I think this has been covered before but I couldn’t find it on a search…
Does anyone know the name of the character actor that often played hotel managers and department store salesman in older movies and would say “Yes” in this really exagerated manner? He would go “a-Yeeessssss!” raising his voice high.
He had a little mustache and Phil Hartman used to do an imitation of him. He is occasionally parodied on The Simpsons. What the heck is that guys name?
Frank Nelson. It’s come up a number of times on the boards.
Thanks so much Earl! I knew it had come up before but I couldn’t find it.
Actually, my response looks as though it has a snarky attitude to it. But that was not the case. I mentioned that simply because that way you could search on his name and get more info if you wanted to.
We actually had a Frank Nelson Appreciation Thread, though a search fails to turn it up. Hamsters must have eaten it.
I loved that guy. He also played Ralph Ramsay on the later Lucy shows, and constantly turned up as floorwalkers, maitre d’s, hotel clerks, etc., on Fifties sitcoms.
I saw him on a Jack Benny Show recently, as a floorwalker: he came up to Jack in the store, with a big boutonniere in his lapel. Jack looked at it and went, “Are you the floorwalker?” and Frank answered, with that patented sarcastic tone, “Noooo. I’m a float in the Rose Bowl Parade.”
IIRC, it was on Benny’s radio show that the actor first developed his trademark persona.
–Cliffy
I think he may have been influenced a little by Franklin Pangborn, who also had that mixture of unctuous air about him.
He also reminded me of Harold Peary’s “The Great Gildersleeve”
Dick Cavett has a great story…
A waiter comes to him & asks if he’d like some coffee. Cavett replies in a FrankNelsonesque voice “Oh, would I!”
The waiter is a bit startled so Cavett explains that he’s impersonating an old comic actor named Frank Nelson.
The waiter replies “I know, sir. He’s my father.”
And he even has a web site! I looked up to see if he had a son. He did, but Dick Cavett is still so fulla baloney I’ll bet that story never happened . . .
Is the parody in the Simpsons the one that goes something like “Hello” “yeeesssss” and homer says “why are you talking like that?” and the guy says
“I had a stroooooooke!”
Hey, Eve, where have you been watching Jack Benny? I used to love that show when they played it on cable (I think it was CBN) years and years ago, and I always wished Nick At Nite would pick it up. It’d be great if another cable station was running it.
Channel 21 (Long Island) used to run* The Jack Benny* and Burns & Allen shows on Saturday nights—not in recent months, alas. Hilarious, both of them.
I think the Simpsons character is the one that works at Costington’s department store. He may also appear in other places in the Simpsons, but I am pretty sure he is the salesman at Costington’s.
I had no idea he was on an episode of SNL. I’m guessing the audience went wild.
My favorite moment was on SANFORD & SON when he was a jewelry store manager and Lamont was buying an engagement ring. “Oooh… an excellent selection sir… it states volumes about the object of your affections… tell me, how long has your girlfriend been a gypsy?”
The character was also parodied on an episode of “The Flintstones”, when Fred tries to buy an expensive bowling ball from a sarcastic salesman.
Yes.
according to IMDB, he wasn’t parodied on The Flintstones- He WAS on The Flintstones
I was just a wee nipper watching old reruns and I’ve never forgotten Jack Benny walking up to an airline ticket counter and Frank Nelson popping up. Among the gems of banter Jack asked for a ticket to Mexico. Frank immediately retorts: “One way, I hope”
I love that guy as much as Emil Sitka