Trivia for
"Mister Ed" (1961)

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• The character Mr. Ed originated in a series of magazine stories. Not only did the horse talk, he got drunk.
  
  
• The real name of the horse that played Mr. Ed was Bamboo Harvester.
  
  
• The horse that played Mr. Ed is said to have died in 1979 at the age of 30, 33 or 34 (depending on the source). Other, equally reputable, sources give the horse's date of death as 1968, 1973 and 1974.
  
  

• Bamboo Harvester (as Mister Ed) had a stable mate horse named Pumpkin, who filled in as his stunt double on more rigorous shots. Pumpkin also appeared on the television series "Green Acres" (1965).
  
  
• Mr. Ed only talked to Wilbur because (in his judgment) he was the only person worth talking to.
  
  
• Larry Keating (Roger Addison) died during the third season, and was replaced by Leon Ames (Col. Gordon Kirkwood).
  
  
• Ed's stunt double Pumpkin was a quarter horse but looked very much like Ed, except for a gold spot in the middle of his white blaze. This spot was covered with white makeup when he worked as Ed's replacement.
  
  
• The house used on the series was the childhood home of Katy Rose many years after the show ended.
  
  
• "Mister Ed" was produced, initially, by George Burns McCadden Productions. Burns later said that he hired Alan Young for the part of Wilbur Post because he "just seemed like the sort of guy a horse would talk to."
  
  
• This was one of the few TV series to start in syndication, then be picked up by a major network.
  
  
• The original sponsor was Studebaker Corp., which supplied the cars and trucks for the show.
  
  
• Long after the show had ceased production but was still being seen in syndicated reruns, a fundamentalist religious group in Ohio claimed that the show's famous theme song was "satanic".
  
  
• AP News item, 4/22/63: Television's talking horse Mister Ed and Walt Disney's canine film star Big Red won Patsy awards as top animal performers of 1962. The awards were presented Saturday by the American Humane Society.
  
  

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