The Foote Files: Who Would A Horse Talk To? Alan Young, Of Course!
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FORT WORTH (CBS11) - One of my favorite times to be a local TV programmer was my time with KXTX Channel 39 when the station owned the local syndication rights to Mister Ed: America's Favorite Talking Horse!
The show was similar to the Universal Picture's "Francis" series of movies starring Donald O'Connor whose companion was a smart talking mule. Comedian George Burns played a major role in financing the pilot which was shot at his studio in Hollywood where the Burns & Allen Show had been produced. Arthur Lubin, the producer, was unable to secure a network television clearance at first so it actually went into local syndication before CBS picked it up in October 1961 with Alan Young as the star. Burns was familiar with Young who had been very successful on both radio and television. He reportedly told his casting people, "go hire Alan Young for the starring role. He looks like someone a horse would talk to!"
The premise of the show was simple: a horse that had been left by the former owners of the house that had been sold to Wilbur and Carol Post (Young and Connie Hines), only to discover that the horse (Mister Ed) talked….BUT….would only talk to Wilbur. As you can imagine, this put him in a number of quirky situations almost to the point where Carol was almost ready to leave him! Their first neighbors were Roger and Kay Addison (Larry Keating & Edna Skinner). Keating, who had had a long association with George Burns, passed away in 1963. Skinner stayed with the show one more year then left. In 1964, Gordon and Winnie Kirkwood became the new neighbors (Leon Ames and Florence MacMichael). Ames was a long time Hollywood character actor starring in such films as Meet Me In St. Louis and The Postman Always Rings Twice. Rocky Lane, a retired actor from the 1940's, was the voice of Mister Ed (by the way, the horse's real name was Bamboo Harvester, although in the show credits Mister Ed is credited as "Himself').
After six seasons and 143 episodes, the show ended in September 1966 but has run in syndication around the country ever since. The show had some great guest stars too such as Mae West, Clint Eastwood, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Donna Douglas & Irene Ryan (both from The Beverly Hillbillies), and Neil Hamilton (Hamilton was a silent movie actor but most people today remember him as Commissioner Gordon on ABC's Batman).
The opening and closing theme songs were written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston. They go something like this:
