Joe E. Ross - Career

Career

Ross was born to Jewish immigrant parents in New York, New York. He dropped out of Seward Park High School at the age of 16 to become a singing waiter at the Van Cortlandt Inn in the Bronx. When the cafe added a girl dancer and singer, Ross was promoted to announcer. He added some jokes and became a comedian.

In 1938, he appeared at the Queens Terrace, near Jackson Heights, New York. Jackie Gleason had already been playing there for 16 weeks, and the manager was about to ask Gleason to stay a while longer. Ross heard of the opening, auditioned for it, got the contract, and also stayed 16 weeks. Ross then turned burlesque comic on the Schuster circuit out of Chicago.

His career was interrupted by World War II. He served in the Army Air Corps at Camp Blanding, Florida, before being stationed in England.

Discharged at the war's end, Ross became an announcer-comic at Billy Gray's Bandbox in Hollywood. He kept his ties to burlesque, and appeared in Irving Klaw's feature-length theatrical film Teaserama (1955), a re-creation of a burlesque show.

In 1955, Ross worked at a nightclub in Miami Beach called Club Ciro. He was spotted by Nat Hiken and Phil Silvers, who were planning You'll Never Get Rich (later known as The Phil Silvers Show) and loved Ross's comedy skills. Ross was hired on the spot and cast as the mess sergeant, Rupert Ritzik.

Ross made Ritzik memorable. Ritzik was henpecked, dumb, and greedy, always an easy mark for Bilko's schemes. Whenever Ritzik had a sudden inspiration, he would hesitate and stammer "Ooh! Ooh!" before articulating his idea. The catch phrase came from the actor's own frustration when he couldn't remember his lines. Silvers would deliberately stray from the scripted dialogue and give Ross the wrong cues, prompting a genuinely confused reaction and an agonized "Ooh! Ooh!" from Ross.

After The Phil Silvers Show ended in 1959, Nat Hiken went on to produce Car 54, Where Are You? and cast Joe E. Ross as Patrolman Gunther Toody of New York's 53rd Precinct. Fred Gwynne, another Bilko alumnus, played Toody's partner, Francis Muldoon. Toody could usually be counted on at some point to say,"Ooh! Ooh! Francis!" Ross became so identified with his policeman role that he recorded an album of songs entitled "Love Songs from a Cop." Roulette Records released the LP in 1964. Ross did the voice for Toody for the episode "Car 54" of Hanna-Barbera's Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, in which Toody and Muldoon moonlight running a day care center and one of the children turns up missing.

Ross also starred as Gronk in Sherwood Schwartz's ill-fated 1966 sitcom It's About Time, which featured two 1960s American astronauts who were thrown back in time to the prehistoric era.

Ross also was a prominent cartoon voice into the 1970s, playing the stereotypical bumbling sergeant in many cartoons such as Hong Kong Phooey (as Sgt. Flint) and Help! It's The Hair Bear Bunch (as Botch). His "Ooh! Ooh!" phrase was emulated by Frank Welker in the animated series Fangface.