The obituaries for Howard Morris are just now appearing in the press. I'm always a little amazed at what gets mentioned in these things and what's left out and what they get wrong and such. The Associated Press obit, for instance, includes this paragraph…
In the 1950s, he joined a comedy sketch group including Carl Reiner and Imogene Coca on several TV variety shows, including "Admiral Broadway Review," "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour."
Yeah, and I think that "comedy sketch group" was headed up by a guy named Sid Caesar, who was the star of those shows. You get the feeling the guy who wrote this piece didn't know who Sid Caesar was, or how those programs have been honored and recognized over the years? Then over here in a piece in The New York Sun, it says…
While his face was less known to later generations, Morris's voice popped up all over the airwaves. He could be heard in cartoons, as Fred Flintstone's boss, Mr. Slate…
Uh, no. As ten seconds over at Google would have shown, John Stephenson played Mr. Slate. Howie played a wide array of non-recurring supporting roles on The Flintstones.
And of course, both leave out darn near everything he did since the mid-sixties, plus things like The Dick Van Dyke Show and all the movies he appeared in and all his stage work. Maybe I'm quibbling but, hey, Howie sure would have bitched about it. One time, we were in the parking lot of Canter's Delicatessen on Fairfax and a man who was walking past noticed Howie and thought he recognized him. "Hey, you're that funny guy on that show," he said. And then the man mimed a short cigarette and said, "Verrrry interesting."
I had to stop Howie from killing him.