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Sunday August 18, 2024

What is Burgess Meredith Known For?

Here's an obit of Burgess Meredith that ran in 1997 in newspapers across the country. 

If you know this game, the IMDb “Known For” game, you know neither of these roles will be the No. 1 answer. See if you can't think what the No. 1 answer might be. 

Most of the obit headlines for Mr. Meredith, by the way, don't mention any role. They talk up the length and breadth of his career. “Character Actor Burgess Meredith... ”Star of Stage, Screen and TV...“ That kind of thing.

I first knew him as the Penguin, of course (”Waugh, waugh, waugh...“), but I would've led with ”Rocky.“ He got an Oscar nom for it, and it was the No. 1 movie of 1976, spawning sequels that are still being made more than 50 years later. I also associate him as the first screen George from ”Of Mice and Men,“ opposite Lon Chaney Jr. That was his sixth screen role. He would reach 185 such credits. The bookworm ”Twilight Zone“ episode wouldn't be a bad way to go, either. 

Instead:

”Clash of the ...“?????

If you sort his credits by number of votes (which the ”Known For“ algorithm supposedly factors in), ”Rocky“ is on top with 637k. Then it's various forms of ”Rocky“: ”II,“ ”Balboa,“ ”IV,“ ”III,“ ”V.“ Then it's that ”Twilight Zone“ episode, and then ”Grumpy Old Men.“ And THEN it's ”Clash of the Titans.“ In ninth place. With 46k votes.

If you sort by the rating of his movie credits, it goes: ”The Crazy-Quilt“ (1966 indy at 8.4, 66 votes), and then ”Rocky“ (8.1), ”The Living Sands of Namib“ (1978 doc he narrated), ”Of Mice and Men,“ and ”Advise & Consent.“ We get a bunch of Hollywood docs in there, and then, in 11th place, ”Rocky II“ (7.3), followed by ”In Harm's Way,“ ”A Big Hand for the Little Lady,“ ”State of Grace,“ ”G.I. Joe“ (the 1945 one, with Meredith as Ernie Pyle), ”Rocky Balboa,“ more docs, ”Grumpy Old Men,“ ”San Francisco Docks,“ and ”Rocky IV.“ And then, finally, at 6.9, ”Clash of the Titans.“ In 24th place.

Is he the star of it? That's supposed to matter. Billing. But of course not. He's Burgess. He's never, or rarely, the star. In ”Rocky,“ for example, he's fifth-billed. ”Big Hand for the Little Lady“? Sixth-billed. And ”Clash of the Titans"? Tenth

All of which, of course, adds up to the No. 1 answer to the kids at IMDb.

Waugh, waugh, waugh...

Posted at 10:01 AM on Sunday August 18, 2024 in category Movies