I received two interesting e-mails about the late Huell Howser, who did a cheery TV show for PBS, running around and interviewing people. This one is from Darryl Musick and the "Philippe's" of which he speaks is a great downtown restaurant that makes terrific French Dip sandwiches. They claim that the founder of their establishment invented the French Dip sandwich — maybe so — and it's exactly the kind of place I would have expected Huell Howser to frequent. Here's Darryl…
Your story about Mr. Howser reminds me of a few times we'd run across him, not taping his show, but just having lunch at Philippe's.
The first time we met him there, we'd just finished and I stood up to go, turned towards the door, and literally ran into the man as he was walking by. I stopped, just for a second as the recognition hit and before I could do anything more, he stuck out his hand and said "Hi, I'm Huell Howser."
My wife said, "Oh, I wish I had my camera."
"Don't worry, I have one in the car. I'll be right back," he said.
He was and had the lady at the newstand take our picture. This was the pre-digital era so he took our address and said he'd send it to us. He did, along with a nice letter about how it was so nice to meet us at Philippe's.
Great story. And yeah, Mr. Howser was just the kind of guy to do something like that. Meanwhile, here's a message I received from Brian Stanley…
I don't know if you knew or cared but as an animation fan you might find this interesting:
A few years ago there was a new animated version of Winnie the Pooh where much of the plot revolves around the terrible evil monster Pooh and his friends mistakenly believe took Christopher Robin. As one of the few "grown up laughs" in the film, the big brute shows up after the credits, but of course he's super-enthusiastic and friendly. He's even fascinated when he falls in the large hole that was dug for him.
Despite all the available actors who could've done a fine job, I think you can guess from the title of this e-mail who the producers thought would be perfect for that. I believe it's his only film role.
Yeah. The friendliest guy on television. I wonder if there's a place these days for a guy like that.