RIP Top Cat

There was an article on the BBC News today announcing the sad news that Arnold Stang, the voice of Top Cat, has died, aged 91. It's a good innings - I'd sort of assumed he'd died years ago, to be honest. Anyway, fanatical cartoon fan though I am, he's not an actor who figures very prominently in my consciousness - Top Cat used 'real' actors, not cartoon voice specialists, and none of them really saw the job as anything other than a one-off, fun little thing they did in between films and TV shows. With one exception...

John Stephenson, playing Fancy (the orangey-brown one with the white scarf, who has one line per episode if he's lucky), was a 'real' actor too, until he was given that minor voice part in 1961, on the grounds that he could do a good Clark Gable impression. But from then on, he became a regular name that would pop up in the credits of EVERY cartoon series you might happen to watch. Always in minor roles who didn't say much - Mr Slate in The Flintstones, Luke in Wacky Races, Thundercracker in Transformers, Beef in Galaxy High... wherever Frank Welker was voicing six or seven lead characters, there'd be John Stephenson in the background, chipping in a "Yes, Boss!" every now and then. He's a hero to fans of minor cartoon characters everywhere, and he's still voicing them even today, every now and then, though he's in his late eighties now.

I'm hoping that he gets a big write-up in the media as and when he eventually passes away. Anyone who gives fifty years' service to an industry that makes millions of people happy deserves recognition!