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MUMY, BILLY (1954– ). American actor and writer.
Co-created with Peter David: Space Cases (with
Peter David) (and co-wrote theme song) (tv series) (1996–1997).
Co-wrote with Peter David: "We Gotta Get Out of This
Place," "Who Goes Where?," "A Day in the Life" (and appeared in), "Sping at
Heart," "Nowhere Man," "Desperately Seeking Suzee," "Prisoner of Luff" (story
with Ted Jessup and David; script Magda Liolis), "The Impossible Dream," "Break
On Through to the Other Side," "On the Road to Find Out," "New Places, New
Faces," "Long Distance Calls," "King of the Hill," "Both Sides Now" (1996),
"Runaway" (story with Rich Kolker, uncredited) (1996), "Friend in Need" (1997),
episodes of Space Cases.
Provided voice for animation: Mattel's Funday Funnies (tv
series) (1961–1963); Fish Heads (short) (and co-wrote, as Art Barnes,
with Robert Haimer and Bill Paxton, and provided music for) (Paxton 1982); "The
Terrible Trio" (1992), episode of Batman: The Animated Series; "Witch
One" (1994), episode of The Animaniacs; "Blazing Entrails" (1994),
episode of Ren and Stimpy; Underground Adventure (video)
(Stephen J. Anderson, Bert Ring, and Rhoydon Shishido 1997); The Monkey
Prince (video) (Anderson, Ring, and Shishido 1997); "Tag Team," "A Zoo Out
There" (2000), episodes of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command; "Toy Scary
Boo" (2003), episode of What's New, Scooby Doo?
Hosted or narrated: The Universe and I (documentary
series) (1988); Apollo 13: The Untold Story (documentary) (1992); Inside
Space (documentary series) (1992–1993); The Mars Series (documentary
series) (1995); Attack of the 50-Foot Monster Mania (tv documentary)
(1999); "The Munsters," "Batman," "Charlie's Angels"
(2002), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (2003), episodes of Biography.
Provided music for: Adventures in Wonderland (tv
series) (1991–1993).
Born in 1954, Mumy started his career as a child actor just in time
to appear on the first major science fiction series, Rod SERLING's
The Twilight Zone. He was most conspicuous as the monster-child
psychically controlling a town of adults in "It's a Good Life," but his
best acting came in another, less-celebrated episode, "In Praise of Pip."
With talented tots much in demand, Mumy soon was making guest appearances
on numerous television programs, including witless fantasy-comedies like
Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and The Munsters,
before he landed his first recurring role in Irwin ALLEN's
Lost in Space. Revisionist history to the contrary, this quickly
became the most popular science fiction series of the 1960s, due primarily
to Mumy: as writers realized that the series' projected stars, handsome
hunks Guy Williams and Mark Goddard, were vacuous and unappealing, they
focused their attention on the more animated Mumy, the pompously villainous
Jonathan HARRIS, and the series' stolid Robot (who bore more than a passing
resemblance to the immortal ROBBY THE ROBOT).
Mumy was the hero of each episode, the Robot his helpful sidekick, and
Harris, usually in alliance with some alien in an idiotic rubber suit,
their overmatched opponent. Eventually, it all grew repetitive and tiresome,
but for most of its three-year run the series garnered much higher ratings
than that other, now more esteemed, science fiction series of the 1960s,
and the CBS executives who turned down Star Trek to focus on Lost
in Space proved to be, in the context of their era, not entirely unwise.
After Lost in Space, there is a sixteen-year gap in Mumy's science
fiction credits—appropriately, since there wasn't much happening in
science fiction television in the 1970s—but Mumy was far from idle during
the time. Maturing into young adulthood, he appeared in the critically
acclaimed but unsuccessful series Sunshine (which also generated
two tv movies), and he also spent a lot of time composing and performing
offbeat music, eventually producing a novelty song, "Fish Heads," that
became a staple of Dr. Demento's radio program. He would continue to write
and perform music, later contributing some unremarkable music to the Disney
Channel's unremarkable children's series, Adventures in Wonderland,
but he was drawn back in the 1980s to science fiction (often preferring
to call himself Bill Mumy) with opportunities to play an adult in remakes
of episodes of The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents
that he had starred in as a child. Soon, he was also performing in
episodes of Superboy and The Flash and serving as a voice
for cartoons like Batman: The Animated Series, The Animaniacs,
and Ren and Stimpy. He was becoming, like Forrest J ACKERMAN,
someone whose presence on the set was valued because of his past contributions,
not his present talents, and this reputation was surely a factor in J.
Michael STRACZYNSKI's decision to give him a role in his science fiction
series, Babylon 5. It would be nice to say that Mumy quickly came
to dominate this series as he had dominated Lost in Space, but
it didn't happen; magnetic as a child star, Mumy has consistently been
only competent in adult roles, and he stoically remained mostly in the
background of Babylon 5 until the series limped to a close.
Seeking new worlds to conquer, Mumy also stepped behind the camera as
co-creator and principal co-writer for a Nickelodeon children's series,
Space Cases. If nothing else, the series demonstrated Mumy's success
in befriending members of the science fiction community, since he persuaded
Harlan ELLISON to write and perform the series'
opening narration and filled the series with jokey references to science
fiction writers, such as characters named Harlan and Bova (after Ben Bova).
The series had its own sort of klutzy charm, I suppose, but I found it
hard to get interested in it, and Nickelodeon's young viewers evidently
felt the same way, since the series came to an abrupt end after two seasons.
Despite this setback, Mumy kept working hard to further
diversify his résumé. After turning down several offers to play outré aliens
for the Star Trek franchise, he finally accepted a role as a mere human
being in an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, so that his career
finally intersected with the most powerful force in science fiction television.
Always available to host or narrate documentaries about science or science
fiction, he would sometimes help write them as well (including a tribute to Lost
in Space), while continuing to work on animated projects. Indeed, since
neither the Internet Movie Database nor Mumy's own website provide a truly
comprehensive picture of his activities, one cannot be entirely sure of the
full extent of his many ventures. He has most recently garnered attention by
starring in a belated sequel to his first major role, "It's Still a Good Life,"
providing his best adult performance to date as the now-mature domineering
psychic troubled by a daughter who has apparently inherited his powers. Mumy's
career is not over yet, and neither is the saga of science fiction television;
one strongly suspects that when its next chapters are written, Billy Mumy will
still be somewhere in the vicinity, just as he always has been.
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