He was an excellent impressionist — targeting, somewhat scandalously for the time, many white actors such as John Wayne and Walter Brennan rather than solely black stars such as Bill Cosby and Pearl Bailey — and, for a man of his ample girth, an unexpectedly agile dancer.
Irving Pincus joined the series star, Walter Brennan, in the formation of Brennan-Westgate Productions, with filming of the series at Desilu Studios.
The situation comedy starring Walter Brennan had premiered on ABC in 1957 but switched networks and nights from Thursday to Sunday opposite Bonanza on NBC for its final year.
Walter Scott | Sir Walter Scott | Walter Cronkite | Walter Raleigh | Walter Benjamin | Walter Mondale | Walter Matthau | William J. Brennan, Jr. | Walter Gropius | Walter Hamma | Walter Savage Landor | Walter Burley Griffin | Walter Payton | Walter | Colt Brennan | Bruno Walter | Walter Winchell | Walter Crane | Walter Rilla | Walter Koenig | Walter Brennan | Walter Sickert | Walter Pidgeon | Walter Isaacson | Walter Damrosch | Walter Crickmer | Walter Brueggemann | Walter Reed | Walter Browne | Little Walter |
In the story line, the series characters played by Walter Brennan, Richard Crenna, and Kathleen Nolan return to fictitious Smokey Corners, West Virginia for Grandmother McCoy's 100th birthday gathering.
These included the Walter Brennan sitcom The Real McCoys (1957–62), The Andy Griffith Show (1960–68) and the long-running CBS TV series M*A*S*H, on which they worked for five seasons, contributing 35 episodes.
In addition to Anderson, several country and popular performers recorded their own versions of "Mama Sang a Song," including Walter Brennan, Stan Kenton, Jimmy Dean and Faron Young.
Note: The Texas Rangers characters originally appeared almost twenty years before in the unsold television pilot and TV-movie broadcast in 1969 on ABC, The Over-the-Hill Gang, which was followed by The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again (the sequel didn't feature the Captain Oren Hayes character) starring Walter Brennan as Nash Crawford, Pat O'Brien as Captain Oren Hayes, Chill Wills as Gentleman George Asque and Edgar Buchanan as Jason Fitch.
Pepper Jay began her performance career in the television sitcom, The Real McCoys starring Walter Brennan, which premiered on ABC in 1957, and in local theater.
The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again starring Walter Brennan and Fred Astaire is a 1970 ABC Movie of the Week sequel to the Western comedy The Over-the-Hill Gang.
At the start of the film, two burglars, played by Tammany Young and Walter Brennan(!), break into Ambrose's cellar late at night, get drunk on his homemade applejack, and start singing "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away"; Ambrose is forced to handle the situation, and he winds up being arrested for distilling liquor without a license.