`Mr. Whipple' Of `Don't Squeeze The Charmin' TV Commercials, Dies At 91

Monday, November 19th 2007, 12:49 pm

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Dick Wilson, the character actor and pitchman who for 21 years played an uptight grocer begging customers ``Please, don't squeeze the Charmin,'' died Monday. He was 91.

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.

He also played a drunk on several episodes of ``Bewitched,'' as appeared as various characters on ``Hogan's Heroes,'' ``The Bob Newhart Show,'' and Walt Disney productions.