Dear NetFlix:
Your page
for the 1960 movie "Stop, Look and Laugh" says it stars
"ventriloquist Joe Winchell."
It was PAUL Winchell!!! He played the voice of Tigger, and (believe it
or not) designed the first artificial heart! (Which works alot like the
mouth on a ventriloquist's dummy.) It even says "Paul Winchell" on the
picture your page is showing of the movie's cover!
He died
this weekend at the age of 82. On this day when we're remembering
PAUL Winchell, your movie page should probably identify him AS Paul
Winchell.
Sincerely,
NetFlix subscriber #100012
The Associated Press found a
good quote from Paul Winchell from a 1988 interview.
"I first met Walt Disney 25 or 30 years ago. He said, 'We're both in the
same
business. I use cartoons and you use dummies and we both entertain
children.' That was long before I started working here. Walt gave me a VIP
tour of the studio. I remember people doing voices. "I said, 'Gee, that
must be fun.' And here I am."
Mark Evanier remembers
the time they worked together on an episode
of the Saturday Morning cartoon Garfield. Evanier includes as one of the
stupidest things he's ever said in his life the time he said to the
ventriloquist:
"I'm sorry, Paul, but I've got you talking to yourself here on page three.
You think you can handle it?"
"I always felt a little in awe of Paul, and unable to properly communicate
to him what his presence on TV had meant to me as a child. I told him how
I'd treasured my Jerry Mahoney ventriloquist figure and practiced
endlessly to try and do what he did...
"I'm not sure he understood how valuable his example had been to so many
in
my generation, even though most of us Winchell fans hadn't grown up to
become voice-tossers or even performers."
Read Paul Winchell's amazing story about
his rough childhood on the lower East Side that led him into
ventriloquism...
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