Stop that pigeon -- How?

[austin_dern]

Probably you already heard the news, but I want to talk about it anyway. Paul Winchell, voice-actor and actor, died a few days ago. He did a lot of voices, including that of Tigger for many of the Winnie the Pooh cartoons, and that of Dick Dastardly, Gargamel, Fleegle, and a host of other voices. Dick Dastardly really gets to me; there was a time (when I was young, and which my parents tolerated with admirable grace) when I just could not get enough of Dastardly and Muttley chasing after Yankee Doodle Pigeon. While the loopy airplanes invented for the purpose appealed (and, really, were any of them stranger than actual airplanes of the World Wars?), Dick Dastardly/Paul Winchell's voice acting really made the experience. I hate learning that people I'm a fan of die, particularly these days when I could in principle have sent a letter to say thanks with reasonable assurance that he'd see it.

Slightly surprising is that Winchell took out a precedent-setting entertainment-industry lawsuit, when the only known copies of one of his old TV shows were destroyed by his former employers, who hoped to get out of a royalties dispute. It's harder these days to destroy TV shows and movies; some of that's the economic safety net of knowing everything will be salable on DVD, but some of that is because of Paul Winchell.

Oh, and he created the artificial heart. Seriously. In the early 60s he built and patented a prototype device which would be developed into the Jarvik-7. I'm afraid this discovery dethrones Hedy Lamarr (who invented frequency hopping) in my list of greatest inventions made by entertainers. Why doesn't somebody tell me these things? Was I supposed to guess that the Robonic Moe Howard invented the artificial heart?

Trivia: The comedy-ventriloquism radio program The Paul Winchell-Jerry Mahoney Show debuted 29 November 1943 on the Mutual Broadcasting System. Source: On The Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, John Dunning.

Currently Reading: Charlie Chaplin And His Times, Kenneth S Lynn.

Comments

[katrus.livejournal.com]

I was surprised to learn that he was the same Paul Winchell known for Jerry Mahoney.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I somehow knew that, but I don't know how I know that -- that is, I don't remember learning it at any point. Curious.

[orv.livejournal.com]

It's weird how some people just keep cropping up, isn't it?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah ... I really should be better used to this, since I've been immersing myself in scientific history and you get things like the conservation of energy discovered by someone who didn't believe his biology teacher that the speed of a neuron couldn't be measured, but I was surprised.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

As well as being Mr. Owl in the Tootsie Pop commercials. http://www.voicechasers.com/database/showactor.php?actorid=1639 has a solid list of his vocal work.

Gargamel, Dick Dastardly, Tigger. Whoo.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I didn't know about Mr Owl, but, in hindsight, oh, yeah, that has to be. Wow.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Yup. People can do more than one thing. Most of the world prefers to see things in narrow stereotypes. Like they used to say in the hippie years.. so they can 'put us in a box'.

Nice tribute, coati fluffs... *hugs you*

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, sure, you expect people to be reasonably multifaceted, but a spread this wide is startling.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I hadn't known he played Dick Dastardly. I was a great DD fan. I very often have no idea who the actor is behind the character.

And you make an excellent point about writing to show appreciation to people who've made a difference to one. One tends sometimes to underestimate how appreciated fanmail might be, especially after soemone's no longer the man of the hour. I've thoguht off and on for the past 15 years of writing to Don Bluth, but I never have. I suppose I really should. My life's been saner and more enjoyable because of him.

So far as the artificial heart, though: What would it be like, lying in a hospital, knowing your life depends on one of Dick Dastardly's inventions? It's probably for the best that they kept that quiet.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I don't think, as a child, I ever quite connected the voices behind the characters; maybe the first time I realized was when I realized Starscream and Cobra Commander had the same voice. When I go back to cartoons now I can't help matching up voices, or trying to, and sometimes driving myself to distraction when I can almost place a voice.

I suppose at least some of my eternal frustration and surprise at learning people who did things I admired just died is that I forget how much I do enjoy; if I started listing all the things I like I'd probably never finish. Happily a couple of ``fan letters'' -- generally things I wrote for another purpose that someone found online, but there are a exceptions -- have gotten through, so if I'm erratic at least some people find out. I'm still amazed to learn that, like, I know someone who worked for Shamus Culhane, or the like.

I think if I were told my artificial heart were one of Dick Dastardly's inventions I'd have assumed it to be a joke. It took me reading on a couple of sites before I believed it and I've only got an intellectual interest in the matter.