rayaso | The Quiet Desperation of Mr. Ed

Season 9, Topic 4
“Nobody can ride your back if your back's not bent”

The Quiet Desperation of Mr. Ed

An Intimate Memoir
By
Wilbur Post

Mr. Ed and Wilbur Playing Chess
Courtesy of CBS, all rights reserved.

1. Forward

A horse is a horse, of course of course,
and no one can talk to a horse of course,
that is of course, unless the horse,
Is the famous Mister Ed!
[Excerpt From Theme for Mister Ed (CBS 1961-1966)]

Mr. Ed was the first, and as far as I know the only, talking horse. He was also my friend. Nothing has changed that. “I am what I am and that’s all that I am” Ed would say, quoting Popeye the Sailor Man. It was a philosophy that would lead to his death.

Scientists never discovered why Ed could talk, even though after his death, his brain and vocal cords were autopsied. The only significant finding was a slightly enlarged “whinny center.” Ed was not born with the ability to talk. Ed’s first words were uttered after he was gelded: “What the #### have you done to my balls?” The veterinarian promptly fainted. The number of stallions gelded in subsequent experiments is a dark chapter in animal research. In the absence of a scientific explanation, religious leaders simply called it a miracle.

Before being gelded, Ed was just an ordinary palomino. His owner, Les Hilton, used him as a saddle horse, primarily for trail rides. This had to stop once Ed could talk. It tended to surprise people. “Hey babe, you can whip me anytime!” brought complaints from the women.

Not many people knew that Ed could also read. He loved the Hollywood gossip rags. After he read an article about the woeful lack of talking animals following the death of Francis, the talking mule (who could not talk, which mystified Ed), he knew what he wanted to do. Hollywood. Les jumped at the idea. Ed was always complaining:

“Hay? Again?”

“My stall’s too cold!”

“This saddle hurts!”

On and on. The final straw was “We never talk anymore. Don’t you love me?” Les Hilton was a cowboy, and that was not the kind of relationship he wanted with a horse.

In Hollywood, talent is secondary to connections. It’s who you know that matters. Les knew Francis’s agent, who not only knew a gold mine when he saw it, but knew people at CBS. The “Mr. Ed” sitcom was born.

I first met Ed on the CBS soundstage for rehearsals. We clicked at once. I was Wilbur Post, the bumbling, confused owner of Mr. Ed, who spoke only to me. Hilarity ensued.

The show was an immediate hit. Fans, fame, and fortune followed, along with parties and more parties. Ed was photographed in his swimming pool giving a ride to Marilyn Monroe after a particularly wild party. Marilyn had a whip, but nothing else. It cost CBS a fortune to suppress that picture. A network lawyer reminded Ed of the morals clause in his contract.

Ed started spiraling out of control. There were so many pictures of Ed wearing funny hats while drunk that they became an inside joke on the show: Mr. Ed and a sombrero, Mr. Ed in a top hat, Mr. Ed under a woman’s straw hat.

The critics called Mr. Ed a comic genius. I called him a drunk. This put a real strain on our friendship. I told him he was drinking too much, that it was affecting his work. I knew the real reason he started wearing those ridiculous dark glasses to work, and it wasn’t for the laughs. “This is what I am” he told me. “Ed, this is going to kill you if you keep going” I pleaded. For a horse who could talk, he never could listen.

During the show, Mr. Ed started slurring my name: Wilburrr. He would hang on to that “r” for dear life. It wasn’t more comic genius. It was alcohol. By 1964, Mr. Ed was drunk all the time. By 1965, CBS had had enough. Mr. Ed was replaced by Pumpkin, his stunt double. Various tricks were used to make it look like Pumpkin could talk. The show was cancelled in 1966.

Mr. Ed died in 1968. The official cause was liver damage. He simply drank himself to death.

It would be easy to blame the parasites and hangers-on for Ed’s death, but ultimately he was who he was. He carried a lot of people a long way, but in the end, he was just a horse who could talk. He brought a lot of pleasure to a lot of people, and I want my friend remembered that way.

Wilbur Post
February 6, 1971

Additional Resources:

Theme Song Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_PZPpWTRTU

The first episode of Mr. Ed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3_QnVYbtns

Photograph of an obviously intoxicated Mr. Ed, courtesy of Hollywood Confidential, from the article “Star Horse is Coarse, Of Course” by Walter R. Brooks (June 15, 1963).

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

eska818.livejournal.com

I love that you've tagged this "bald-faced lies." Also this is hilarious, and I have a weird desire to listen to you tell this story with a straight face just to see if you can do it without laughing. XD Nicely done.

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