Here's an emotion I don't understand: Actor/comedian Ron Carey has died at the age of 71, and it makes me sad.
No reason for this. His obit in The New York Times mentions his most prominent roles, as Levitt on Barney Miller and as a comic foil in several Mel Brooks films. His entry in the IMDb is alarmingly short, indicating he wasn't as much of a constant presence on TV as he seemed.
Neither of these sources, however, mention the credit some of us most remember him by: His stint as the Better Cheddars guy on a string of particularly annoying TV commercials from the early eighties.
And that's it, the sum total of things I know about the guy. So why should I care that this showbiz footnote has shuffled off this mortal coil?
Maybe it's because Carey, who was short and stocky, with a large nose and a lopsided smile, came off as a regular guy, someone who just happened to have wandered in front of the camera and wouldn't leave. I didn't watch Barney Miller when I was a kid, but it was always on, and at the height of its popularity, Carey would pop up on game shows and chatfests, and though I can't remember him saying or doing anything particularly funny, he was always endearing. More to the point, he was there, always around, somehow comforting. A part of the household, in a way. A part of my childhood.
A small, mostly forgotten part of my life, but a part just the same.
