On “MAS*H”, most of the PA announcements were made by a voice that was not any on-screen character’s. Announcements were even made while the scene was in Radar’s/Klinger’s office, where one would assume the PA equipment was.
With a little digging, I found that it was actor Sal Viscuso, who was better known as Father Tim on “Soap”.
Question is: why would an actor do voice work for 11 years of a show (and the movie) and not get some credit for it. Sometimes the PA jokes were funnier than Hawkeye’s.
Funny, that reminds me of Charlie on Charlie’s Angels. (Please don’t ever remind me of Charlie’s Angels again.) He was one of those big-time soap actors, but he was never credited. Once I saw a picture of him, and was shocked to learn that he didn’t look just like Bosley. Don’t know why, I just always figured he looked like Bosley.
Not that this has anything to do with the original subject, but if I recall correctly wasn’t there a character named Wilson on the first year of Charlie’s Angels? Bosley at that time was a secondary character who worked with the Angels as comic relief. Wilson was Charlie’s representative who gave out the assignments and was the only one who met Charlie. After the first year, Wilson disappeared and Bosley became more serious and was promoted to being Charlie’s representative. After several years of exile, Wilson eventually reappeared on Tool Time where, in homage to his former employer, he never showed his face.
Don’t forget Vera on Cheers. There was a group of people I worked with that had never met my wife. She was nick named Vera because nobody knew what she looked like.
Other unseen characters:
Maris Crane from Frasier
Carlton the doorman from Rhoda
We did get to see Vera, except for her face, in a Thanksgiving episode of Cheers.
I can’t remember Drew Carey’s first boss’ name, but we never saw him until the episode where he was fired.
MAS*H reruns have been on local TV here for a few months. They recently showed episodes from the last season, which I never watched as it just wasn’t funny anymore. But it’s interesting to watch now. Like, “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you”. I was surprised to see in a small part as a marine - Andrew Dice Clay. Just Andrew Clay in the credits. George Wendt had a part in the same episode.
While channel surfing by FX yesterday I came across an episode where Klinger was trying to snow Col. Potter and get out of the army by saying his (Klinger’s) two brothers had both been killed in a tragic harmonica factory accident. Potter pulled out Klinger’s file, which said that Klinger had no brothers, ergo, Klinger was lying. But, if Klinger really had no brothers, wasn’t this an error, because he wouldn’t have been drafted in the first place?
You’re thinking of the “sole survivor” hardship exemption, which only applied if your brothers were killed. As you recall, Radar received a hardship discharge because his Uncle Ed died and there was no one left to work the farm. Obviously, Radar had to be an only son, as well.
Any 50s TV fans among the Teeming Millions might remember Martin Miller’s show, The Millionaire, in which the unseem multibillionaire John Beresford Tipton was a character. For some reason the closing credits gave the character’s name, without an actor mentioned, so I actually thought for years that Tipton was a real person! Only in the last ten years did I realize that the voice of Tipton was actually provided by the famous announcer and voice artist Paul Frees.