Today we celebrate the centenary of the birth of Hans Conried, another first ballot selection for the Comic Character Actor Hall Of Fame.
Kicking off this 100th birthday tribute will be the following interview with Hans by radio historian Chuck Schaden and two brilliant Conried turns on sitcoms featuring Lucille Ball, in I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show.
Hans would reprise his music teacher role in the 1964 Jerry Lewis feature The Patsy. He proves a perfect foil for Jerry's slapstick.
Another part the star of stage, screen, television, radio (Orson Welles' Mercury Theater) and animated cartoons is remembered for is as the cantankerous Uncle Tonoose on The Danny Thomas Show.
One of many superlative Hans Conried performances is his central role in the subversive classic The 5000 Fingers Of Dr. T, produced by Stanley Kramer, directed by Roy Rowland and penned by none other than Ted Geisel, A.K.A. Dr. Seuss.
It's Conried's performance as the diabolical Terwilliger that makes the movie work.
The performances of "Get Together Weather" and "Doe-Me-Doe Duds," the latter in particular distinguished by patented Dr. Seuss lyrics, may be this writer's favorite segments of the movie.
Hans Conried's work in various shows by Jay Ward Productions remains consistently stellar and indispensable. Conried was no stranger to cartoon voice work, having contributed a witty and wonderfully florid John Barrymore-esque performance as Captain Hook in Disney's 1953 version of Peter Pan.
Here's Hans as ever-dastardly villain Snidely Whiplash in a particularly hilarious Dudley Do-Right Of The Mounties cartoon.
This writer also likes Hans Conried, best known in the Jay Ward Productions cartoons as Snidely Whiplash, as con artist, low-budget raconteur and snake oil salesman Prof. Waldo Wigglesworth in the Hoppity Hooper series.
Also like Hans very much as the reluctant, underpaid and ashamed host of Fractured Flickers, created for Jay Ward Productions by Chris Hayward.
Fractured Flickers is still controversial for its use of silent movie clips and found footage.
This dyed-in-the-wool silent movie buff does not regard the show as an affront to the original footage; after all, Fractured Flickers does not present a complete version of F.W. Murnau's Sunrise or 4 Devils, mastered from pristine 35mm nitrate materials, and then skewer it mercilessly in MST 3K style.
In addition, the guest stars, interviewed by an ever-incredulous Hans Conried, are often quite funny.
We tip our Snidley Whiplash top hat to Hans Conried - among the 100th birthday crowd with Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and John F. Kennedy - and hope he's cracking jokes and talking Shakespeare with a bunch of other pals and thespian cronies in the next world!
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