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.

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.

Hanna-Barbera made good copy in 1961. The proof is in a search through newspapers as Arnie Carr’s PR department successfully pushed the studio’s newest series, Top Cat. Editor after editor opened up a full page of valuable space to promote the show. Quotes from Joe Barbera, Bill Hanna and/or the show’s stars, accompanied by what must have been a large stack of stills, filled space. In addition, some papers featured a picture of T.C. on the front page of their entertainment pullout section.

It shouldn’t be a surprise. The studio was on a roll. Critics loved The Huckleberry Hound Show when it debuted in 1958. The Quick Draw McGraw Show got positive ink in 1959 for its gentle satire of TV programming trends. The Flintstones was greeted with mixed reviews in 1960, but quickly became a hit with audiences. Audiences couldn’t get enough Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

Well, actually, they could. Top Cat turned out to be a prime-time failure. Its elements simply didn’t add up to attract a big enough audience. I’ve mentioned before I’ve never warmed to the series, though I love Hoyt Curtin’s tracking library and think T.C. was Arnold Stang’s best cartoon role. But let’s set that aside and bring you a couple of newspaper stories.

Story one was published November 11, 1961. The writer was syndicated; by whom, I don’t know. Interestingly, of the half dozen or so versions of this story I’ve read, each of them has a different publicity photo with it. The second story is from the Pittsburgh Press of December 3, 1961. I’m a little miffed with it because it omits John Stephenson in its profiles of the voice actors. It’s not as if he was obscure; in the 1950s he had been a regular on the sitcom The People’s Choice and hosted Bold Journey for a time. Stephenson began his Hanna-Barbera career with The Flintstones and was the studio’s go-to guy for starring, supporting and utility roles for more than 30 years. The funny thing in the second story is the writer evidently couldn’t make out all the theme song lyrics so he omits one line (all Curtin had to do was change the notes to fit the syllabic emphasis and there never would have been confusion).

'Top Cat' Keeps Things Swinging On Officer Dibble's Alley Beat
BY EDGAR PENTON
HOLLYWOOD—There's an alley somewhere in the heart of New York that's been swinging since September 27. That was the debut date of Hanna-Barbera's Top Cat," Wednesday night cartoon series on ABC-TV. And the alley is the home of T.C. and his rowdy band of fellow felines.
T.C., as he is affectionately called by his friends and cartoon cohorts, heads a quintet of TV's wackiest characters.
There are rotund Benny the Ball, T.C.'s sidekick who's a little slow but far from stupid; Choo Choo, an eager ball of fire with spinning wheels that take him nowhere; Spook, a pseudo-intellectual who's more often in orbit than not; The Brain, so named because of his almost complete lack of thinking power; and Fancy-Fancy, a feline fop who's great with the girls.
THE CLAN'S favorite target is Officer Dibble, the cop on the alley beat who is kept thoroughly confused but undaunted by their adventures.
Top Cat, himself, is a dyed-in-the-wool con man with a heart of gold. His spinning mind, glib tongue and out-of-this-world imagination are dedicated to one proposition to raise the living standard of his fellow cats. He's an opportunist and nimbly aggressive but he'd never hurt anyone.
"Top Cat and his pals live in a New York alley, but it's not a depressing alley," said Joe Barbera. T.C. has seen to it that it has all the comforts that a well-adjusted cat needs. There's a telephone on a nearby pole that's officially for police use only, but T.C. doesn't let this discourage him from making free and frequent use of it.
The lively group gets nourishment, with little effort, from bottle of milk left on neighborhood doorsteps.
"T.C. lives in a magnificent ash can, but when bad weather makes the ash can uncomfortable, he and the group congregate in the basement of a nearby delicatessen.
"Always anxious to improve their minds, the cat sextet studies the newspapers tossed on doorsteps."
WHEN ASKED why they chose alley cats as the heroes of their new half-hour series, Bill Hanna replied, "It's simple. Cats have a lot of personality on which we can capitalize. Stray alley cats, in particular have real living problems with which we feel viewers can easily identify. They're going to understand the gang's struggle for survival and they're going to enjoy the fun they have with their freedom."
Top Cat is a 'doer' and somewhat of a conniver, but he's wonderfully good-hearted.
"All his pals admire T.C.," continued Bill. "His word is law. He's not really a dictatorial leader—his clan is strictly democratic—but a breakdown of the voting would show that Top Cat has 50 per cent of the voting power."
"Even Officer Dibble loves T.C., down deep in his lawman's heart," added Joe Barbera. "Officer Dibble and T.C. are constantly engaged in a battle of wits, and the battles get pretty spicey sometimes.
"Dibble is no fool, nor is T.C. It's easy to see that both of them really love this brain trust battle.
"Arnold Stang, who supplies the voice of Top Cat, refuses to look on cocky T.C. as a cat. "He's a person, one with whom everyone can identify," said Stang.

"HE'S MY IDEA of a perfect television hero," Stang continued. "Viewers will think they know someone just like him, and the chances are they do. It becomes pretty personal at times.
"Take Top Cat's running battle With Officer Dibble. People are bound to love this because T.C., in a completely inoffensive way, flouts the authority that Dibble represents. "T.C. knows that he has to conform, but he, like many of us, would like to break away from the confines of conformity once in a while. He walks a fine line; T.C. never breaks the law, but he manages to make life pretty hectic for the law enforcer.
"You cant help but admire that canny intuition of his. Dibble has many Achilles heels, and T.C. has found most of them."
With Stang's enthusiasm for his role in "Top Cat," and his previous role in the animated series, "Herman the Mouse," the question may arise, "Are you man, cat or mouse?" At the moment, Stang might have a little trouble answering.
Maurice Gosfield, well-known for his role of Doberman in the Sergeant Bilko Show, provides the voice of T.C.'s chief confrere, Benny the ball.
"Frankly, I prefer Benny to Doberman," said Gosfield. "Benny is smarter. That chubby little character has become a real person to me. From now on, every time I go to New York I'm going to expect to see those cats in some alley."
"Benny is a combination aide-de-camp and conscience to Top Cat. Sure, he's somewhat of a dolt, but he always manages to be down-to-earth enough to ask logical questions."
Choo Choo (voice by Marvin Kaplan) is the eager beaver of the group. He's the errand-runner who is so eager that he usually dashes off on a mission without waiting to hear what it is. Spook (Leo De Lyon) is a four-legged beatnik who is trying very hard to be an intellectual. But he can't quite hide his foolishness.
THE BRAIN, also voiced by De Lyon, is described by Leo as "a sort of Nebish of the streets the outdoor-type Nebish. "He's not too bright, but his is an unusual type of stupidity. He knows he's stupid, but he's always in there pitchin'."
Fancy-Fancy (John Stephenson) is the ladies' man of the alley set. He's proud of his irresistible charms, but this is his only asset. Everyone knows that an alley wouldn't be as exciting without at least one lover-type cat.
Allen Jenkins is the voice of Officer Dibble, the upholder of law and order in the alley. This takes him into fascinating side trips in the realm of imaginative cat schemes. "Working with Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera in this series is great," said Jenkins. "I'm proud to be a part of it. Just imagine the built-in audience the series has.
"Out of approximately 170 million people, there must be at least 150 million cat lovers. Now, that's what I call a receptive group. I find that I'm taking the role of Dibble pretty seriously because it's Dibble's responsibility to uphold the two-legged end of the battle of wits.
"I look forward to seeing what new schemes T.C. is going to think up next."

The Men Behind The Voices
By Fred Remington
Press TV-Radio Editor
Top Cat—the most effectual
Top Cat—whose intellectual
Close friends get to call him T. C.
Top Cat—the indisputable
Leader of the gang.
He's the boss, he's the king
But above everything
He's the most tip top
Top Cat.
Yes, he's the boss, he's the king.
But above everything
He's the most tip top
Top Cat.
Top Cat!
WITH THIS swinging theme music, each Wednesday evening at 8:30 (Channel 4) 'Top Cat," one of this TV season's crop of animated cartoon series, makes its appearance.
Like several other cartoon series, "Top Cat" is more of a radio show with pictures than it is a TV program. The voices make it. The pictures, while often inventive, are supplemental.
As with other cartoon series, both in and out of the prolific Hanna-Barbera stable, the voices of "Top Cat" are arrestingly familiar. There is a more than casual touch of Phil Silver's Sgt. Ernie Bilko to the jaunty, angle-man tones of "Top Cat."
(More tantalizing still, however, are the voices in the "Bullwinkle" series on Sunday nights, a production of the colorful Jay Ward studios. The voices are fleetingly, hauntingly familiar, but whom do they remind you of? Red Skelton, among others?)
With the upsurge in popularity of animation series, voice actors have come back into their own to an extent they have not enjoyed since the days of radio drama. Needless to say it also has been a godsend to artists specializing in animation techniques.
Here are the men who provide the voices for the "Top Cat" characters.

Arnold Stang—The voice of TC (Top Cat) has been in show business ever since he mailed a penny post card from his home in Chelsea, Mass., to the Horn and Hardart Radio Hour on a New York radio station, seeking an audition. The audition was granted and Arnold, wheezy and raspy, recited Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven." He hadn't got beyond, "Once upon a midnight dreary. . . ." before the producers realized they had found a rare radio voice. He was on virtually every big radio hour and was in a number of Broadway shows. His one serious role was as Sparrow in the Frank Sinatra picture, "Man with the Golden Arm." He met his wife, JoAnne, when she interviewed him for the late and lamented Brooklyn Eagle, for which she was a reporter. They have two children, David and Deborah.
Allen Jenkins—The voice of Officer Dibble traveled widely as a youth from Staten Island, where he was born, to Brooklyn, to Nyack and finally into Manhattan. This accounts for the ripe New Yorkese which he has brought to his movie and TV roles. His involvement in a series about cats is fortuitous, for he is a devoted cat-lover. Divorced, he lives alone at Malibu Beach, Calif., his only companion being a 23-pound cat named Smiley.
Maurice Gosfield—The alley in which "Top Cat" makes his residence is, Gosfield asserts, "maybe 44th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues because it's not too far from Broadway but still the right area for a neighborhood cop like Officer Dibble." Gosfield, remembered as Private Doberman in Bilko's platoon, is the voice of Benny the Ball. He started in radio thirty years ago.
Marvin Kaplan—The voice of Choo Choo is a protege of Katherine Hepburn, who was struck by him when she saw him perform in a community theater in Los Angelas [sic]. She got him a part in the movie, "Adam's Rib." He did several other movies before switching to TV in the "Meet Millie" series.
Leo De Lyon—Leo is two characters, Brain and Spook. His music teacher in New Jersey discovered in his early childhood that he had perfect pitch. He studied music and his career was suspended by a long tour of submarine service in World War II. After service he worked up a vocal act—he can sing as either a high soprano or a baritone. He believes he may be the only man alive who can hum one tune while simultaneously whistling a completely different one. (If you think that's easy to do, try it.)

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 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...

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.

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.

You hear their voices on cartoons but, of course, you never see them. They’re the great voice actors that Hanna-Barbera hired. Most of them had training in the days of radio drama and comedy before television bludgeoned it to death. Some did live action television, so their faces may be familiar.



We’ve posted pictures of some of them here before—Daws Butler, Don Messick, Doug Young, the casts of The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Top Cat. And you’ve seen others elsewhere on the internet. But I’ve got a file folder with photos and clippings that I don’t think have been posted, so I’m doing it now.

This is not intended as a complete, definitive photo gallery, so don’t ask “Why isn’t there a picture of Lennie Weinrib?” and then list every cartoon role he ever played. I’m just putting up a miscellany of graphic files I’ve accumulated. Some are trade ads, others are publicity head shots.



Daws Butler improved every cartoon he appeared in, and some needed a lot of help. This shot must be from the early ‘50s when he was working with Stan Freberg, and comes from a biography about him broadcast years ago on PBS. Daws had so many great voices, it’s impossible to pick a favourite. I do have a favourite one-shot voice, though. It’s when Daws did his Fred Allen impression in the Huckleberry Hound cartoon “Skeeter Trouble.” My dad came into the living room when the cartoon was on and remarked that it was Fred Allen. “No, dad, it’s Daws Butler,” I replied. It’s the only time I ever corrected my father; kids didn’t do that back then. But this was important. We were talking cartoons, after all. (You can also hear Daws as Fred Allen in the August 1956 CBS Radio Workshop production “An Analysis of Satire”).



Mel Blanc was the King of Theatrical Cartoon Actors. There was no one better. He was a tremendous actor, yet he failed when handed a starring role in a radio sitcom in 1946, though the one-dimensional characters and trite concept were the reasons. He didn’t work for Hanna-Barbera until The Flintstones came along. He was Secret Squirrel and, well, a bunch of other characters that didn’t do a lot for me. This trade newspaper ad is from 1950, which gives you an idea what roles Mel thought were his most important at the time.



I love Howie Morris. One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen is Howie as Uncle Goopy on the This is Your Life send up on Sid Caesar’s show. His first H-B role, to the best of my knowledge, was Jet Screamer on The Jetsons, though he was pretty funny as Harlan, Cogswell’s lackey. He starred as Atom Ant, tried to enliven Magilla Gorilla cartoons as Mr. Peebles and got a Kellogg’s cereal gig as the voice of Hillbilly Goat, pushing Sugar Stars. He also told off Joe Barbera in language not fit for television, thus resulting in a change of cartoon addresses to the Filmation studio.



Know who this is? He’s in character as Solomon Levy on The Goldbergs radio show. It’s Alan Reed. This trade ad shot is from 1943. He carved out a good radio career before being hired as Fred Flintstone. His best role was probably that of hammy poet Falstaff Openshaw on Fred Allen’s show; the Falstaff voice got recycled as “Frederick” in the first season of The Flintstones. Reed did dialects on radio as well; Pasquale on Life With Luigi may be his best-known one.



This is the guy that Reed replaced as Fred Flintstone because he couldn’t keep enough gravel in his voice during recording sessions. It’s a picture of a young Bill Thompson, who theatrical cartoon fans will know as Droopy (MGM) and J. Audubon Woodlore (Disney). Old radio fans remember his long stint on “Fibber McGee and Molly” starting in the late ‘30s, interrupted by a stint in the U.S. Navy during the war. He was billed as “Jackie Coogan’s Double” at age five and went into vaudeville at 12. The Fibber gig dried up about the time MGM closed its cartoon studio, so Thompson got a job in 1957 as a community relations executive for Union Oil. That’s what he was doing when he arrived at Hanna-Barbera. He starred as Touché Turtle but didn’t do a lot of work for the studio. He died in July 15, 1971 at age 58.



Paul Winchell entertained audiences on radio, TV and cartoons. His sneering Dick Dastardly on Wacky Races was great, though I suspect his first H-B “appearances” were on The Banana Splits Show (both of which debuted in 1968). Winchell, of course, was Gargamel in the studio’s take on The Smurfs and popped up on other series, and made a fine Tigger for Disney. He was born Paul Wilchinsky and he, his father Sol (a tailor by trade), mother Clara and sister Rita were in Los Angeles by 1940 where Paul was acting in what was left of vaudeville. As you likely know, he was an energetic ventriloquist. You should check out a What’s My Line show where Winchell is on the panel and the mystery guests are Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. You can read Mark Evanier’s remembrance of Paul Winchell HERE.

Since we’re on the topic of ventriloquists, Yakky Doodle’s voice is still with us. Jimmy Weldon’s fame from his television appearances in California in the 1950s with his puppet Webster Webfoot. This photo is from 1959. Weldon had replaced Shari Lewis on “Hi Mom,” shot in New York, and would very soon be back on the West Coast. Red Coffey had been doing the voice of a little duck in the earliest Hanna-Barbera cartoons but when the duck was given his own series in 1961, Weldon won the role. He’s spent time in retirement, if you want to call it that, as a motivational speaker.

Hanna-Barbera’s utility man was John Stephenson, who came on board after The Flintstones went to air in 1960. Besides Mr. Slate, he grumbled a lot about “if it wasn’t for those meddling kids and their dog,” started out playing Dr. Benton Quest until Joe Barbera or someone decided to replace him with Don Messick, tried out his Cary Grant voice on Top Cat, had supporting roles on Breezly and Sneezly and Squiddly Diddly (yeah, I know, not exactly two of H-B’s greatest), used Paul Lynde-inspired voices in a couple of series and even voiced later incarnations of Doggie Daddy when Doug Young left California in 1966. He seems to have been in every one of those mid-1970s Tom and Jerry TV cartoons, the stiff-looking, talky ones where the cat and mouse are friends. I always enjoyed watching him on Hogan’s Heroes because I recognised his voice from cartoons. He was still doing commercials up to a few years ago as part of Dick Orkin’s stock company and is apparently doing well in his late 80s. The bio is from a mid-‘50s Radio-Television Mirror magazine when Stephenson was on the sitcom The People’s Choice.



I’m not a fan of the Cindy Bear character, but here are some publicity photos of the young woman who played her, Julie Bennett. The first one is from 1950, the second from 1951. I suspect Cindy’s voice was inspired by magnolia-scented Leila Ransom on radio’s The Great Gildersleeve, voiced by Shirley Mitchell (imitating Una Merkel), who had the misfortune of appearing in Hanna-Barbera’s Roman Holidays. Bennett’s first role for the studio was on “Masking For Trouble” (1959), a Quick Draw McGraw cartoon. Her whereabouts today, unfortunately, are unknown.



Okay, I’m cheating now. Gil Mack never appeared in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. But he voiced a number of H-B characters on Golden Records recorded in New York City. Gil racked up credits on some great shows, as you can see by this 1940 trade newspaper ad, but imitating Daws Butler and Don Messick’s characters wasn’t exactly his forte.



And I’m cheating again. Jack Shaindlin and John Seely never voiced characters but their music was prominent behind the voices on the soundtracks of H-B cartoons from 1957 until Hoyt Curtin started writing underscores in 1960. Biographies of both Shaindlin and Seely have been posted elsewhere on the blog. These are trade ads; Seely’s is from 1961 and Shaindlin’s from probably a decade earlier. This is as good a post as any to put them on the blog.



This is a funny photo I grabbed off Facebook. You know who it is. But someone didn’t. The caption reads:

Broadcasting Archives at the University of Maryland.

One of the joys of being an archivist is finding mistakes and correcting them. We found this photo in the Imogene Coca file, but it's not her. Students of 1950s television or fans of voice actors, might recognize the face as that of Arnold Stang. But when and where did he dress up in drag?

One Google search later and we learned that the picture is from an episode of the "Red Skelton Show," broadcast on April 2, 1957. One of Skelton's recurring sketch characters, "Cookie," is in the Navy and there's a chance for shore leave in Japan as the prize in a drama contest. So Red became a six-foot-three Romeo to shipmate Stang's five-foot-three Juliet.

Arnold Stang had to be a great comedian to be able to hold his own on TV with hammy scene-stealers like Skelton and Milton Berle. Here’s Stang with his alter ego in a more familiar photo you’ve seen here before.



Of course, there were many more actors who settled in front of the microphones at the Hanna-Barbera studios. All of them were talented. All of them made fans laugh, even though they couldn’t see us and, in a case of tit for tat, we couldn’t see them.