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Charlie McCarthy

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The Resume

    Original 'Birth' name was Charlie Mack
    Edgar Bergen's famed ventriloquist dummy 'partner' and famed 'Alter Ego'
    Originally built by noted carpenter/dummy-maker Theodore Mack; later rebuilt by Frank Marshall
    Made his joint radio debut with Bergen on NBC's 'Chase and Sanborn Hour' along with Nelson Eddy (1937)
    Series was officially renamed The Charlie McCarthy Show in 1947
    Co-Hosted 'The New Edgar Bergen Hour,' which ran until 1956
    'Acted' in 'You Can't Cheat an Honest Man,' 'Charlie McCarthy, Detective,' 'Look Who's Laughing,' 'The Goldwyn Follies,' 'Mickey and the Beanstalk,' 'Here We Go Again,' 'Stage Door Canteen,' 'Song of the Open Road,' and 'Charlie's Haunt'
    Starred in several comedic shorts in the early 1930s, including 'The Operation,' 'The Office Scandal,' 'Pure Feud,' 'At the Races,' 'Two Boobs in a Balloon,' 'All American Drawback,' and 'A Neckin' Party'
    Famed 'older brother' to actress Candice Bergen
    Frequently appeared alongside fellow ventriloquist dummy, Mortimer Snerd
    At the height of their popularity, were presented jointly with an Honorary Oscar (in the form of a wooden Oscar statuette) in 1937

Why Charlie McCarthy might be annoying:

    He was a notoriously grabby lech.
    He behaved like a petulant, troublemaking pre-teen.
    Dean Martin called him 'Mickey Rooney with slivers.'
    He inspired many corny jokes, in his heyday, about people confusing him with Joseph McCarthy and Douglas MacArthur.
    He refused to come onto the stage at the end of his Muppet Show guest spot until 'that Pig' was gone (she tried to karate chop him open in a previous segment).
    He reportedly inherited $10,000 in Bergen's will through The Actors Fund.
    He was known for making inappropriate witticisms much to Bergen's chagrin, even off-set (which both annoyed and creeped out colleagues).
    Among the bigger pet peeves was Bergen's insistence on having Charlie involved in the writing process of their projects, which only slowed down production.
    His 'conversing' with Bergen, and providing input through him, got to be so bad that W.C. Fields exploded during a heated argument with the puppet, banishing him from the set of 'You Can't Cheat an Honest Man,' along with the canvas-backed chair with his name on it (Bergen had nothing to say from then on).
    His suggestive dialogue with Mae West during a Chase and Sanborn Hour broadcast, in which she among other things described him as 'all wood and a yard long,' provided censors and the Hays Office with enough ammo to shut West out of broadcasting for years, effectively ruining her for decades (although he and Bergen barely got a slap on the wrist).
    Contemporary viewers, watching it out of context, tend to find his and Bergen's scenes in Disney's 'Fun and Fancy Free' opposite 9-year old Luana Patten to be genuinely 'creepy.'

Why Charlie McCarthy might not be annoying:

    Anyone who can piss off Miss Piggy must be doing something right...
    He was literally born out of a trunk (Edgar Bergen carried him around in a suitcase).
    He carried the same type of nostalgic sentimentality with audiences that the Muppets hold for contemporary 21st-century audiences.
    He was one of the only screen idols who could pull off making a monocle look sexy (the other being Charles Coburn).
    He was one of the few comics to function as both the Straight Man (opposite Mortimer) and the Funny Man (opposite Bergen).
    He was awarded an honorary degree, Master of Innuendo and Snappy Comeback, by Northwestern University (Edgar Bergen's old alma mater).
    His longstanding feud with W.C. Fields was the original 'comedic beef' in entertainment history.
    He frequently ribbed Bergen about his 'lips moving' in public, making the fact that his ventriloquist skills were far from perfect a little less awkward.
    His original 'wooden dummy forms' are on display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. and the Museum Of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.
    His most recognized form, however, was purchased by David Copperfield at an auction for $110,000.
    His show was jokingly credited with 'saving the world,' because more Americans were tuned in to it than Orson Welles' 1938 'Mercury Theater' program during his infamous 'War of the Worlds' performance, which many believed to be real.
    Alexander Woollcott later quipped to Welles 'this only goes to prove, my beamish boy, that the intelligent people were all listening to the dummy, and that all the dummies were listening to you' (Welles would later become a favorite sparring partner of McCarthy's).
    As Bergen's alter ego, he generally fought the shy and reticent Bergen's battles for him, as he was too meek to start confrontations on his own (isn't that sweet - bordering on psychotic, but sweet).

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 12 Votes: 8.33% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 20 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 34 Votes: 52.94% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 34 Votes: 67.65% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 7 Votes: 71.43% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 17 Votes: 11.76% Annoying