Buddy Hackett, the rotund, jovial comedian and actor who found popularity in nightclubs, television and movies, including The Music Man, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and The Love Bug, died on June 30 at his home in Malibu, California of natural causes. He was 78.

He was born Leonard Hacker on August 31, 1924, in the middle-class Borough Park section of Brooklyn, the son of an upholsterer. While still in high school, Hackett began working in the Catskills, the resort area north of New York City, as a waiter and bellhop. After graduation, he served three years in the U.S. Army during World War II, then returned to Brooklyn and studied acting. Eventually, he returned to the Catskills (at the time a popular training ground for aspiring young comedians), changed his name to Buddy Hackett, and began to cut his teeth as a performer. Within a few years he found work all across the country, headlining major nightclubs from Atlantic City to Los Angeles.

With his stout physique, cross-eyed gaze and an inimitable delivery that looked as if he was talking out of the side of his mouth, Hackett was a popular presence on television. By the mid-'50s he was all over the medium: as a guest The Tonight Show with Jack Paar, The Arthur Godfrey Show, hosting a string of comedy specials, and his own sitcom, Stanley (1956-57) which co-starred a young Carol Burnett as his girlfriend.

Although he made his debut in 1953 in Lloyd Bacon's minor musical Walking My Baby Back Home, Hackett didn't connect with good material until the '60s: Morton DaCosta's The Music Man (1962), where he sang the unforgettable "Shipoopi"; George Pal's fun Cinerama romp The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1963); Stanley Kramer's big budget farce It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), holding his own in a cast of comic heavyweights that included Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters and Jimmy Durante; and Robert Stevenson's popular Disney comedy The Love Bug (1968) as Dean Jones' comic sidekick.

Hackett spent the next 25 years working the nightclub circuit, but in the mid-'90s he found himself making a spirited comeback on television, with guest spots on such popular sitcoms as Boy Meets World, Just Shoot Me and Sabrina The Teenage Witch. He even had a recurring role in the short-lived Fox sitcom Action (1999-2000), playing a chauffeur and uncle to an insidious Hollywood agent (Jay Mohr). Most recently he was the voice of Scuttle in the animated Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (2000) and frequently appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn in a recurring sketch called "Tuesdays with Buddy". He is survived by his wife Sherry; a son Sandy, who is also a comedian; and two daughters Ivy and Lisa.