Patty Maloney

Patricia Anne Maloney (March 17, 1936 – March 31, 2025) was an American actress.

Maloney was born in Perkinsville, New York, and was raised in Winter Park, Florida, by her mother and stepfather. Standing 3 feet 11 inches (119 cm) and weighing 60 pounds (27 kg), she performed in carnivals and circuses in her youth. She married Joseph Vitek in 1961. During their marriage, she worked as a keypunch operator at Clipper Carloading in Chicago. After Vitek died from melanoma in 1968, her friends encouraged her to return to performing as a way to deal with grief.

Maloney was best known as Honk from Far Out Space Nuts, as Lumpy from the Star Wars Holiday Special, and as Darla Hood from the animated TV series version of The Little Rascals. She appeared in Star Trek: Voyager in 1996.

She was often a guest on the 1970s variety series Donny & Marie, and portrayed the robot waitress Tina in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode "Cruise Ship to the Stars".

In 1977 she appeared in the episode "Ida Works Out" on Rhoda as a witch on Halloween looking for a costume party in Rhoda's apartment building.

From 1982, she was also an animation voice actor, worked on the Monopoly game show pilot, and even operated the Crypt Keeper puppet on Tales from the Crypt. Maloney appeared in Ernest Saves Christmas with California native Buddy Douglas as Santa's two elves. In 2011, she appeared as herself in Hanlet: Episode 41 ⁄2 – Attack of the Phantom Special, an independent documentary film about the making of Star Wars Holiday Special.

Another of her voice roles was in 1988, alongside Jeff Cohen, Glynis Johns, and Casey Kasem in the movie Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School as Tanis the Mummy.

In 2010, Maloney was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration, a visual impairment which severely limited her ability to read scripts and other textual matter. After suffering several strokes, she died in Winter Park on March 31, 2025, at the age of 89.