Bill Stulla, a fixture of early Los Angeles television, has died at the age of 97. A generation or two of L.A. kids knew him as Engineer Bill and the L.A. Times obit will tell you plenty about him. (The above pic shows him with another train enthusiast, some guy named Disney.)
I have my own special memory of Mr. Stulla — a memory that dates back to before he was Engineer Bill. And it felt like he was Engineer Bill forever. If you'd like to read my experience, go read this post and then go read this post. In that order.
I'm not sure I can explain the appeal of Engineer Bill…though it certainly wasn't the cartoons he ran, which were among the worst ever made for television. You might get a bit of an inkling from this rough assemblage of clips, totalling about nine and a half minutes from some episode from some year…