Paul Winchell

**Paul Winchell** (*né* **Wilchinsky**; December 21, 1922 – June 24, 2005) was an American ventriloquist, comedian, actor, voice artist, humanitarian, inventor and voice director 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 1965–1968, Winchell hosted the children's television series *Winchell-Mahoney Time*.

Winchell made guest appearances on Emmy Award-winning television series from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s, such as *Perry Mason*, *The Dick Van Dyke Show*, *McMillan & Wife*, *The Donna Reed Show*, and appearances as Homer Winch on *The Beverly Hillbillies*. In animation, he was the original voice of Tigger, Dick Dastardly, Gargamel, and other characters.

Winchell, who had medical training, was also an inventor, becoming the first person to build and patent a mechanical artificial heart, implantable in the chest cavity (US Patent #3097366 of 1963). He has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television.

He was also the founder of the children's cable network Nickelodeon and was president there until his death on June 24, 2005. While there, he created the block *Paul Winchell's World* which lasted until the end of 1997, as well as 3 shows, all of which became the most popular shows on the network: *Rocko's Modern Life*, *The Loud House*, and *SpongeBob SquarePants*. In fact, with those three shows and 82 others in his voice directing resume, he was and still is considered one of if not the most successful and professional voice director in animation.

## Biography

### Early Life

Winchell was born **Paul Wilchinsky** in New York City on December 21, 1922, to Solomon Wilchinsky and Clara Fuchs. His father was a tailor; his grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russian Poland and Austria-Hungary. Winchell's initial ambition was to become a doctor, but the Depression wiped out any chance of his family's ability to afford medical school tuition. At age 13, he contracted polio; while recovering, he happened upon 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. Mr. Magon was agreeable, and Winchell named his creation Jerry Mahoney, by way of thanks. 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.

### Entertainment 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. 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. He modified two other copies to create Knucklehead Smiff. 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 mid-week program.

During the 1950s, Winchell hosted children's (*The Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show*) 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 entitled "HOORAY, HOORAH" which featured the secret password "SCOTTY WOTTY DOO DOO". An ending song entitled "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, The Three Stooges appeared on the show to promote their joint feature film venture, *Stop, Look and Laugh*, in late 1959. He made an appearance on *Nanny and the Professor* (Season 2, Episode 13) as a "mean old man" (a puppeteer who had retired into seclusion after losing his wife in an accident). In 1996, Winchell contracted with figure maker Tim Selberg to construct a more contemporary version of Jerry Mahoney, which Winch 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

The first show Winchell did voice acting for was *The Adventures of Hoppity Hooper* (which was also the first acting job of Frank Welker), to which he also executive produced and voiced directed, not unlike the shows he would create for Nickelodeon. There, he was the show's narrator, though he said in interviews that he was the original choice for Fillmore Bear before Alan Reed, the original voice of Fred Flintstone, rightfully took over.

Winchell's career after the show's end in 1968 included various voice roles for other animated television series. For Hanna-Barbera, he played the character Dick Dastardly in multiple series (including *Wacky Races* and *Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines*); Clyde and Softy on *Wacky Races* and *The Perils of Penelope Pitstop*; and Fleegle on *The Banana Splits Adventure Hour*, and Gargamel on *The Smurfs*.

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* (a role he previously played on *The New Scooby Doo Movies*), 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 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, 2000 for *The Tigger Movie* and from 2001 to 2004 for *The Book of Pooh* and its direct-to-video spin-off film *The Book of Pooh: The Stories from the Heart*. Following his retirement from the role, Cummings permanently took over starting with *Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo* in 2004. 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 voice of Zummi Gummi on the TV series *Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears* and Mayor Jeff in *PB&J Otter*, which he created along with *Doug* creator Jim Jinkins.

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* spin-off *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 1981–89, 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* (which was a tour-de-force featuring all of the H-B characters) and later on *Wake, Rattle and Roll* (which was a *Wacky Races* spin-off). 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*.

From 1990 until his death in 2005, Winchell voiced Rocko Marsupialan, Lincoln Loud, and SpongeBob SquarePants in *Rocko’s Modern Life*, *The Loud House* and *The Casagrandes*, and the show of the same name, respectively, as well as a few other characters from said shows. These include Frank Hutchinson for *Rocko*, Sarge the dragon and Bernie for *The Loud House*, and 9 other roles for *SpongeBob*.

#### Live action work

Winchell (often with Jerry Mahoney) was a frequent guest panelist on *What's My Line?* in 1956. Other work included on-camera guest appearances on such series as *The Polly Bergen Show*, as Homer Winch on *The Beverly Hillbillies*, *The Virginian*, *The Lucy Show*, *The Donna Reed Show*, Claude Wilbur on *The Dick Van Dyke Show*, *Dan Raven*, and *The Brady Bunch*, as well as a 1960 movie that included a compilation of Three Stooges shorts (*Stop!, Look and Laugh*), and a part 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.

### Personal Life

Winchell had three children: a son, Stacy Paul Winchell; a daughter, Stephanie, from his first marriage to Dorothy "Dottie" Movitz; and a daughter, April Winchell (the current voice of Clarabelle Cow), who is a comedian and voice actress, from his second marriage to actress Nina Russel. His third wife was the former Jean Freeman. Winchell's autobiography, *Winch* (2004), exposed many details of Winchell's life that had previously been kept private, including early stories of an abused childhood, a long history of depression and at least one mental breakdown which resulted in a short stint in an institution. The autobiography caused a major estrangement between Winchell and his children, prompting daughter April to publicly defend her mother, who was negatively portrayed in the book.

After writing in *God 2000: Religion Without the Bible* (1982) that religion brought more chaos to humanity than any "other invention of man", Winchell expressed deist opinions within his 2004 book *Protect God*.

### Death

Winchell died on June 24, 2005, at the age of 82, from natural causes in his sleep at his home in Moorpark, California, after years of recurring mental problems that came from his youth.

He authored a large and detailed autobiography called "Winch The Autobiography" published April 2004, at age 81, which revealed the bad treatment he had from his mother for a considerable period, and the mental impact that continued to negatively affect him for decades after his mother's death (Clara Wilchinski died in 1953 when she was only 58 years old, and Paul was 30).

He was survived by his wife, his children, and three grandchildren. His remains were cremated, and his ashes scattered over his home property.

He was estranged from his children, and they were not immediately informed of his death. Upon learning of it, April posted an entry on her website:

> I got a phone call a few minutes ago, telling me that my father passed away yesterday. A source close to my dad, or at least, closer than I was, decided to tell me himself, instead of letting me find out on the news, which I appreciate. Apparently a decision had been made not to tell me, or my father's other children. My father was a very troubled and unhappy man. If there is another place after this one, it is my hope that he now has the peace that eluded him on earth.
>
>

Jim Cummings took on the role of Tigger full-time starting with *Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo* (2004) and Dick Dastardly starting in 2008, while Hank Azaria took on the role of Gargamel.