the steve allen show

When I was a kid, I loved the cartoon Top Cat. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the cool music or the fact it was set in New York City. I also really loved Top Cat's voice.

Arnold Stang, the voice of the clever feline, died earlier this week at the age of 91. Stang was in 75 gazillion TV shows and movies over the years (you'd know the face and/or the voice even if you couldn't place the name), including The Jonathan Winters Show, Broadside, Batman, Bonanza, The Red Skelton Show, December Bride, The Steve Allen Show, The Milton Berle Show, Emergency, and Mathnet.

He was also in several movies, including Hercules in New York, Dennis The Menace, and It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He was also the original voice of Buzz Bee in Honey-Nut Cheerios commercials.

After the jump, an episode of Top Cat.

Since I accepted TiVo as my personal savior, I have been afforded an opportunity to watch some great shows that air in the wee hours of the morning. Shows that, until now, have only been enjoyed by air traffic controllers with low attention spans, speed freaks and easily confused frat boys.

One of them is All in the Family, which airs at 8 a.m. on TV Land, the network with its rack of sour tasting reality shows and shrinking share of old sitcoms and serials that is in danger of becoming the new MTV.

A week ago, one of the show's -- and all of television history's greatest -- gems found its way to my "Now Playing List." That famous episode where Sammy Davis Jr. makes the trek to 704 Hauser Street and gives Archie a big wet one on the cheek. I had not seen this show since I was a kid, back in the 80s when All in the Family reruns flooded my television, but this most recent viewing unveiled an interesting factoid that almost went unnoticed.