While Hollywood appeals to a younger crowd that associates Paul Winchell to that lovable Tigger, I will always have among my fondest childhood memories of watching the Jerry Mahoney Show. Paul Winchell was indeed a brilliant man and in the field of medicine he was very early on given credit for the concept of an artificial heart pump apparatus in the 1960s lead to the Jarvitz heart in the 1980s. Proof that artistry, creativity, and innovation are all gifts of genius. RIP Mr. Winchell.
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Pooh Mourns Tigger, Piglet by Josh Grossberg Jun 28, 2005, 11:00 AM PT back to story
'Twas a sad weekend in Hundred Acre Wood.
Paul Winchell, the early TV pioneer best remembered for creating a string of cartoon voices, most famously Winnie the Pooh's pal Tigger, died Friday. A day later, John Fiedler, the veteran stage and screen actor who voiced Piglet, passed away.
Somewhere Eeyore is even more glum than usual.
Winchell and Fiedler gave voice to the beloved characters in several animated Disney shorts and features, beginning with 1968's Oscar-winning, franchise-launching short, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, which also featured the vocal work of Sebastian Cabot as the narrator and Sterling Holloway as the honey-obsessed bear. (Cabot died in 1977; Holloway in 1992.)
Winchell provided the pipes for dozens of other 'toons, including Spider-Man in the 1980s TV version, the Hanna-Barbera heavy Dick Dastardly and Smurf nemesis Gargamel. He died in his sleep early Friday at his home in Moorpark, California, according to a Website operated by his daughter, actress April Winchell. He was 82.
Fiedler, meanwhile, died of undisclosed causes on Saturday in New York, per the New York Times. He was 80.
While both men will forever be celebrated as pals of Pooh, they achieved other notable successes in their careers.
Born in New York City on Dec. 21, 1922, Winchell faced adversity early in life, having contracted polio at age six and battling a stutter as a child. He overcame his speech impediment by mimicking his idol, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, and learning to throw his voice.
After winning radio's Amateur Hour contest with a spot-on impersonation of Bergen and dummy Charlie McCarthy as a teen, Winchell made a joint appearance with Bergen on the game show Masquerade Party.
Following a successful stint on radio, Winchell became an early TV pioneer as one of the first children's show hosts. He appeared with his own dummy sidekicks, Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff, in several shows, including The Paul Winchell-Jerry Mahoney Show and Circus Time. (Both dummies are now on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.)
A regular renaissance man, Winchell studied medicine at Columbia University, practiced acupuncture and hypnosis and was a prolific inventor. He held more than 30 patents on a variety of contraptions, including an artificial heart in the 1960s considered to be an early blueprint for the model developed by Robert K. Jarvick, the first to successfully implant one in humans in 1982. He also dreamed up a disposable razor, a flameless cigarette lighter, a fountain pen with a retractable tip and an invisible garter belt.
His channeled his chameleon-like vocal skills into numerous projects, including several voices in The Jetsons, Boomer in Disney's The Fox and the Hound, Marmaduke in the 1980s TV 'toon The Heathcliff and Marmaduke Show and Sam-I-Am in the TV classic Dr. Seuss on the Loose.
In 1974, Winchell shared a Grammy with Holloway and Cabot for Best Children's Recording for "The Most Wonderful Things About Tiggers" from Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too. The tune featured the famous lisping lyric: "The wonderful thing about tiggers, is tiggers are wonderful things! Their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs!"
He also improvised Tigger's signature line "Ta-Ta for now!" or "TTFN" for short at the behest of his third wife, who was British. Winchell's last big-screen turn as Tigger was 1999's Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving.
Winchell is survived by his wife of 31 years, Jean Freeman, five children and three grandchildren.
His longtime cohort Fiedler was born Feb. 3, 1925 in Platteville, Wisconsin. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he settled in New York. He delved into theater by joining the Neighborhood Playhouse. In 1954, he costarred with Montgomery Clift in an off-Broadway production of The Seagull.
He soon graduated to the Great White Way, playing opposite Sidney Poitier in A Raisin in the Sun and Walter Matthau in The Odd Couple and soon garnered the attention of Hollywood.
He racked up an impressive résumé: 12 Angry Men with Henry Fonda; True Grit opposite John Wayne; A Touch of Mink with Cary Grant; and the film versions of A Raisin in the Sun and The Odd Couple. He was also a go-to guy for quirky TV characters, making dozens of guest appearances on such shows as Star Trek, Get Smart, Bewitched, Cheers, Fantasy Island, Three's Company and L.A. Law, and was a regular on the short-lived sitcom Buffalo Bill. Perhaps his best known, non-Piglet part was as the mild-mannered patient Mr. Peterson on The Bob Newhart Show.
But Piglet proved to be his stock in trade. Fiedler would play the squeaky-voiced porker in dozens of films and TV shows, including Piglet's Big Movie in 2003 and his final turn, in Pooh's Heffalump Movie, which opened in February.
"Walt Disney heard [his voice] on a program and said, 'That's Piglet!' " Fiedler's brother, James, told the New York Times.
Disney was so enamored with Fiedler's pipes that the company also cast the actor in Robin Hood, The Fox and the Hound, The Rescuers and The Emperor's New Groove.
Along with his brother, Fiedler is survived by a sister, Mary Dean, and numerous nieces and nephews.
06-27-2005, 18:07
RIP Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff 
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