Chuck McCann: 1934-2018

News broke yesterday of the death of Chuck McCann at age 83 but the on-line tributes and biographies of his life and career didn't start to surface until earlier this morning. I first seen the news on a classic television group I belong to on Facebook. A lot of members of that group posted their remembrances of his New York children's programs of the '50s and '60s. Some of the children's shows he hosted or was heavily involved in were: "The Puppet Hotel"; "Laurel and Hardy and Chuck"; "Let's Have Fun"; and a self-titled "The Chuck McCann Show".  Some other titles were "The Chuck McCann Laurel and Hardy Show" and a music driven series, "The Clay Cole Show", in which Chuck served as the announcer/sidekick and appeared in comedic sketches. Chuck's programs aired on local stations in New York...most of them airing on WPIX but others on WNEW. Also remembered fondly by members of the Facebook group is a live action series Chuck starred in with Bob Denver titled "Far Out Space Nuts", which ran 15 episodes for several months in 1975 but yet spent quite a number of years in reruns on various package shows presented by Sid and Marty Krofft.

My introduction to his work is tied to the field of animation...by seeing his name on the closing credits of several cartoon series...but not knowing, until years later, exactly what characters he performed or knowing just how iconic and legendary he happened to be in children's television. A lot of the time his name appeared listed in the Additional Voices screen credit...indicating that he was called on to perform supporting or one shot characters revolving around the star characters of a series. Some of his earliest voice work in animation came along on the 1966-1967 series, "Cool McCool", in which he vocally portrayed every male villain in addition to giving voice to McCool's boss, referred to only as Number One, and McCool's uncles Dick and Tom. Another voice acting legend, Bob McFadden, starred as Cool McCool and as Cool's father, Harry. A third vocalist, Carol Corbett, was heard as the female characters, specifically the villainous Greta Ghoul (an impression of Greta Garbo). The series ran in the latter half of 1966 to January 1967 and there were 20 episodes produced. Each episode contained three short segments roughly 8 minutes each. Each episode featured two Cool McCool segments (the first and last segment) and a middle segment titled Komedy Kops featuring adventures of Cool's father, Harry, and his brothers Tom and Dick which were presented as recollections from Cool's memories of when his father served as a policeman.

I learned more about Chuck's career within the last 10 years or so by finding information on the internet and seeing photos from his years on local New York television. You can visit YouTube and find a lot of video from those years and you can also find some of the television commercials he appeared in. A long running series of Right Guard commercials aired on television, in which he starred as the man on the other side of a shared medicine cabinet, and a lot of those commercials once were available on YouTube but only a handful are available now. Chuck's catchphrase in those commercials was "Hi, guy...".

At the moment this video clip is available on YouTube. It's been available on YouTube since 2011 and so it's safe to say the embed will still be visible for future visitors of this blog entry to enjoy...



In addition to those commercials he also appeared in the role of Oliver Hardy along side Jim MacGeorge as Stan Laurel in a string of commercials for a wide array of products.

Chuck's love for the Laurel and Hardy comedy team is something you find out right away if you happen to research his career. I'm sure the most dedicated of fans of Laurel and Hardy are aware of The Sons of the Desert organization. Well, Chuck was one of the founders of that appreciation society.

One of the truly fascinating clips of Chuck McCann at work is footage recorded in 1969 for a film called The Projectionist which was released in early 1971. The film also stars Rodney Dangerfield. In this particular clip Chuck looks at photo's of movie stars and does vocal impressions. It gives a good sampling at the vocal talent he possessed.



Posted just today is this tribute to Chuck's vocal contributions to animation...his "Duck Tales" characters are given spotlight (Burger Beagle; Bouncer Beagle; and Duckworth) as are some of his other contributions. There's one iconic character he gave voice to that I hadn't made mention of but you'll see the character/mascot when you watch the video clip below.



Chuck voiced The Thing in the 1990s version of "The Fantastic Four". The character had originally been voiced, in the mid 1960s, by Paul Frees. You'll see The Thing in the video clip, too. Something I didn't know until yesterday is Chuck provided the voice for the lackey, Sugar Ray Lizard, on "Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers"! Definitely a character that only those that are familiar with the series are probably aware of considering he's a minor character compared to other villains in that series. In case you're unfamiliar with Chuck McCann I suggest you visit YouTube and check out some of the things he did in his career. You'll be entertained for sure!

Chuck McCann: 1934-2018