Jimmy Murphy

Buckshot from The Good Guys and the Bad Guys Whipper from Daniel Boone

It could be said that Jimmy Murphy started it all. I first became intrigued by him while watching The Monkees episode Alias Micky Dolenz. Jimmy's character, Tony Ferano, was absolutely hilarious in the way he reacted to all the nonsense going on around him. I was hooked and I had to know more. I started looking up everything I could find that he was in. Eventually that led to several paths, including an interest in The Bowery Boys comedy films and Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

The latter was the really big one. When I tried it, I discovered the greatness of Simon Oakland and rediscovered the awesomeness of Darren McGavin, whom I already loved from No Deposit, No Return and The Delicate Delinquent (in which Jimmy has a small, non-speaking role). The interest in Simon led to rediscovering my love of Perry Mason, which led to William Talman, Wesley Lau, Richard Anderson, and H.M. Wynant joining my list of favorites. Looking up all of those people led to the discovery of still more, as well as falling in love with several series I'd always wanted to try but hadn't got around to, like The Wild Wild West when I followed William Talman and Simon Oakland to their respective guest-spots on it.

All thanks to the awesome and talented Jimmy Murphy.

Jimmy plays both good guys and bad guys wonderfully. One of his most chilling turns is the cold-blooded killer in the High School Bride episode of M Squad. He also plays an excellent and multi-faceted villain on Peter Gunn, in Short a Motive.

Sometimes his characters are lovable. Buckshot in The Good Guys and the Bad Guys doesn't really seem a bad sort, despite being a bank robber. He doesn't want his comrades to hurt anyone and tries to stop it from happening. And of course, Tony Ferano on The Monkees. Oh, Tony, Tony ... the episode wouldn't have been anywhere near as priceless without Jimmy's hysterical expressions as Micky Dolenz blunders through an attempt to impersonate Tony's boss.

Myron, his character in The Bowery Boys movies, is one of my favorites of his protagonists. I really got a kick out of nonsense such as a cleaning scene in Hold That Hypnotist, where he randomly sings and puts the empty gravy boat on his head! I wonder if that was scripted or improvised.

I have been enthused about Jimmy for ten years. I even started a little Angelfire site to host screencaps from many of his appearances. Wow, did I ever have the patience, to upload all those pictures! These days, I stick to Tumblr as my picture-posting platform.

Jimmy disappeared from the movie and television scene around 1985; I can't find any guest-spots after that point. I have heard from a couple of sources that he is alive and well and I hope that's true. Last year someone identifying themselves as a friend of Jimmy's contacted me through Tumblr and seemed to know that I was the operator of the Angelfire site, despite the fact that I stupidly didn't put a name on it. I tried to reply, but I haven't heard back, so I hope that the person will find their way here and see that I did attempt to make contact.

I have been unable to find any interviews from Jimmy or about him, but here is the link to that old Angelfire site:

A Tribute Site to Jimmy Murphy

There may be a bit of trouble staying on the page; I signed it up for quite a few WebRings and it keeps redirecting me to them.

Naturally, all screencaps do not belong to me and no copyright infringement was intended; they were put up to celebrate Jimmy's work. And if anyone gets interested in buying anything because of the screencaps, then that is awesome.