Chuck McCann
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Chuck McCann (b. September 2, 1934 in Brooklyn, New York) is a movie, TV, stage, and voice actor, who is a third generation in show business.
He was a comedy giant to a generation of children who grew up watching his "children's" shows in the New York metropolitan area during the 1960s, having worked his way up to regional star status by "apprenticing" on a number of other children's shows like Captain Kangaroo and Rootie Kazootie (the show on which he first hooked up with his one-time puppeteer and sidekick, Paul Ashley).
To around 1967, the tall, portly, moon-faced McCann hosted comedy/variety TV puppet shows in the New York area. McCann (with Ashley) did The Puppet Hotel for WNTA-TV, channel 13; then Laurel & Hardy & Chuck, Let's Have Fun and The Chuck McCann Show for WPIX, channel 11; and finally, The Chuck McCann Show, The Great Bombo's Magic Cartoon Circus Lunchtime Show and Chuck McCann's Laurel and Hardy Show for WNEW-TV, channel 5.
McCann's career was burgeoning by the time he left channel 5, a victim of changing TV trends. By the end of the 1960s, he had made a critically acclaimed appearance in the film, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968) and been a regular performer on CBS's The Garry Moore Show and Happy Days (not the later sitcom). He'd also begun a successful cartoon voice career, doing everything from Bob Kane's Cool McCool to Sonny the Cuckoo Bird ("I'm Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!") in commercials for General Mills. He'd even been one of the stars of producer George Schlatter's ill-fated Laugh-In follow-up, Turn-On. (Famously canceled during the first episode.)
McCann's life and career shifted west during the 1970s and he relocated to Los Angeles during that time. He made frequent appearances on network television in everything from Bonanza to Kojak to The Bob Newhart Show and he was a regular on Norman Lear's All That Glitters. More notably as far as Generation Xers are concerned, he co-starred with Bob Denver in CBS's Saturday morning sitcom, Far Out Space Nuts. And throughout this period, he assayed perhaps his most famous continuing role — as the enthusiastic neighbor on the other side of a "modern", shared medicine cabinet in a long-running series of commercials for Right Guard anti-perspirant. ("One shot and you're good for the whole day.")
Chuck continued doing cartoon voice-overs (The Fantastic Four), commercials (Christmas often saw him playing Santa Claus for one product or another), and TV/movie gigs (Sabrina, the Teenage Witch) through the 1990s and into the new millennium.
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[edit] Motion Pictures
After The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, McCann's motion picture career took a turn back into comedy with many supporting roles and a co-starring turn (with Tim Conway) in They went That-a-Way and That-a-Way (1978). His most notable post-Hunter films were The Projectionist (1971) and The Comeback Trail (1982), both nostalgic, extremely funny comedies, directed by Harry Hurwitz, in which McCann was a full creative partner.
[edit] Return to Roots
In 1980, McCann and Paul Ashley were to reunite for a pair of TV show pilots:
- Tiny TV (a satirical/variety puppet series aimed at adults for the cable market)
- LBS Children's Theater (a children film anthology show where McCann and The Paul Ashley Puppets were to introduce reruns of prime time animated TV specials and theatrical cartoons from Europe). However, Paul Ashley was forced to leave the projects when it was discovered that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Tiny TV never reached fruition but LBS Children's Theater was picked up for national syndication in 1983. McCann emceed the series alone as Ashley never lived long enough to see the show, having passed away on September 3, 1984.
Also during the 1980s, Chuck reprised a number of his best sketched from his New York television days as interstitial material for a two-hour presentation of cartoons on KCOP-TV, channel 13 in Los Angeles. (He was assisted by Bob Ridgely.)
And in 1989, Chuck returned to daily children's television one more time with Chuck McCann's Funstuff (produced by fellow New York kid show legend Sonny Fox). Chuck McCann's Funstuff was seen weekday mornings on KHJ (KCAL) from Monday, September 18, 1989 until Friday, October 13, 1989.
[edit] Notable Associatons
McCann is one of Hugh Hefner's personal friends and a regular at the Playboy Mansion.[1] McCann has appeared on various Playboy videos, including "Playboy Playmate Playoffs" as an announcer in the 1980s.[2]
In the 1990s, McCann co-founded of and participant in Yarmy's Army, a group of comedians and character actors of his generation who gathered regularly to cheer Don Adams' brother Dick Yarmy, who was dying of cancer. The group contained a massive array of comic talent — members included Harvey Korman, Shelley Berman, Tim Conway and a host of others.
After Yarmy's death, the group stayed together to cheer themselves, as age rendered them less-frequently employed. In addition to monthly dinners, they put together shows which they performed in various venues around the country.
[edit] New Millennium
In the new millennium, Chuck McCann has appeared in They Call Him Sasquatch (2003) and Dorf da Bingo King (with his old pal, Tim Conway). He's supplied voices for The Powerpuff Girls and Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas. And he's moved into the field of video games, supplying his talents to True Crime: New York City.
He makes an important appearance in The Aristocrats (2005), with an animated rendition of a "clean" version of the "dirty" joke that serves as the movie's subject
In 2006 & 2007 Chuck made appearances on The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd as Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Floyd's father.
