RIP Al Molinaro

[D'Snowth]

Just found out about this a few minutes ago. Some may remember him as the owner of Al's Drive-In from HAPPY DAYS, and/or some may remember him as Murray the Cop from the 70s version of THE ODD COUPLE . . . and some may remember him for perhaps being the only other person in show biz with a famous nose besides Jamie Farr. But yeah, we lost him today at the age of 96 to bad gall stones.

 

[mr3urious]

Al lived a good long life. He even did some commercials for On-Cor frozen dinners after retiring from acting.

 

[fuzzygobo]

Certainly can't say his life was cut short. Now he and Pat Morita are grilling burgers at that big drive-in in the sky. Yep, yep, yep, yep...

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

@D'Snowth Aaw, I see you you've changed your avatar to photo of Al Molinaro He was such a big part of my childhood that I think i'll do the same.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm a big fan of the original ODD COUPLE, and I always enjoyed Murray as a recurring character, so while I'm saddened to hear about Al's death, I am happy to see that he lived to the ripe ol' age of 96.

I recently heard that the reason Murray became a fixture for the entire run of THE ODD COUPLE was because Al ended up working really well with both Tony Randall and Jack Klugman that the producers decided to expand on his character beyond having him being just another one of Oscar's poker buddies (the others were pretty much phased out by the second season).

Al was also apparently the only one who was able to break Tony up, and Tony was hard to break up on the set: there's a blooper on the Season One DVD (and I think on YouTube) where you can see Al's nose sticking through the peep-hole in the door and Tony starts cackling like a mother hen over it.

All in all, he kind of reminds me of someone like Joe Raposo: just a nice teddy bear of a man.

 

[Drtooth]

Al lived a good long life. He even did some commercials for On-Cor frozen dinners after retiring from acting.

I really miss those. And the ones with Richard Kind as well, but not to the same extent.

Then they replaced it with everyone awkwardly humming the jingle like they were programmed by a cult.

Yeah, I'll definitely miss this guy with his great roles in both Happy Days (both owners of Arnold's are now gone, that's depressing) and the Odd Couple TV sitcom. The good one.