This runs a half-hour and the sound is a little out-of-sync. Then again, the sound was a little out-of-sync on everything Edgar Bergen did, at least in TV and movies where you could see his lips move more when Mortimer Snerd was speaking than Clint Eastwood's do when Clint Eastwood is speaking. Still, we love Mr. Bergen and Mr. Snerd and Charlie McCarthy and their general funniness. Jim Backus is also in this and he's pretty funny, too. It's a special from 1950 and I see at the end, it was directed by Alan Dinehart.
I assume this is the same Alan Dinehart I worked with in the seventies and eighties in the animation business. He occasionally acted, wrote or produced but primarily worked as a voice director. For a long time, he voice-directed all the Ruby-Spears shows like Plastic Man and Thundarr the Barbarian, and we had a friendly but occasionally-contentious relationship. But I'm a bit confused about all the Alan Dineharts who have worked in Hollywood and the Internet Movie Database is more confused than I am. They list five or six separate individuals who are either Alan Dinehart or Alan Dinehart Jr. and I think there have only been three.
The first was a prolific character who passed in 1944. I think all his credits are correct but he had a son Alan and a grandson Alan. The son, who was born in 1918 and died in 1992, is the one I worked with and he had a long career in both cartoons and live-action, writing and directing…and I think most of the Alan Dineharts they list are him. Grandson Alan Dinehart was born in 1936 and they have him listed but I'm pretty sure most if not all the credits they have for him are actually his father's.
If and when I get the time (ha), I may try to straighten this all out. But there must be someone reading this who knows more about the various Alan Dineharts than I do. If that person could help out, I'd be most grateful. The Alan I knew deserves a factual recital of his amazing career…which I suspect was more vast than the IMDB will ever be able to itemize. And now, here are Edgar and his friends…
