Well, it happened about 3 weeks ago (11/19), but I just stumbled
across the obit.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aMGbx_fzoS3E&refer=canada
Dick Wilson, the character actor known for playing ``Mr. Whipple'' in
commercials for Procter & Gamble Co.'s Charmin bath tissue, died today
in a California hospital at age 91, the company said.
Wilson played Mr. Whipple, a grocer who told shoppers ``Please don't
squeeze the Charmin,'' in more than 500 commercials from 1964 to 1985
and reprised the role to introduce a new version of the product in
1999, Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble said in a statement.
The spot was ``one of the most enduring, rememberable'' commercials
ever, and helped inspire modern television pitchmen such as the gecko
that hawks insurance for Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s GEICO unit and the
Aflac Inc. duck, said Brad Adgate, director of research at New
York-based advertising agency Horizon Media Inc.
``You can recite these things a generation later and it speaks to how
much money Procter & Gamble spent on Charmin and how memorable the
commercials were,'' Adgate said in a telephone interview. ``It was
always one theme about him scolding these housewives in the
supermarket about squeezing the toilet tissue.''
Wilson started his career as an announcer and disc jockey in Canada at
15, the company said. He later went on to perform in movies including
``Planet of the Apes,'' theater productions including ``Dial M for
Murder'' and ``The Unsinkable Molly Brown'' and television shows such
as ``Hogan's Heroes,'' ``McHale's Navy'' and ``Bewitched.''
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