Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Missing Voices

I remember Paul Winchell as the host of a TV puppet show, "The Paul Winchell - Jerry Mahoney Show" (Jerry was the puppet). I can still remember part of the opening theme song, even though I haven't heard it for over 40 years. I'm such a storehouse of useless information. Winchell did lots of voiceovers that I think were much more memorable than Tigger. For example, he was the "scrubbing bubbles" for Dow chemical bathtub cleaner. I always loved recognizing his very distinctive voice. Much as I do now with Patrick Warburton.

I have fewer fond memories of John Fiedler who I mainly recall as the dweeby guy at the poker table in "The Odd Couple" (movie and TV), but his IMDB entry reads like a compendium of 60s and 70s US television shows. Including such unmemorable duds as "Captain Nice" (which came out the same season as "Mr. Terrific", both of which were trying to duplicate the campy success of "Batman").

Both these voices have been in the background my entire life: kid shows when I was little, sitcoms and action adventure shows in my adolescence and young adulthood, and cartoons I've watched with my own kids. They may not have been Mel Blancs but they had cool voices and I'm sorry they're gone.