from childhood through his final years.