Top TV Moments: Wally Cox

 

In the classic TV era, character actors earned a steady living specializing in a certain type, and going from series to series playing variations on that same role. Need a blustery authority figure? Call Roy Roberts. Have a role that calls for what in less sensitive times would be described as a battle-axe? Kathleen Freeman paid her mortgage on those parts for decades. A feisty senior citizen? Paging Burt Mustin.

 

Which brings us to Wally Cox, who once described himself as “a harmless preoccupied guy in a constant state of reduced effect.” He became known to television audiences in more than 100 episodes of Mr. Peepers as a meek, bespectacled intellectual, courteous but a little awkward, diminutive in size and reedy in voice, and that type stayed with him for the rest of his life. 

 

 

I remembered him as having a notable career, and certainly his IMDB page requires scrolling through dozens of film and television credits. But he died at the shockingly young age of 48, which makes the voluminous work he left behind even more impressive. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more memorable performances from a very talented man. But here are some of my favorites.

 

Mr. Peepers (1952-1955)

I don’t know if this is true for anyone else but with 1950s television, especially from the first part of the decade, some shows seem very dated to me, while others I can watch and enjoy without thinking about how many years have passed since they were first broadcast. 

 

 

I Love Lucy, The Twilight Zone, several westerns, and The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet all share a timeless quality for me. But Mr. Peepers falls into the former category, along with Our Miss Brooks and My Little Margie. But it was Wally Cox’s portrayal of science teacher Robinson Peepers that earned him an Emmy Award, and set the paradigm for the rest of his career.

 

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1961)

Cox received a “special guest star” acknowledgment in the opening credits of “The Fraternity Rents Out a Room,” and I can’t think of another actor given that same accolade on this long-running show.

 

Once again he plays a teacher, this time of college economics, who moves into a spare room at Dave and Rick’s fraternity and proceeds to cramp everyone’s style. When he moves out a few weeks later, he delivers a heartwarming speech that once again shows how TV from this time and this series in particular exuded kindness and civility in a way that has almost disappeared from the medium.

 

Underdog (1964-1967)

With Underdog we are also reminded of how times have changed since 1964. Our canine hero, so memorably voiced by Wally Cox, was a humble shoeshine boy who became a superhero by taking a powerful vitamin pill. Due to subsequent pressure from “educators” and “child safety advocates,” reruns often aired with any scenes of Underdog taking the pill deleted. And see? It worked! No more drug abuse in America! 

 

 

The Dick Van Dyke Show (1966)

Who has a better chance of winning an election – the most qualified candidate, or the most charismatic? That was the question in this two-part story in which Rob runs for city councilman against Lincoln Goodheart (Cox, playing his usual nebbishy intellectual). Rob charms the crowds, while Lincoln has all the answers about New Rochelle’s most pressing issues. Who wins? The answer is revealed at the end of “The Making of a Councilman.” 

 

 

 

Hollywood Squares (1965-1973)

Wally Cox was one of this game show’s two original panelists who stuck around for most of its run (can you name the other? Hint – it’s not Paul Lynde). Between the daytime series and syndicated version, Cox was in a box for more than 1,000 episodes. 

 

 

Mission: Impossible (1966)

Mr. Milquetoast on the IM Force? Yep. Not only that, but as reformed safecracker Terry Targo, Cox plays a key role in the team’s very first mission, in a brilliant pilot episode written by the series’ creator, Bruce Geller. 

 

 

The team is dispatched to Santa Costa to recover two stolen nuclear devices. Everything that made the series a classic was already in its first episode – the soon to be iconic self-destructing tape recorder, Lalo Schifrin’s brilliant theme, Rollin’s rubber masks, Barney’s technological wizardry, a cracking pace and a plot that kept viewers on the edge of their seats for a full hour.

 

Bonanza (1967)

The comedic episodes of Bonanza tend to divide fans between those who enjoy them and those who find them too silly. “The Gold Detector” will not be one that appeals to the latter crowd. But I liked it, and Wally Cox as always is a delight as a professor who sells Hoss a machine that supposedly can detect gold.

 

Here’s Lucy (1970)

Lucy clearly enjoyed working with Wally Cox, as he appeaed four times on Here’s Lucy and once on The Lucy Show. I selected “Lucy the Diamond Cutter,” to spotlight here because it’s a rare appearance in which Cox does not speak in his usual nasally tones – and sports an accent as well. 

 

This is also one of his more physically taxing roles, as he seems to spend half the episode jumping up and down on Lucy’s couch.

 

The Odd Couple (1972)

“The Pen is Mightier Than the Pencil” may only be a slightly above-average episode of this series, but I had to include it here because I enjoyed seeing Cox and Tony Randall, who was a supporting player on Mr. Peepers, sitting in a classroom together again.

 

The Night Strangler (1973)

Carl Kolchak returns in this first-rate follow-up to The Night Stalker. Our intrepid reporter has relocated from Las Vegas to Seattle, to investigate a series of brutal murders by strangulation that have reoccurred every 21 years for more than a century.

 

In his last screen performance, Wally Cox plays a research librarian who helps Kolchak unravel the mystery behind the murders.