Mr. Whipple has died. Dick Wilson, who played the supermarket manager in hundreds of commercials (more than 500, according to this article in the Washington Post), passed away on what happened to be National Toilet Day.
Personally, I have amassed an astonishing amount of worthless information in my tiny brain about all manner of trivial matters; yet, even I had no idea there was a National Toilet Day until last week. (Before Mr. Whipple died, mind you. It happens to be a family member's birthday, which became a source of amusement for me and that person's spouse. Tee hee hee!) Whether I'll continue to celebrate the day in which we remember that only 20 percent of the world have access to "improved sanitation," is anyone's guess.
But I enjoyed the Post article, because it was willing to ponder things I'd not seen in print before. I've only talked about these things with my wife and random friends and drinking buddies in bars. Things like: Why do people in commercials wipe toilet paper across their face? How bad was toilet paper in the '60s? Do bears who shit in the woods need soft "bathroom tissue"? And is the aloe in multi-ply toilet paper good for the pipes?
Alas, now poor Mr. Whipple has flushed off his mortal coil. Say hello to the Ty-D-Bowl man, for us.
2 comments:
Having grown up with Mr. Whipple and charmin I was very sad to hear of Dick Wilson's passing. Commercials during his time were so simple & yet always seemed to delight. I remember going into Kings Supermarket & when my mother went to get the charmin off the shelf I would look around to see if Mr. Whipple would suddenly appear to find her "squeezing" it. I was of course disappointed that he never showed. Having read several articles of his death, one in particular caught my eye. The article explained that Dick Wilson really didn't want to do commercials but instead wanted to get into movie roles but that never happened. To make ends meet he agreed to the Charmin commercials & of course history was made. When asked about the commercials vs. movie roles & if he would be interested in doing a movie role "later in life" his reply "The kind of pictures they're making today, I'll stick with toilet paper" (1985). You had to love a man with a keen sense of humor! So thank you Dick Wilson for 21 years of tv. May your audience in heaven enjoy you just as much as we have!
Amen to that, Cammy. Thanks for sharing.
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