A lot of folks reading this probably don't know what a big star Alan Young was. He was big on radio, big on early television, big in movies and even big on the stage. A lot of times when he wasn't on radio, TV or the movie screen, he was appearing in musicals, frequently Showboat. He often played Cap'n Andy across the length and breadth of this country. In the early eighties, I saw him playing the lead in a ghastly Vegas production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. (The production was ghastly. Mr. Young was terrific.)
He was also a prolific cartoon voice actor, most notably speaking for Uncle Scrooge on Duck Tales and other Disney productions. When I was writing for the Ruby-Spears animation studio in the eighties, he was a frequent cast member.
But of course, to most people he was the guy on Mr. Ed. There were a lot of those sitcoms in the sixties where someone was living with a witch or a genie or a Martian or a robot. What made the best of them work was not the gimmick but the comedic chops of the guy who living with the witch or the genie or the Martian…or the talking horse. I thought Mr. Young was the best of them. With anyone else in the part, that would have been a pretty dumb show.
He was real good and the few times I met him, real nice. The last time I encountered him was at an autograph show when he was more-or-less retired and not unhappy about that. "I've worked enough," he said. I asked him what he missed about it. "Not much," he said. I asked him what he didn't miss about it. "Being asked how they made the horse's mouth move like that," he said. And just then, a kid stopped by and asked him how they made the horse's mouth move like that. He gave me an expression that I wish you could have seen. It reminded me what a fine, funny actor he was.