Chuck McCann (born September 2, 1934) is a film actor, television actor, stage actor, and a voice actor from Brooklyn, New York.
McCann was a comedy giant to a generation of children who grew up watching his children's shows in the New York metropolitan area during the 1960s, having worked his way up to regional star status by apprenticing on a number of other children's shows like Captain Kangaroo and Rootie Kazootie (the show on which he met his one-time puppeteer and sidekick, Paul Ashley). The best-selling "The First Family", an early '60s LP record album which lampooned the newly-elected President John F. Kennedy and his family, included McCann among its voices.
To around 1967, the tall, portly, moon-faced McCann hosted comedy/variety TV puppet shows in the New York area. McCann (with Ashley) did The Puppet Hotel for WNTA-TV, Channel 13; then Laurel & Hardy & Chuck, Let's Have Fun and The Chuck McCann Show for WPIX, Channel 11; and finally, The Chuck McCann Show, The Great Bombo's Magic Cartoon Circus Lunchtime Show and Chuck McCann's Laurel and Hardy Show for WNEW-TV, Channel 5. In addition, Chuck was the comedy sidekick on the WPIX long-running Clay Cole Show.
Arthur Stanley "Stan" Jefferson (16 June 1890 – 23 February 1965), known as Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, famous as the first half of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. His film acting career stretched between 1917 and 1951 and included a starring role in the Academy Award winning film The Music Box (1932). In 1961, Laurel was given a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award for his pioneering work in comedy. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.
Arthur Stanley Jefferson was born in his grandparents' house on 16 June 1890 at 3 Argyle Street, Ulverston, then in Lancashire. He had two brothers and a sister.
His parents, Arthur and Margaret ("Madge") Jefferson, were both active in the theatre and always very busy. In his early years, he spent much time living with his grandmother Sarah Metcalfe. Stan Jefferson attended school at King James I Grammar School, Bishop Auckland, County Durham and the King's School, Tynemouth, before moving with his parents to Glasgow, where he completed his education at Rutherglen Academy. His father managed Glasgow's Metropole Theatre where he began work. At the age of 16, with a natural affinity for the theatre, Jefferson gave his first professional performance on stage at the Panopticon in Glasgow.
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema. Composed of thin Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and fat American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957), they became well known during the late 1920s to the mid-1940s for their slapstick comedy, with Laurel playing the clumsy and childlike friend of the pompous Hardy. They made over 100 films together, initially two-reelers (short films) before expanding into feature length films in the 1930s. Their films include Sons of the Desert (1933), the Academy Award winning short film The Music Box (1932), Babes in Toyland (1934), and Way Out West (1937). Hardy's catchphrase "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" is still widely recognized.
Prior to the double act both were established actors with Laurel appearing in over 50 films and Hardy in over 250 films. Although the two comedians first worked together on the film The Lucky Dog (1921), this was a chance pairing and it was not until 1926, when both separately signed contracts with the Hal Roach film studio, that they began appearing in movie shorts together. Laurel and Hardy officially became a team the following year in the silent short film Putting Pants on Philip (1927). The pair remained with the Roach studio until 1940, then appeared in eight "B" comedies for 20th Century Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1941 to 1945. After finishing their movie commitments at the end of 1944, they concentrated on stage shows, embarking on a music hall tour of England, Ireland, and Scotland. In 1950 they made their last film, a French/Italian co-production called Atoll K, before retiring from the screen. In total they appeared together in 107 films. They starred in 40 short sound films, 32 short silent films and 23 full-length feature films, and made 12 guest or cameo appearances, including the recently discovered Galaxy of Stars promotional film (1936).
Carol Creighton Burnett (born April 26, 1933) is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut. After successful appearances on The Garry Moore Show, Burnett moved to Los Angeles and began an eleven-year run on The Carol Burnett Show which was aired on CBS television from 1967 to 1978. With roots in vaudeville, The Carol Burnett Show was a variety show which combined comedy sketches, song, and dance. The comedy sketches included film parodies and character pieces. Burnett created many characters during the show's television run.
Burnett was born in San Antonio, Texas, the daughter of Ina Louise (née Creighton), a publicity writer for movie studios, and Joseph Thomas Burnett, a movie theater manager. Both of her parents suffered from alcoholism, and at a young age she was left with her grandmother, Mabel Eudora White. Her parents divorced in the late 1930s, and Burnett and her grandmother moved to an apartment near her mother’s in an impoverished area of Hollywood. There, they stayed in a boarding house with her younger half-sister Chrissy.