A Real Post on Scatman Crothers

We’ve had many an occasion to mention Benjamin Sherman “Scatman” Crothers (1910-1986) on this blog, but unconscionably our only post dedicated to him to date has been been very narrowly focused indeed.

When I was a kid in the ’70s, Crothers was ubiquitous as a character actor in film and television. His nickname hinted at a background in music, and he had the air of a figure like that, like some old time blues man, although I’m not sure if I ever saw him perform the act he had originally been known for. The most famous scat singers I knew about then were Cab Calloway and Ella Fitzgerald. Crothers’ husky, melodious voice lived in the same world as approcimate contemporaries like Louis Armstrong and Eddie “Rochester” Anderson. His intelligence and charm as an actor assured him constant work as an actor; he surely turned down more roles than he could possibly take, and this is probably why people of my generation and younger never (or rarely) saw him do the thing he was originally known for. He was a gifted comedian and he also had genuine acting chops for dramatic scenes. He was kind of a casting director’s dream. It wasn’t just a question of “type”. There were a lot of actors answering the description of his type. It was a question of him, his uniqueness. He had a certain musical way of delivering a line, unique to him, that nobody else could do. I’m sure producers and directors were constantly berating casting agents, “No! It’s GOTTA be Scatman Crothers!”

Crothers was from a middle class family living in the Baghdad neighborhood of Indiana. The whole family was musical, but Crothers was the one who had the inclination to pursue it to the professional level. He danced on street corners, did cart tricks, and learned to play the guitar and the drums and sing. He performed in speakeasies and bawdy houses and became associated with the tenor guitar, a four stringed instrument with the look of a uke and a jazzy guitar sound. By the early ’30s he was touring with bands, performing in night clubs and on radio. By the mid ’40s he had settled in Los Angeles and this brought him much closer to opportunities in mainstream show business. In 1948 Phil Harris enlisted him to sing a duet with him “Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy” on radio and record. From the late ’40s into the 1960s, Crothers was a recording artist, and he had several hit songs on the R & B charts. In 1949 he became one of the first black artists to appear regularly on television as part of the Dumont network’s variety show Dixie Showboat. Blackface performers like Bert Swor were also on this show. In 1950 he was in the theatrical film short King Cole Trio and the Benny Carter Orchestra. The following year, Crothers was also in the minstrel themed movie Yes, Sir Mr. Bones (1951). In 1952 he made an appearance on the tv show Beulah. The running theme through many of these various shows is archaic attitudes about race. Crothers was thankfully one of a generation that would cause a shift in how black people were presented and perceived in show business. (For a real eye opener, check out Ralph Bakshi’sCoonskin (1974), in which film Scatman sings the opening credits.)

In 1952 Crothers became a semi-regular on The Colgate Comedy Hour. This is surely where he got to Jerry Lewis, who later cast him in his films The Patsy (1964), The Family Jewels (1965), Three On a Couch (1966) and Hook, Line and Sinker (1969). Some of his many other well known films include Meet Me at the Fair (1953), Bob Hope’s Alias Jesse James (1958), Porgy and Bess (1959), Lady in a Cage (1964), Alvarez Kelly (1966), Hello Dolly (1969), Bloody Mama(1970), The Great White Hope (1970), Lady Sings the Blues (1972), The King of Marvin Gardens (1973), Mike Nichols’The Fortune (1975), One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest(1975), The Shootist (1976), Silver Streak (1976), MelStuart’s Mad Dog Blues (1978), Neil Simon’sThe Cheap Detective (1978), Scavenger Hunt (1979), The Shining (1980), Bronco Billy (1980), and Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).

And that remarkable voice was harnessed to great effect in animated project like Disney’sThe Artistocats (1970), Harlem Globetrotters (1970-71), Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax (1972), Hong Kong Phooey (1974), The Skatebirds (1977), The Transformers (1984-86), and other projects. On TV he had a regular role on Chico and the Man (1974-78), was in Roots (1977), and guest starred on shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Dragnet,Bewitched,Kojak, The Odd Couple, McMillan and Wife, Sanford and Son, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie’s Angels, The Love Boat,The Incredible Hulk,Laverne and Shirley, Benson, Taxi, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island (1981) and a short-lived show based on Casablanca in which he played Sam of course (1983), among other stuff. He was also on the variety shows of Andy Williams, Bob Hope, Dean Martin,Sha Na Na, etc and he made 15 appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. His last appearance was on The Wonderful World of Jonathan Winters(1986). Lung cancer stole him at the age of 76.

For much more on Scatman Crothers, especially on his earlier musical career, I found this article terrifically informative.

For more on show business history, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous. And please stay tuned for my next book Vaudeville in Your Living Room: A Century of Radio and TV Variety, coming November 2023.