I was first introduced to his genius while watching the Doris Day and Rock Hudson movies. He was especially brilliant in “Send Me No Flowers” as the next-door-neighbor who was more upset about Rock Hudson’s imaginary terminal condition than RH was. A friend once told me that whenever he showed up at a shoot of any sort (movie, commercial, makes no diff) he not only had his own lines memorized, but everybody else’s as well, and he never missed a cue (that last bit may have been an exxaggeration).
Although I may not have agreed wholeheartedly with all his politics, I think the world is poorer for his absence. I’m glad we had him for as long as we did, and only regret it couldn’t be longer.
In post #403 of this MPSIMS thread, I related a memory of Randall’s appearance on an actual game show. While reading other Dopers’ recollections of great Odd Couple moments, I was reminded of the episode* on which Felix was playing Password and was charged with giving clues for birds. Unger’s decision to say “Aristophanes” leads to puzzlement from Oscar before further hilarity ensues.
*The “Lincoln loved mayonnaise!” line mentioned by Sampiro was also featured in this episode. Scrooll down to the 1972 entry in the Entertainment-TV events on December 1st section for more details.
I remember this, though I don’t remember which show it was.
I loved watching him on Carson, especially when he’d do songs using an old megaphone, ala Rudy Vallee. There was this ongoing game also where Carson would try to find obscure words and challenge Randall to give him the definition and use the word in a sentence.
“I was walking by the pond when I slipped on some frog spit.”
