Dean Jones, beloved star of live-action Disney movies of the ’60s and ’70s, has died at 84 of complications of Parkinson’s disease, according to his publicist, Richard Hoffman.

When I was a child, we had the Disney Channel.  I’m too young to have seen The Shaggy D. A. in the theatre, as it came out the year I was born, but for my generation, that’s where we knew him.  The Love Bug.  Blackbeard’s Ghost, which played at my elementary school’s Halloween party one year.  My personal favourite was long The Horse in the Grey Flannel Suit.  In those early days of cable and the VCR, we could watch those shows over and over and over again.  And lord, we did.

There was more to his career than appearing opposite wacky dogs, wacky cats, wacky cars, and wacky Peter Ustinov, of course.  He appeared in Jailhouse Rock.  Tea and Sympathy, which isn’t wacky anything.  And, of course, he was in the original Broadway cast of Company.  He got his start performing a radio show for his high school, Dean Jones Sings.  After a stint in the US Navy, he worked in the Bird Cage Theater at Knott’s Berry Farm.  From there, he went on to movie and TV success.

He was never a big star.  Not really.  However, he will never be forgotten as long as the Disney Vault opens its doors now and again.