Paul Winchell

Paul Winchell was an American ventriloquist, voice actor and inventor. His best-known animation voice roles include Tigger of Disney's Winnie the Pooh films, Dick Dastardly of Wacky Races and Gargamel of Smurfs. Winchell also invented the artificial heart and, in his later years, produced museum-quality paintings.

His daughter, April Winchell, is a well-known voice actress in her own right as well as a radio DJ, and ran the now-defunct comedy blog Regretsy.com.


 * Badass Mustache
 * Game Show Host: He worked with his puppet, Jerry Mahoney, on the children's game show Runaround in the early 1970s.
 * Hidden Depths: In case you didn't see it above, let's just repeat:  This puppeteer and children's show host invented the first practical artificial heart.  That puts him right up there with Hedy Lamarr in the pantheon of "Hollywood stars who were also badass engineers".
 * Lost Episode: Tragically, all the surviving episodes of the show Winchell/Mahoney Time were lost when the studio vindictively destroyed the tapes during a syndication dispute.
 * Man of a Thousand Voices