According to Variety, Mister Ed and DuckTales star Alan Young has died. He was 96.
Young was born in England to Scottish parents in 1919, and when he was a boy, he and his family moved to Canada. He reportedly suffered from chronic asthma, and he became interested in the radio while bedridden. As a young man, he got his own comedy show on Canadian radio, but an American agent brought him to New York in the ‘40s to work for NBC. He eventually transitioned to TV, winning an Emmy for his work on The Alan Young Show, and in the ‘50s he began working in film. Young even appeared alongside Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux in the 1961 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine.
However, his most famous role—depending on your age, probably—came shortly after that when he was cast as Wilbur Post on Mister Ed. Young played the straight man to Allan Lane’s goofy, talking horse, and for six seasons the pair got into the various shenanigans that you’d expect a guy and his talking horse would get into. When Mister Ed ended, Young took a lengthy sabbatical from acting, and he eventually returned a decade later to work primarily as a voice actor.
For younger people, Young’s voice work is easily just as iconic as his role on Mister Ed. He played Haggis MacHaggis on The Ren & Stimpy Show, the similarly named Haggis McMutton in the Curse Of Monkey Island video game, and Hiram Flaversham in The Great Mouse Detective. He also starred on DuckTales, frequently diving into a giant vault of money as Scrooge McDuck. Young continued playing Scrooge for many years after that, popping up on Mickey Mouse Works, Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas, House Of Mouse, and the Kingdom Hearts games.
Young is survived by four children.