Cartoon Characters & the Celebrities they were based upon.

That was kind of fun. I've only seen a few episodes of "Spongebob Squarepants", but it looks like a fun show. I'm familiar with the characters because there's a DVD seller who used to work across the aisle from my table at conventions sometimes, and he played a bunch of clips from different shows, and "Spongebob" was in those clips.

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OPEN FLOOR.

There are a few clips on YouTube.
Here's the opening... (oh no, I forgot all about Jonathan Harris!)

Thanks for the clip. It looks like it was a fun show.

But now I'm sure that I've never seen it. I think I would have remembered it, especially with both Charles Nelson Reilly and Jonathan Harris.

Another reason we can assume Charlie the Tuna was based on Phil Silvers and not Charles Nelson Riley (aside from the timeline & voice) is the personality...

Charlie the Tuna was always trying to sell himself to Star-Kist as a "tuna with good taste" by using some sort of scheme. Phil Silvers, whether as Sgt. Bilko or other roles, was always depicted as a schemer - always trying to get something over on someone - the "used car salesman" type.

Charlie the Tuna was given the same scheming types of attributes - so in every new commercial he'd have some new scheme to try to sell himself (which doesn't make much sense - if only Charlie knew what Star-Kist DOES to tuna fishes they accept!)

Thus the slogan "Sorry Charlie, Star-Kist doesn't want tuna with good taste, they want tuna that tastes good!"

HOWEVER... according to Wikipedia, Charlie was based on someone else entirely named Henry Nemo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_the_Tuna#History

Although, growing up, most people agreed he was based on Phil Silvers and some websites still concur with that idea.

I wasn't debating the fact that Charlie the Tuna was based on Phil Silvers. I can see the connections that you mentioned, and it makes sense that Silvers could have been the inspiration for the character.

I was just noting that he always reminded me of Charles Nelson Reilly.

I know, gbg. Just my way of introducing more info - like the fact that Wikipedia doesn't even mention Silvers as the inspiration. So there is more contention over who the character was based on beyond just this thread. Just goes to show, a lot of this stuff is not set in stone, and when there are alternate views, I'll try to report on them as well.

Just found this YouTube video that is in line with this thread.
Not that every character mentioned was based on a celebrity (as opposed to simply a real, but relatively unknown person) and some in the video have already been mentioned on this thread...