It’s a sad day for toilet paper obsessives everywhere as Dick Wilson, best known as the neurotic grocer who defended Charmin bathroom tissue from the groping clutches of lonely housewives, has passed away:
The man famous as TV’s “Mr. Whipple” died of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, said his daughter Melanie Wilson, who is known for her role as a flight attendant on the ABC sitcom “Perfect Strangers.”
Wilson made more than 500 commercials as Mr. George Whipple, a man consumed with keeping bubbly housewives from fondling toilet paper. The punch line of most spots was that Whipple himself was a closeted Charmin-squeezer.
The first commercial aired in 1964 and by the time the campaign ended in 1985 the tag line and Wilson, a former Canadian airman and vaudeville veteran, were pop culture touchstones.
Seriously though, what the hell was up with those housewives? I mean, check this out:
The second woman in that first commercial looks like she’s on the verge of having an orgasm or something. Which just shows that people in commercials come from an entirely different planet.
Another character from our past gone!