Chuck McCann

Charles John Thomas McCann (September 2, 1934 – April 8, 2018) was an American comedian, radio, stage, television, and film actor, voice artist, commercial presenter and television host, he was best known for his work in presenting children's television programming and animation, as well as his own program "The Chuck McCann Show" and he also recorded comedy parody style albums. 2Career 3Early work McCann was known to a generation of children who grew up watching his children's shows in the New York City metropolitan area during the 1960s, having worked his way up to regional star status by apprenticing on a number of other children's shows, such as Captain Kangaroo and Rootie Kazootie (the show on which he met his one-time puppeteer and sidekick, Paul Ashley). The best-selling The First Family, an early 1960s LP record album which lampooned the newly elected United States President John F. Kennedy and his family, included McCann among its voices. Until 1975, 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. In addition, Chuck was the comedy sidekick on the WPIX long-running Clay Cole Show. By the end of the 1960s, he had appeared in the 1968 film The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and performed regularly on CBS's The Garry Moore Show. He began an animation acting career, doing everything from Bob Kane's Cool McCool to Sonny the Cuckoo Bird ("I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs" and "Ripe for Rice Krispies!") in commercials for General Mills. He had even been one of the stars of Turn-On, producer George Schlatter's offshoot of Laugh-In. 31970s television In the 1970s, McCann's life and career shifted west, and he relocated to Los Angele