Here's a pretty simple question from "Karl," who didn't sign his last name. Karl wants to know something about Jim Backus, the actor you may remember from Gilligan's Island or from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World or from voicing Mr. Magoo or from about eighty thousand other things. Here is Karl's question about Jim Backus…
Did you ever meet Jim Backus?
My answer: Kind of, sort of, not for long. It was at a party around 1985, give or take a year. He was a guest, I was a guest, we were introduced. We talked for maybe three minutes before our host, who seemed very proud to have Mr. and Mrs. Jim Backus at his party, spirited Mr. Backus away from me to introduce him to others. Later, Backus more or less "held court" as the focus of attention, telling stories. He was a wonderful storyteller and everyone at the affair was glad to play audience for him.
I don't want to shock anyone or lessen their admiration for the man but I should mention that he during this party, he consumed a fair amount of what I believe is often referred to as "alcohol" — and no, I did not hear him say anything about Old-Fashioneds. As he downed drinks, he became progressively funnier and there was a growing tinge of Quincy Magoo in his voice until he finally began talking as the character. It was kind of a slow Jekyll/Hyde transformation before our eyes.
I had no other opportunity to speak with him before I left the party, partly because I had to be somewhere else and partly because I usually leave parties where too many have imbibed a bit too much. I don't drink that stuff. I have no objections if others do as long as they don't harm others. Alas, I've witnessed too many times when drinkers did harm others — in a few cases, seriously — or at least turned into unpleasant assholes. Jim Backus, at least in my presence, didn't reach that stage and was quite amusing.
There are all sorts of things I would have liked to ask him but that was not possible in the three minutes we chatted…and now that I think of it, it may have been more like two minutes. When we started recording episodes of Garfield and Friends and I was hiring the voice actors, I inquired as to his availability and an agent told me that Mr. Backus was in poor health and wasn't taking such jobs except for…I believe the term the agent used was "an obscene amount of money." We didn't have an obscene amount of money in the budget so Jim Backus went on the list of veteran voice actors I tried to hire and couldn't. Quite a few of them were also in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
So that's my answer: I kind of met him but not for long. I thought he was one of the great comic actors and that night at that party, one of the funniest men it was ever my privilege to hear tell stories.
And hey, isn't it weird that the family name was Backus? He didn't change it to that and it's almost the name of Bacchus, the Roman god of agriculture, wine, fertility, revelry, and drama. I don't know about the agriculture part of it but based on the anecdotes he told that evening and ones that others have told about him, Jim Backus was sure good at all those other things.
