Here's a birthday shout-out to Lennie Weinrib, one of my favorite friends and one of the most talented. I first worked with Lennie on a show for Sid and Marty Krofft for which he was re-creating the role of H.R. Pufnstuf. Lennie was not only the voice of Pufnstuf but wrote most of that character's first TV series. There was a time there when you couldn't turn on your TV or radio without hearing Lennie: He had hundreds of commercials running and he was on a dozen cartoon shows (including The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, written about here a few days ago).
This period followed the one where you couldn't turn on your TV without seeing Lennie doing a guest role on some TV series. One time a few years ago, I was flipping channels on my satellite dish and I caught him simultaneously on reruns of The Munsters and Emergency, plus some channel was running The Thrill of It All, a Doris Day movie in which he had a small role. The still above is from one of his several appearances on The Dick Van Dyke Show. And at some point in there, he also had a period as a film director. Anyone here ever see Beach Ball? Or Wild, Wild Winter?
He's pretty much retired now and living outside the U.S. but we still talk and e-mail, and in honor of his birthday, I'm actually packing up a box of stuff I've been promising to send him for several months now. In fact, I like him so much, I'm even going to go mail it.