Bob Arbogast (April 1, 1927 – March 21, 2009) was an American actor and writer best known for his voice over work in Classic American cartoons. He appeared in Season 1's In Mork We Trust as The Policeman who escorts an Orkan Age Machine affected Mork back home to Mindy.
Biography[]
Bob was born in Bellingham, Washington, the only child of Lewis, a champion tennis player, stockbroker, World War One veteran under an assumed name, and World War Two Coast Guard volunteer and Christine Arbogast, a champion tennis player.
He attended John Marshall High School in Los Angeles where he was on the league-champion tennis team and was graduated in 1944. Upon graduation, he enlisted in the navy. His unit was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and Bronze Star for bravery for a multi-ship raid into Tokyo Bay. He was demoted from Signalman 3rd class to Seaman 1st class when his commanding officer told him to hop to it and Bob proceeded to jump up and down on the deck of the USS Brush.
When the war ended, he attended Los Angeles City College and then the University of Arizona on the GI bill. A radio program director from WHB in Kansas City heard Arbogast's nighttime show on the university's radio station and hired him immediately kickstarting his career.
Arbogast was a jazz aficionado, Chicago Cubs and UCLA Bruins fan, and animal lover. With his first wife, Tobi, he had a son, Robert Jr. (Ted), an accomplished musical director and band leader, and the technology coordinator for Terlingua High School in Texas. With his second wife, Joanna, he raised a daughter and three sons. His oldest son Peter is the radio voice of USC Trojan football. His middle son John is a USC honors grad, a decorated Coast Guard officer, retired Los Angeles city park ranger, history teacher, city champion pole vault coach and assistant track and field coach at John Marshall High School. His youngest son Jerry is a UCLA graduate and a retired physical education teacher and tennis coach in the Los Angeles Unified School District. His daughter Paula retired in June 2006 from her position as a teachers' union representative.
He and third wife, Jan, lived in Mariposa, California, tending to their garden, caring for their pets, and the pleasures of the internet, satellite radio and television. [1]
He passed away after a battle with cancer on March 21, 2009 (age 81) in Fresno, California, USA, and was survived by six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Career[]
After College Arbogast went to Chicago's WMAQ radio station where he worked with Pete Robinson from 1951-53 before moving to Los Angeles for a time, then returning to Illinois where he worked at WEAW in Evanston, Illinois. Then he went to New York where he wrote for two shows, one featuring Tom Poston and another Peter Marshall. Then he worked at San Francisco's KSFO and KFRC. He later worked at many stations in Los Angeles including KMPC from 1962–67, KLAC in 1967, KFI in 1968, and KGBS in 1969.
On air he partnered of Jack Margolis at KLAC and KGBS. Their radio talk show at KLAC had the highest rating of any radio program in LA history, but after a concentrated letter-writing campaign, they were fired for their objection to the Vietnam war and their pro-choice stance. They may have been among the last fired due to the McCarthy dealings of the 1950s. The pair also hosted a TV show on KTTV for a while.
Arbogast created the Question Man in Kansas City in 1951 and used it on the Tom Poston Show in NY. It was later a feature on The Steve Allen Show, where Poston won the 1959 Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor (Continuing Character) in a Comedy Series.
'On Screen'[]
The vast majority of Arbogast's numerous screen credits are for his voice over work in cartoons (and his appearances in commercials). Arbogast is perhaps most famous for his voicings of General G.I. Brassbottom, Noodles Romanoff, and Ma Ramjet in the Roger Ramjet cartoon, Jack Wheeler in the Hot Wheels cartoon, and Snogs on the Hanna-Barbera animated series Monchhichis. He also voiced several characters in the Hanna-Barbera series The Jetsons. He did frequent uncredited voiceovers for Sesame Street segments and still has many voices still running on Sesame Street.
His on screen appearances were less frequent, his first TV bow being in 1969's Skyhawks, with an almost 10 year gap between further appearances on TV shows. A single TV Movie and Film appearance (albeit opposite Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton) rounded out his appearances. [2]
Filmography (On Screen Appearances)[]
| Year | TV Series | Episode | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 | Skyhawks | Devlin's Dilemma | Buck Devlin |
| 1979 | Mork & Mindy | In Mork We Trust | The Policeman |
| 1988 | Mathnet | The Case of the Missing Air | Byle Dupe |
| Year | TV Movie | Role | |
| 1980 | For the Love of It | Checker | |
| Year | Film | Role | |
| 1985 | The Falcon and The Snowman | Guard | |
In the midst of his acting work he was also the voice for hundreds of advertising campaigns, providing the voice for the original "What would you do for a Klondike Bar?" advertising campaign and of the animated Granny Goose for the Granny Goose potato chip campaign, along with the voices of Barry Bear and Drummy Drummer, popular seventies pull-string toys, and his renditions of hamburgers in early McDonald's commercials.
Mork & Mindy[]
One of his rare on screen appearances, came notably in a Tom Poston heavy episode, In Mork We Trust, as The Policeman who retrieves a Mork sent back to Orkan Avian pre-history by Poston's Mr. Bickley messing with his Orkan Age Machine. Having dressed the naked Mork in a plastic bin bag and applied a band-aid to his nose, sore from pecking, the Policeman returns Mork to Mindy at her apartment, wanting to know what he was up to, and whether it was a Fraternity prank. Mindy seizing on that as a good explanation, confirming that it was and backing it up by instructing Mork to shake the officers hand, knowing he'll give an Orkan greeting. The weird handshake all the officer needs to accept the explanation and reveal that he too was in a fraternity, 'recognizing' Mork's handshake, and returning it with an even weirder fraternity greeting of his own.