Cat In the Hat With Huggy Bear
by Gary Phillips
I'm a big fan of those character actors you see over and over in films and television, year in and year out, and most people say, "Who's that again?" Antonio Fargas is one such actor. For good and for ill, he's best known for his role as a jive talking snitch, Huggy Bear, on the '70s TV cop show, Starsky & Hutch. Most of the time, the two intrepid plainclothesmen tooled around town and chased bad guys in Starsky's lifted '75 red Gran Torino, eschewing Huthinson's beat-to-shit '73 Galaxie 500 - though of course a much better car to use undercover but definitely not a cool whip.
Anyway, back to my subject. Fargas has made fun of his own image in various films like I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, wearing platform shoes filled with water and goldfish, and, as these things go, is a much better actor that people generally know. He's been in all manner of movies, on stage and in TV shows from Charlie's Angels, daytime soap All My Children as Angie's dad, to another reoccurring role playing the wise Doc, a corner store owner, in the recently canceled Everybody Hates Chris, a funny, observational show that wasn't your typical over-the-top black sitcom.
I think it's pretty cool that Mr. Fargas is now the spokesperson for, no, not some sort of high energy drink called Pimp Juice (that honor has already been taken by rapper Nelly), but for It Helps to Have a Dream foundation, concerned with worldwide literacy. I don't know squat about the organization, but who can be against literacy...I mean, except teabaggers and viewers of Fixed News? So here's to a cat who never had his name on the marquee, but kept at it and did the best he could with often threadbare material and always gave back.
And speaking of football -- Fargas' son Justin is a running back with the Oakland Raiders -- go Saints! Oh, and it seems it's okay to run the Focus on the Family sponsored Tim Tebow ad, but check out this ad the sanctimonious suits at CBS refused to air during the Super Bowl from GoDaddy.com.
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