Paul Winchell
Paul Winchell was an American ventriloquist, comedian, actor, humanitarian, and inventor whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1950 to 1954, he hosted The Paul Winchell Show, which also used two other titles during its prime time run on NBC: The Speidel Show, and What's My Name? From 1965 to 1968, Winchell hosted the children's television series Winchell-Mahoney Time.
He made guest appearances on television series from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s, such as Perry Mason, The Dick Van Dyke Show, McMillan & Wife, The Brady Bunch, The Donna Reed Show, and appearances as Homer Winch on The Beverly Hillbillies. In animation, Winchell was the original voice of Tigger, Dick Dastardly, Gargamel, Scrubbing Bubbles, and other characters.
He also had medical training and became one of the first people to patent a mechanical artificial heart, implantable in the chest cavity. Winchell has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television.
Early life, family and education
Born Paul Wilchinsky in New York City on December 21, 1922, he was the son of Solomon Wilchinsky and Clara Fuchs. His father was a tailor. His grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Congress Poland and Austria-Hungary.At age 6, his legs atrophied after contracting polio. When he was 12 or 13, he came across a magazine advertisement offering a ventriloquism kit for ten cents. Back at school, he asked his art teacher, Jero Magon, if he could receive class credit for creating a ventriloquist's dummy. Magon was agreeable, and Winchell thanked him by naming his creation Jerry Mahoney. Winchell went back to reading magazines, gathering jokes from them and putting together a comedy routine, which he then took to the Major Bowes Amateur Hour in 1938, winning first prize. A touring offer, playing various theaters with the Major Bowes Review, was part of the prize. Bandleader Ted Weems saw the young Winchell while on tour; he visited Winchell and made him an offer of employment. Winchell accepted and became a professional at age 14.
Career
Ventriloquist work
Winchell's best-known ventriloquist dummies were Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff. Mahoney was carved by Chicago-based figure maker Frank Marshall. Sometime later Winchell had basswood copies of Jerry's head made by a commercial duplicating service. One became the upgraded Jerry Mahoney that is seen primarily throughout Winchell's television career. He modified two other copies to create Knucklehead Smiff. The television versions of Jerry and Knucklehead also featured Winchell's innovation of actors slipping their hands into the sleeves of the dummies, giving the visual effect of gesturing with their hands while "conversing" with each other. The original Marshall Jerry Mahoney and one copy of Knucklehead Smiff are in storage at the Smithsonian Institution. The other two figures are in the collection of illusionist David Copperfield.Winchell's first show as a ventriloquist was on radio with Jerry Mahoney in 1943. The program was short-lived, however, as he was overshadowed by Edgar Bergen. Winchell also created Ozwald, a character that resembled Humpty Dumpty. The effect was accomplished by painting eyes and a nose on his chin, then adding a "body" covering the rest of his face, and finally electronically turning the camera image upside down. In 1961, Berwin Novelties introduced a home version of the character that included an Ozwald body, creative pencils to draw the eyes and nose, and a "magic mirror" that automatically turned a reflection upside down.
In 1948, Winchell and Joseph Dunninger were featured on Floor Show on NBC. Recorded via kinescope and replayed on WNBQ-TV in Chicago, the 8:30–9 p.m. Central Time show on Thursdays was the station's first midweekly program.
During the 1950s, Winchell hosted children's and adult programs with his figures for NBC Television, and later for syndication. The NBC Saturday morning program, sponsored by Tootsie Roll, featured a clubhouse motif and a theme song co-written by Winchell and his longtime bandleader and on-air sidekick, Milton Delugg. The theme song was titled "HOORAY, HOORAH" and featured the secret password "SCOTTY WOTTY DOO DOO". An ending song titled "Friends, Friends, Friends" was sung by the children in the audience. In October 1956, Winchell moved to ABC, hosting Circus Time on Thursday evening for one season before returning to Winchell-Mahoney on Sunday afternoons. On one episode in late 1959, The Three Stooges appeared on the show to promote their joint feature film venture, Stop, Look and Laugh. Winchell made an appearance on Nanny and the Professor as a "mean old man". In 1996, Winchell contracted with figure maker Tim Selberg to construct a more contemporary version of Jerry Mahoney, which Winchell described as "Disney-esque". Winchell used the new figure version to pitch a new TV series idea to Michael Eisner. In 2009, Winchell was featured in the comedy documentary I'm No Dummy, directed by Bryan W. Simon.
Voice acting
Winchell's career after 1968 included various voice roles for animated television series. For Hanna-Barbera, he played the character Dick Dastardly in multiple series ; Clyde and Softy on Wacky Races and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop; Fleegle on The Banana Splits Adventure Hour; and Gargamel on The Smurfs.Winchell had also at one point, auditioned for the role of the Pillsbury Doughboy for the Pillsbury Company commercials, but lost out to Paul Frees.
He also provided the voice of Bubi Bear in Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch! in 1971, Revs on Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, Moe on The Robonic Stooges, and Shake on The CB Bears. In 1973, he did the voice of Goober the Dog on the H-B show Goober and the Ghost Chasers and also guest starred as the rain-making villain on an episode of Hong Kong Phooey. For Disney, Winchell voiced Tigger in Disney's Winnie-the-Pooh featurettes, and won a Grammy Award for Best Children's Music Album for his performance in Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too.
Beginning with the television series The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, he alternated in the role with Jim Cummings, the current voice of Pooh. Winchell's final performances as Tigger were in 1999 for Winnie the Pooh: A Valentine for You and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh attraction at Walt Disney World. After that, Jim Cummings permanently took over the role of Tigger, starting with Sing a Song with Pooh Bear in 1999. Other Disney roles included parts in The Aristocats as a Siamese cat named Shun Gon, and The Fox and the Hound as Boomer the woodpecker. He was also the original voice of Zummi Gummi on the TV series Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears for seasons 1–5; Jim Cummings took over for the final season in 1990.
Winchell provided the voices of Sam-I-Am and the unnamed character Sam pesters in Green Eggs and Ham from the animated television special Dr. Seuss on the Loose in 1973. He played Fleabag on The Oddball Couple, Fearless Freddy the Shark Hunter on the Pink Panther spinoff Misterjaw in 1976, as well as a number of one-shot characters in The Blue Racer series. In commercials, he voiced the character of Burger Chef for the fast food chain of the same name, the Scrubbing Bubbles for Dow Chemicals, and Mr. Owl for Tootsie Roll Pops.
From 1981 to 1989, Winchell voiced Gargamel on The Smurfs as well as on several Smurfs television movies. During the 1980s, he was called upon by Hanna-Barbera to reprise his role of Dick Dastardly on Yogi's Treasure Hunt and later on Wake, Rattle and Roll. Also on the animated movie Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose, he did the voice of the Dread Baron, who was previously voiced by John Stephenson on the Laff-a-Lympics.
Live-action work
Winchell was a frequent guest panelist on What's My Line? in 1956. On the April 29 episode, in which Winchell was a panelist, the mystery guest was Edgar Bergen; after his identity was revealed, Jerry Mahoney and Mortimer Snerd carried on a conversation. Other work included on-camera guest appearances on such series as The Polly Bergen Show; The Virginian; The Lucy Show; Perry Mason; The Donna Reed Show; Dan Raven; The Brady Bunch; as Homer Winch on The Beverly Hillbillies; and as Claude Wilbur on The Dick Van Dyke Show. He appeared in a 1960 motion picture that included a compilation of Three Stooges shorts, and also in the Jerry Lewis movie Which Way to the Front?.Winchell appeared as himself in 1963 in the NBC game show Your First Impression. He appeared in the late 1960s in a sketch on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in as a French ventriloquist named Lucky Pierre, who has the misfortune of having his elderly dummy die of a heart attack in the middle of his act. On Love, American Style, he appeared with fellow ventriloquist Shari Lewis in a sketch about two shy people in a waiting room who choose to introduce themselves to each other through their dummies.
''Winchell-Mahoney Time''
Winchell's most successful TV show was Winchell-Mahoney Time, a children's show written by his wife, actress Nina Russell. Winchell played several onscreen characters, including Knucklehead Smiff's father, Bonehead Smiff. He also played himself as friend and adult adviser to Mahoney and Smiff. He also created "Mr. Goody-good," a surreal character, by painting eyes and a nose on his chin, covering his face with a small costume, then having the camera image inverted. The resulting pinheaded character seemed to have an immensely wide mouth and a highly mobile head. Winchell created this illusion by moving his chin back and forth. The show was produced at KTTV in Los Angeles, which was owned by Metromedia.Winchell started "negotiating with Metromedia in 1970 to syndicate the 305 color segments of the show", but nothing came of it. Finally, "Winchell offered to purchase the tapes outright for $100,000. Metromedia responded with an ultimatum...: Agree on a syndication plan or the tapes will be destroyed." When Winchell did not agree, Metromedia carried out with its threat and the tapes were erased and destroyed. Winchell sued Metromedia and in 1986 a jury awarded him "$3.8 million for the value of the tapes and $14 million in punitive damages against Metromedia." Metromedia appealed the award all the way to the Supreme Court but was unsuccessful.
Winchell's last regular on-camera TV appearances working with his puppets were Storybook Squares, a children's version of the adult celebrity game show Hollywood Squares, which was seen Saturday mornings on NBC during the 1969 TV season, and Runaround, another children's TV game show seen Saturday mornings on NBC from September 1972 to September 1973.