Once upon a time — to coin a phrase — Jack Hanrahan was one half of the hottest comedy-writing team in Hollywood. I knew the names of Phil Hahn and Jack Hanrahan from MAD Magazine and I believe before that, they were among the top writers of humorous greeting cards for Hallmark. They went from MAD to very successful careers writing for TV shows including Get Smart, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Sonny and Cher and many others. They also wrote a lot of animation, including the 1967 Fantastic Four cartoon show, Birdman, The Banana Splits and whatever else Hanna-Barbera was producing around then. On his own, after he and Phil went their separate ways, Jack later wrote Inspector Gadget, Heathcliff, Beverly Hills Teens and dozens of other shows.
I knew Jack casually in the eighties. He was a lovely, funny man who told great stories about show business. There are some comedy writers who are among the unfunniest human beings on the planet and others who are as entertaining and flamboyant as anyone who performs their material. Jack was solidly in the latter category…and he even did occasional acting roles. A friend of mine once produced a quickie VHS tape called Video Psychiatrist, which consisted of an hour of a well-dressed man in an office welcoming you and asking you to sit down and tell him your problems. That was how it opened but the bulk of the tape was him sitting there going, "Uh-huh…well, how do you feel about that?" Jack played the psychiatrist. He was also in a movie called Up Your Alley in which he played an eccentric homeless guy.
In a tragic case of life imitating art, Jack Hanrahan is now an eccentric homeless guy. Several of you, starting with Tony Isabella, sent me this link to an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. [Warning: The site may ask you for some harmless personal data.] [Second Warning: This article is very depressing.] Jack came from Cleveland and now he's returned there to live on its streets. He is sick. He is penniless. He is in a very bad way.
Among other things, the article notes that Jack's Emmy Award is in hock. Let me tell you how Jack got that Emmy. It was for the 1967-1968 season of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. The writing staff that year consisted of Chris Beard, Phil Hahn, Jack Hanrahan, Coslough Johnson, Paul Keyes, Marc London, Allan Manings, David Panich, Hugh Wedlock and Digby Wolfe. Back then on the Emmy Awards telecast, all the names of nominees had to be read aloud and there were several separate nominations for the Laugh-In staff, which was essentially competing with itself for the trophy. So some presenter had to read that list several times and they stuck Don Rickles with the job of presenting, figuring he'd get rightly pissed-off and therefore funny.
Rickles was all that and every time he came to Jack Hanrahan's name, he stumbled over it, pronouncing it something like, "Harrahannahan." When the writers won, it seemed like half the audience went up to accept. Jack walked directly to the microphone and he was the first of the winners to speak. He said, "The name's Hanrahan, dummy!"
He got one of the biggest laughs I've ever heard on an award show. How does a guy like that wind up homeless?