Arnold Stang, Sublime Sidekick, Dies at 91

(Dec. 23) – Arnold Stang was both the coolest of cats and a squeaky-voiced, bespectacled, weak-chinned Brooklyner who built a career on being a nerd.

Stang was the voice of Top Cat, the feline incarnation of the Bowery Boys and Phil Silvers' Sgt. Bilko in the 1960s cartoon from Hanna-Barbera, and of the wisecracking Herman the Mouse through a series of short films in the '40s and '50s.

But beyond cartoons, he was an urban Don Knotts, a perennial second banana to tougher leading men who could be streetwise and girl-foolish. Nearly all his characters seemed at home in a New York City alleyway or saloon. And like many a successful character actor, the short and skinny Stang -- who pursued serious acting as well -- found a niche persona built of facial expressions and vocal tenor that in his case sent an instant message to the audience: sidekick.

As such he was the television foil of Jack Benny and Milton Berle, Steve Allen and Jonathan Winters. On screen, in more dramatic work like "The Man With the Golden Arm," Stang's sidekick role provided comic relief to the likes of Frank Sinatra. He was an ingredient, first employed by radio, that was added to the television mix through every decade of the medium's existence, up through "Batman" and "Emergency!" to "The Cosby Show" and "Courage the Cowardly Dog" in 2001.

And the names of characters he played in one-off appearances testify to the parts producer offered him, from Jake the Weasel on "Bonanza" to roles like Clumsy McGee, Blackie, Billy Bean and Milton Ditwiler on dozens of now-forgotten TV shows.

Stang died Sunday of pneumonia at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Massachusetts, his wife, JoAnne Stang, told The Associated Press. He was 91.