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TTFN
When I read that both John Fiedler and Paul Winchell had died over the weekend, I didn’t even connect the two names at first. I remember John Fiedler as a terrific character actor with a distinctive high-pitched voice, and for some reason the first thing that came to mind was the long-lost and sadly lamented Buffalo Bill, a TV series from the 1980s that was way ahead of its time. (Oddly, I didn’t remember that he was Mr. Peterson from The Bob Newhart Show, and I’d completely forgotten that he was in the original 1957 movie version of 12 Angry Men.)

Paul Winchell I remembered as a ventriloquist from Saturday morning kid shows in the 1950’s (when I was, in fact, a kid). I even remembered his dummy, Jerry Mahoney, with the scratchy voice and sassy attitude. Then I realized that Paul Winchell was also the original voice of Tigger for Disney’s Winnie the Pooh series, and that John Fiedler was the voice of Piglet. It should have dawned on me sooner that these two unique voices were tied together. It’s a little like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson dying on the same day. A little like that. In a way.

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