Bullwinkle writer dies at 81...

[chefcraig]

(This breaks my heart. This show meant/means very much to me... )

TV writer C.Hayward, of cartoon Bullwinkle

By Valerie J. Nelson
Los Angeles Times
Posted December 18 2006

LOS ANGELES · Chris Hayward, an Emmy-winning television writer who developed the klutzy cartoon character Dudley Do-Right and helped imbue the rest of the Rocky and Bullwinkle gang with the same sense of silliness and satire, died Nov. 20 at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 81.

Bullwinkle and his zany friends came out of the studios of Jay Ward, who warned against underestimating television viewers and encouraged his writers to "take potshots at everything," Mr. Hayward once said.

"His philosophy was `just write sharp stuff for yourself and the audience will get it.' It was very freeing," said Allan Burns, a Bullwinkle writer who became Mr. Hayward's writing partner.

There was no such thing as a bad pun on Rocky and His Friends, which debuted on ABC in 1959 and was renamed The Bullwinkle Show when it moved to NBC in 1961.

The first episode Mr. Hayward co-wrote for the flying squirrel and his sidekick with the dimwitted voice was titled "Rue Britannia," according to The Moose That Roared (2000), a history of the show. When the plot requires Bullwinkle to survive a week in the Abominable Manor in England, he says, "Shucks, I've been livin' in an abominable manner all my life!"

The writers' revelry in wordplay extended to other segments that filled out the half-hour show: Fractured Fairy Tales and Aesop and Son, irreverent send-ups of classic stories and fables; Peabody's Improbable History, in which a smart dog time-travels with a pet boy; and Dudley Do-Right of the Royal Canadian Mounties, a goofily inept hero whose nemesis is Snidely Whiplash.

When Bullwinkle first aired, "it was one of the hippest and most under-appreciated programs on TV," said Robert Thompson, a professor of pop culture at Syracuse University. "Half the people watching it were kids who weren't getting it. And the other half couldn't believe what they were watching."

While recording dialogue, the cast rarely improvised, June Foray, who voiced Rocky and others, told The Times in 2003. "They were written so brilliant, we wouldn't dare," she said.

Many of the fables were written by Mr. Hayward and another Ward veteran, Lloyd Turner. "Barking dogs seldom bite," Aesop says in one about a dog and his stolen false teeth. Junior, his son, retorts: "Nothing dentured, nothing gained," the book recounted.

When Mr. Hayward and Turner were asked to reinvent the Do-Right character, Ward gave minimal instruction. "It's about a stupid Mountie, just have fun!" Mr. Hayward recalled in the book.

The character's strong chin might have been a nod to Mr. Hayward's own, his wife said.

Mr. Hayward and Burns received an Emmy in 1968 for their work on the CBS sitcom He & She. After writing for Get Smart (1965-70), the team split up. Burns went on to help create The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970.

Mr. Hayward turned to Barney Miller, an ABC series that satirized life in a precinct house and starred Hal Linden.

Born June 19, 1925, in Bayonne, N.J., Christopher Robert Hayward moved to Los Angeles when he was 17.

Encouraged by a class in scriptwriting, Mr. Hayward went into television in the 1950s. He soon was working on Ward's Crusader Rabbit, the first cartoon created specifically for television.



The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Co. newspaper.

[ZeoBandit]

RIP....

[edwardv]

nothin up my sleeve........rip bro

[ddzavis]

You know the flags are at Half Staff in Frostbite Falls. RIP