"Uncle Jimmy" Weldon (as he liked to be called) died last Thursday at the age of 99. Folks around my age who grew up in Los Angeles remember him as the host of Cartooneroony — I don't guarantee that spelling — a Monday-Friday afternoon kid show on KCOP Channel 13 locally. It was also known as The Webster Webfoot Show, named for a little duck puppet with which Jimmy performed a ventriloquist act. Actually, Jimmy and Webster did local kids' shows in many cities, sometimes concurrently. Webster couldn't fly but Jimmy could — in a private plane via which he sometimes commuted, doing a morning show in, say, Fresno and an afternoon show in L.A.
His Channel 13 gig gave him exposure in 1959 when Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were looking for a new voice for a baby duck character of theirs. The baby duck under various names had appeared now and then in Tom & Jerry cartoons they'd done for MGM and then when they started their own studio, the duck popped up as a supporting player usually called (though not onscreen) Iddy Biddy Buddy or Itty Bitty Buddy. A comedian named Red Coffey — often spelled "Red Coffee" — had always done the duck voice for Bill and Joe. In 1959 when they renamed the duck Yakky Doodle and planned to star him in cartoons on the new Yogi Bear Show, Mr. Coffey was too often outta town on tours.
So they needed a new duck voice and they found him on Channel 13. And interestingly, they found the guy to voice Yakky's bulldog friend Chopper concurrently on Channel 5 where Vance Colvig was starring daily as Bozo the Clown. So when The Yogi Bear Show debuted in Los Angeles, you had Mr. Weldon voicing Webster Webfoot on Channel 13 and opposite him on Channel 5 was Mr. Colvig playing Bozo while — and these were all on at the same hour — The Yogi Bear Show with both actors was on Channel 11. At the age of eight, I actually noticed this.
I also noticed Jimmy Weldon popping up all over Los Angeles with Webster making personal appearances, hosting on telethons, even apparently appearing at birthday parties for what I heard was a rather modest fee. Jimmy was a charming gent who loved to entertain and he often popped up on TV shows in guest roles. I remember him on a Rockford Files and on Dragnet and on The Waltons, among others. He usually played a flamboyant preacher or some kind of inspirational speaker.
In fact, the last decade or two of his life, that was his main line of work — inspirational speaking. In 1996 when the prolific character actor Peter Leeds (also an occasional Hanna-Barbera voice) passed away, I took Stan Freberg to the funeral and one of the speakers talked to us not so much about Peter but about coping with death and not sinking into depression over it. The speaker was Jimmy Weldon.
He addressed many groups, often with a speech he called "Go Get 'Em Tiger: Becoming the Person You Want to Be," which was also the title of his autobiography. It urged everyone to realize their full potential, never give up, grab onto that star, etc. He was also a super-patriot and very active in the American Legion. (During World War II, he served with General Patton and was involved in many heroic efforts including the liberation of the concentration camp in Buchenwald.)
Back in 1982 when I wrote a prime-time Yogi Bear special for Hanna-Barbera, Yakky Doodle had a cameo role with one or two lines. Jimmy had not worked for H-B for a while and when Yakky had recently appeared, they had Frank Welker do his voice and then Frank would also play other roles in the show. I asked them, pretty please, to bring Jimmy Weldon in to do the one or two lines plus some other roles. They did. I'm not sure I can explain why that mattered to me as much as it did but it did.
I met him briefly at the recording session and then, about eighteen years later, I was in a Hometown Buffet in Van Nuys and there, dining with some friends of his who I'm sure were army buddies, was Jimmy Weldon. I went up to him at the buffet table and told him I grew up watching him and Webster on Channel 13. Before I could even tell him about the cartoon special I wrote that he was in, he put down the plate he was filling with food, gave me a big hug and dragged me over to his friends' table to tell them, "This young man knows who I am!"
He had me repeat what I'd told him about growing up with him and Webster and he seemed so proud of that that. And his pals were responded good-naturedly, "Yeah, yeah, Jimmy. So what is this? The tenth time this week you've introduced us to someone who told you that?"