During his Emmy Award winning run as knuckleheaded news anchor Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77), Ted Knight found the time to record a comedy album, "Hi, Guys", released in 1975. Better known for a novelty single devoted to TV news legend Barbara Walters, the album also included a cover of Barry Mann's "Who Put the Bomp?". This video was uploaded by njolnir to YouTube:
Yeah, Golden Throat territory, for sure.
Knight got his start in radio, and served in my market as a kid's show host, billed as "Windy" Knight, before going national in the mid-60's. As we all know, Knight is closely associated with the DC family of cartoons produced by Filmation, but also was the narrator/announcer for a short-lived CBS sitcom, Run, Buddy, Run, which lasted a season in 1966. Knight's last cartoon work came in 1973, narrating the original Super Friends for Hanna-Barbera, and returning to Filmation to star in Lassie's Rescue Rangers, both part of ABC's freshman class that year.
The man was taken away from us way too soon, that's all I can say.
8 comments:
LOOOOOVE Ted Knight, always have. Lots of the things made the MTM show the comedic force it was and still is today, in my eyes, Ted Knight was by far, the greatest of those forces. Miss him, love him still, even more today... especially the sound of his famously and unique and infamous booming voice. Thanks so much for posting, I'm always on the lookout for all things Ted Knight1
Thanks for the kind words.
I used to watch Ted Knight on "Too Close For Comfort" back in the 80s. He was quite a funny and talented guy! It wasn't until years later did I catch his work on MTM.
He did so much voiceover work back in the day. You could probably do a drinking game everytime you recognize it in any Filmation cartoon from the late 60s!
The real game is figuring out which characters are his, he did so many.
I always found it easy. Not only was he the narrator of the Batman eps from 1968, but the voice of Commissioner Gordon and all the villians (Joker, Riddler, etc.) as well.
He was the narrator and voice of Captain Jonathan Kidd in the "Fantastic Voyage" cartoon as well.
There is some question about him doing Joker, though. Some sources believe it was an uncredited Larry Storch as Joker, not Knight. He also was Prof. Lindenbrook on Journey to the Center of the Earth, BTW.
There is NO "question" about it. All you have to do is actually listen to the cartoon; the voice of the Joker is Ted Knight. It's PARTICULARLY easy to hear in those scenes where the Joker is conversing with OTHER characters Ted Knight is voicing.
It's since been proven that Larry Storch, who passed away a while back, was The Joker.
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