Laugh-In star Arte Johnson dies at 90

The Hollywood Reporter

The 5-foot-4 Johnson won an Emmy for playing manic characters on the iconic 1960s NBC comedy show, including German soldier Wolfgang -- who would mutter  "verry interesting" -- and dirty old man Tyrone F. Horneigh. Johnson was a master of ad libs, double-talk and dialects who was content to be a "second banana," according to The Hollywood Reporter. "Humor for me consists in incongruity," he said in a 1974 interview. "If I were doing a Hasidic rabbi, I'd have him speak with an Irish accent. … You take it out of reality and make it cartoon-esque without being denigrating. Because people today are so sensitive, it's the only way of creating humor without offending someone."