Bob Hastings

***Robert Francis "Bob" Hastings*** (April 18, 1925, Brooklyn, New York, USA – June 30, 2014, Burbank, California, USA) was an American radio, film, and television character actor. He also provided voices for animated cartoons. He was best known for his portrayal of annoying suck-up Lt. Elroy Carpenter, on McHale's Navy.

Hastings started in radio on "Coast-to-Coast on a Bus" (NBC). Hastings served during World War II in the United States Army Air Corps. After serving in World War II as a navigator on B-29s, he played the role of Archie Andrews in a series based on the Archie comic book series on NBC Radio from 1945-53. Archie Andrews was sponsored by Swift & Company food products.

Hastings moved to television in 1949, performing in early science-fiction series, including Atom Squad. In 1954, he was the featured pitch-man (acting as an amateur magician) for Bakers Instant Cocoa Mix television commercials. His first recurring role was as a lieutenant on Phil Silvers' Sergeant Bilko series in the late 1950s. At that time he guest-starred on Walter Brennan's ABC sitcom The Real McCoys. He also appeared in a few episodes of Captain Video playing the brother of "The Video Ranger", who was in turn played by Hastings' brother, Don Hastings.

Most of his career was spent in television, including two episodes of CBS's Green Acres as an Air Force officer and as a sheriff. Hastings was cast as Lt. Bolt in the 1960 episode "Space Man" of the CBS military sitcom/drama Hennesey, starring Jackie Cooper. Hastings guest-starred in the ABC/Warner Brothers sitcom Room for One More, starring Andrew Duggan and Peggy McCay, on the Robert Young CBS sitcom/drama Window on Main Street, as Russian pilot Igor Piotkin on Hogan's Heroes, and on the NBC police sitcom Car 54, Where Are You?.

In 1962, Hastings played a railroad executive in the episode "Substitute Sheriff" of the NBC western series The Tall Man.

He appeared five times on CBS's Dennis the Menace, with Jay North, most notably as Coach Gilmore in the 1963 episode "The Big Basketball Game". He appeared three times from 1961 to 1962 on the CBS sitcom Pete and Gladys, with Harry Morgan and Cara Williams.

Hastings was in the 1968 Universal film Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady? starring Bob Denver, as well as The Bamboo Saucer (1968), Angel in My Pocket (1969), The Love God? (1969) starring Don Knotts, and The Boatniks (1970). In 1971 Hastings was cast in the comedy movie How to Frame a Figg, also starring Don Knotts, and also had roles in The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The All-American Boy (1973) and No Deposit, No Return (1976). Hastings also was in the 1978 movie Harper Valley PTA in which he played Skeeter Duggan, a member of the PTA board who had been kidnapped at the orders of its dishonest president to commit election fraud, and played "Cousin Phantom of the Opera" in the 1981 television movie The Munsters' Revenge.

Hastings has also done voice work for animation and commercials, including Beany on Beany and Cecil, The Raven on the Munsters series, Superboy in the The New Adventures of Superboy cartoons of the 1960s, D.D. on Hanna-Barbera's Clue Club, and the voice of Commissioner Jim Gordon in the popular Batman: The Animated Series and its various spinoffs in the DC animated universe, such as Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Superman: The Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures and several Batman video games.

His earlier work in animation includes doing the voice Henry Glopp on Hanna-Barbera's animated series Jeannie in 1973 and additional voices on Challenge of the Superfriends.