Dig A Hole: Arnold Stang
December 22nd, 2009 by Scott Marks
Arnold Stang, beloved character actor, cartoon voice virtuoso and Hollywood’s foremost nerd has died of pneumonia in Newton, Massachusetts. There is some dispute over his age. According to Wikipedia, “Stang was born in New York City in 1918, but often claimed Chelsea, Massachusetts as his birthplace and 1925 as his birth date.” If we go by Wikipedia, Stang was 91 when he passed on December 20.
I knew the voice long before the face and his name was one of the first belonging to an actor that I committed to memory. Between Herman the Mouse, Top Cat, “Alakazam the Great,” Popeye’s pal Shorty, the Chunky candy bar commercials (”Chunky! What a chunk o’ chocolate!”) and his star turn as Rumpelstiltskin in “The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm,” Stang was as much an adolescent cultural touchstone as Groucho, Mel Blanc, Jerry Lewis, Soupy Sales and Larry Fine.
Stang’s trademark character was a nerd on steroids, a pipsqueak who used his little man’s complex to enact a bully’s revenge against the universe. Even his name was unpleasant to the ear. Isn’t a “Stang” the sound a fork prong makes when you pluck it?
At the age of 9 he landed a role on radio’s “Horn and Hardart’s Children’s Hour” which led to another kid’s show ”Let’s Pretend.” Stang lent his Brooklynese twang to Hoiman’ the Mouse in Famous Studios’ “Herman and Katnip” series, and in 1961 he voiced Hanna-Barbera’s “Top Cat.” Don’t let the kid stuff fool you. Even in cartoons, Stang played a smart-alecky conniver; a nasally pest that wanted nothing more than to be a mosquito when he grew up. Beneath the ten pound spectacles, nine inch nose and foot-long chipmunk teeth beat the heart of a conniving little weasel.
After all the emasculation, no wonder Arnold Stang was so angry.
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Tags: Arnold Stang, arnold stang chunky, Arnold Stang dead, Arnold Stang dies, Arnold Stang obituary, arnoldstang, Bob Hope, chunky candy bar, Frank Sinatra, hanna barbera, henry morgan, herman and katnip, herman the mouse, Milton Berle, Otto Preminger, The Man With the Golden Arm, top catFiled Under Obituaries