In 1964, Dr. McCabe established the international Laurel and Hardy society, The Sons of the Desert, named after one of the team's films. The founding members were McCabe, actors Orson Bean and Chuck McCann, cartoonist Al Kilgore, and John Municino. After the group had grown to dozens of chapters around the world, McCabe took the title "Exhausted Ruler" (a quotation from the "Sons of the Desert" film). He told a reporter that he modeled the group on The Baker Street Irregulars, a fan organization for Sherlock Holmes, of which he had been a member.