Howard Morris

Howard Jerome Morris (September 4, 1919 – May 21, 2005) was an American actor, comedian, voice actor, and director. Born in the Bronx, New York, to Hugo and Elsie Morris, he was raised in a Jewish family where his father worked as a rubber company executive. Morris attended New York University on a dramatic arts scholarship. During World War II, he served as First Sergeant in a United States Army Special Services unit based in Honolulu, entertaining troops throughout the Pacific. Maurice Evans commanded the unit, and Carl Reiner and Werner Klemperer served among its soldiers.

Morris's Broadway career spanned 1945 to 1960. He appeared in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and in a production of Hamlet, and he starred in Finian's Rainbow, including the highly regarded 1960 revival in which he played Og the leprechaun opposite Bobby Howes as Finian. His stage work provided a foundation for the television prominence he would achieve in the following decade.

He rose to national recognition through Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, the live weekly sketch comedy series that ran from 1950 to 1954. In April 1954, Morris appeared alongside Caesar and Carl Reiner in a sketch called "This Is Your Story," an eleven-minute parody of Ralph Edwards's This Is Your Life. Morris played Uncle Goopy, a character overcome with emotion who repeatedly clung to and climbed on Caesar throughout the sketch. Morris identified it as his favorite role. The sketch drew commentary from The New York Times, Hollywood.com, and The New Yorker, and later influenced comedians including Conan O'Brien and Billy Crystal. Morris also appeared twice in 1957 on the short-lived NBC comedy-variety program The Polly Bergen Show.

On The Andy Griffith Show, Morris became widely recognized for his recurring portrayal of Ernest T. Bass, a wily and exuberant mountain man character. He also played George, a television mechanic, in the episode "Andy and Helen Have Their Day," and provided the voice of Leonard Blush and the regular voice of the Mount Pilot radio station host on the same series. He directed several episodes of the show as well. In 1986, he reprised Ernest T. Bass in the television film Return to Mayberry. Other screen credits included the role of Elmer Kelp in The Nutty Professor, an appearance in Boys' Night Out (1962), the role of Schmidlap in Way... Way Out, a starring role in the Twilight Zone episode "I Dream of Genie," a movie studio clerk in the short film Star Spangled Salesman, and an art appraiser in an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. In 1984, he played Dr. Zidell in Splash, directed by Ron Howard, with whom he had first worked on The Andy Griffith Show. Mel Brooks cast Morris in multiple films: as psychiatrist Dr. Lilloman in High Anxiety (1977), as the emperor's court spokesman in History of the World, Part I (1981), and as a street bum named Sailor in Life Stinks (1991). In 1998, Morris appeared alongside Sid Caesar in the film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, with both playing nervous Jewish tailors.

As a director, Morris helmed episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, Hogan's Heroes, The Dick Van Dyke Show, the black-and-white pilot of Get Smart, One Day at a Time, Bewitched, and numerous other comedy series. His feature film directing credits included Who's Minding the Mint? (1967), With Six You Get Eggroll (1968) — Doris Day's final film — and Don't Drink the Water (1969).

Morris was also a prolific voice actor whose career in animation began in the early 1960s. He and Allan Melvin collaborated on a fifty-episode King Features Syndicate series based on Beetle Bailey, co-writing a number of those episodes. Morris provided voices for the Academy Award-winning animated short Munro, produced by Gene Deitch. Beginning in 1962, he worked extensively for Hanna-Barbera, voicing Jet Screamer on The Jetsons — including the character's "Eep opp ork ah ah!" song — and characters on The Flintstones. He originated the voice of Atom Ant and played Mr. Peebles on The Magilla Gorilla Show, again alongside Allan Melvin. He also voiced Breezly Bruin in another Hanna-Barbera series. A disagreement with Joseph Barbera before the 1966–1967 season led to Morris being replaced on those productions, with Don Messick taking over most of his roles, though the two men later reconciled and Morris returned to voice work for the studio. He voiced Forsythe "Jughead" Jones in Filmation's The Archies from 1968 to 1977, Wade Duck in the U.S. Acres segments of Garfield and Friends from 1988 to 1994, and Flem on Cow and Chicken from 1997 to 1999. Additional voice credits included Professor Icenstein and Luigi La Bounci in Galaxy High, Mayor McCheese and later the Hamburglar in McDonald's advertising, Gopher in the Disney featurettes Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree and Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, Webbly in Bobby's World, Squawk in Tom and Jerry: The Movie (1992), and the Qantas koala in television commercials from 1967 through 1992. Morris also directed voice work for numerous animated productions, including Police Academy, Richie Rich, Bionic Six, Galaxy High, The Snorks, Dragon's Lair, and Tom and Jerry: The Movie, among others.