“Mr. Ed”: Hollywood Meets Mister Ed

Mister Ed’s success gave him the pull to get big name celebrities to make guest starring appearances on his show. One of the first was George Burns.

As a producer and the man who financed the pilot, George Burns had a financial reason for doing the show. His decision to finance the show had originally earned him little more than scorn from his fellow Hollywood denizens who mocked his talking horse show. After the show’s success, however, Burns had proved them all wrong and his guest starring role as himself was like a victory lap for him.

When Mae West signed onto the show, the gossip mongers theorized that she had taken herself out of mothballs because, like Chico Marx, she needed the money. It was true that Mae West had been out of pictures for years, choosing to retire after the Hayes Code made her trademark ribald situations and double entendres impossible to include in films, but Ms. West had invested her money wisely. Her legendary penthouse sat atop a luxury Hollywood apartment building that she owned outright, renting out the other apartments to wealthy celebrities and studios. She did spend money a bit lavishly, reportedly buying new cars every year and selling the old ones to friends for $1, but she could afford to spend as she wished, leaving behind an estate valued in excess of $75 Million. So why did she agree to star with Mister Ed? Only Mae knows for sure, but she possibly sensed that the Hayes Production Code was on its last legs and thus tested the waters to see if she could triumphantly return to Hollywood once her favored risqué types of films could be released again.

It was no secret why Zsa Zsa Gabor did her guest stint. Ms. Gabor was the prototype for useless celebutantes who were famous for being famous. She would attend the opening of a screen door if the paparazzi were involved. Mister Ed was a way for her to get more exposure and keep her name out there.

Mr. Ed: No One Can Talk to A Horse

The success of Mister Ed not only led to him making the jump from syndication to network television, it also inspired a seemingly never ending array of merchandise. There were comic books:

Board games, even in Germany:

Records:

and even buttons:

Mister Ed even began making personal appearances; at least his impersonators did. While the actual Mister Ed was a horse named Bamboo Harvester, a few lookalike horses toured the country to meet his fans. Television production limited Bamboo Harvester’s availability, so the lookalikes were seen as a way to satisfy the demands of his fans. The lookalikes were often used for publicity pictures, but only Bamboo Harvester ever appeared on the show because he had already been trained to “talk”.

Alan Young once commented that he always preferred working with Bamboo Harvester over the lookalikes, who were apparently more temperamental than the actual star. Apparently, his Hollywood success never went to his head.

“Mr. Ed”: Of Course, Of Course

Having figured out a way to bring a talking horse to television without attracting the ire of Universal Pictures, Arthur Lubin began taking his George Burns produced Mister Ed pilot to the networks. Would they be as optimistic about the show’s viability as he was?

Of course, they would not. Mr. Lubin had put so much effort behind this show that he wasn’t willing to take no for an answer. Taking some of the notes he had received from the networks, he re-cast Wilbur and reshot the pilot with new new actor: Alan Young. This time, he teamed up with Filmways Productions and sought to produce the show in syndication.

A syndicated television show has to be sold town to town, which can be quite a daunting challenge. A network show only has to be sold once - to the television network - which then requires its affiliates to air the show. With no such backing, Filmways had to find enough stations across the country that would be willing to carry the show to make its production worthwhile. Arthur Lubin personally took on this challenge, selling Mister Ed to local stations himself. The gambit worked and Mister Ed premiered in 1961.

The show was a huge success, proving Arthur Lubin correct. The show’s seemingly instant success prompted CBS to make a rare decision- it was picking up Mister Ed’s second season. Most of the time, shows go from network television to syndication. This amazing horse would do the opposite- a huge sign of its initial success.

“Mr. Ed”: A Horse is a Horse

In television’s early years, most of its comedic programming centered around the family unit. Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, The Donna Reed Show and many others derived laughs from family situations. With the sameness of such programming, some television producers sought to make their pitches stand out from the pack. Would a show with a talking horse stand out? Mr. Ed creator Arthur Lubin hoped so.

Arthur Lubin had been directing the lucrative Francis the Talking Mule series of feature length pictures for Universal Pictures and thought that the concept would make a successful transition to television. The series was about an army mule who would only speak to a young soldier, thus making many people think he was crazy. Lubin wanted to acquire the television rights and produce a weekly series. Universal, however, was unwilling to sell the rights at any price; though the series had fizzled out by the late 1950’s, it thought that the series might possibly make a comeback. Thus Lubin would get his first setback in his quest to get a Talking animal program produced.

Hard to say who is the biggest jackass in this picture.

Lubin could have just changed the name of the mule and pushed forward with his project, but since he was the director of five Francis films and had tried negotiating with Universal Pictures for the rights, a copyright case against him would have been a slam dunk. His secretary found an answer to this problem- a series of children’s stories by author Walter Brooks about a talking horse named “Mr. Ed”. Lubin could buy the television rights from Brooks to protect himself from any litigation from Universal. The gambit worked. Lubin, using financing from George Burns, produced a Mr. Ed pilot.

The initial pilot started Scott McKay as Wilbur “Pope”, who owned the titular Mr. Ed. Lubin proudly carried the pilot around town, trying to sell it to network television. He was soundly rejected. Sure, the pilot was unlike anything the networks had ever seen, but while Lubin had seen that as a positive, they saw it as a negative. He would have to come with a new strategy to get his talking horse on television.