Arnold Stang and It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World

posted by Michael on 23rd, 2009

It was reported yesterday that Arnold Stang passed at the age of 91. So you’re wondering who Arnold Stang is.Stang was a nerdy let’s say junior Don Knotts of radio, TV and movies. Stang once said ”I look like a frightened chipmunk who’s been out in the rain for too long.”

But what brings me to this point is the fact Stang was in one of the “first” American comedy classics called It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. And if you’ve seen it, you know that some of the great comedians of a past generation were in it. Many in The Villages remembers Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, Mickey Rooney, Jim Backus and about a thousand others were in it – even the Three Stooges.

For those of a younger generation the movie is a little like Airplane. For those of the now generation, It’s not like a insipid Will Ferrell movie. It’s a classic stupid slapstick type of movie. Ferrell’s are just stupid.

The plot centered around a group of motorists, Caesar, Berle, Rooney and the great Jonathan Winters who are passed by a speeder driven by Jimmy Durante. Durante’s car crashes and in his dying words tell the motorists about a large sum of money under a “Big W.” The chase starts to get to the city where the money is.

Here’s a video of several scenes from the movie including Stang and Winters. Watch toward the end when Winters fights off gas station owners Ray and Irwin (Marvin Kaplan and Stang) while single-handedly demolishing a gas station.

If you have young kids, I suggest going out and finding this movie and watching during the post-Christmas week. The kids will learn about a classic and the great American comedians and no worries about language. But warning, if you get the director’s cut of the movie, start it at 7 p.m. – it’s three hours and 12 minutes long.

Oh and make plenty of popcorn.