Today 44 years ago: Mister Ed

Mister Ed was a popular US television comedy show that aired on CBS from 1961-1966. The stars of the show were Mister Ed, an intelligent talking horse, and his owner, architect Wilbur Post (played by Alan Young). The comedy came from Mister Ed talking only to Wilbur.

The other main characters in the show were Wilbur's tolerant wife Carol (Connie Hines) and their neighbours the Addisons (Larry Keating and Edna Skinner) until 1963 and then the Kirkwoods (Leon Ames and Florence MacMichael). The unaired pilot was called The Wonderful World of Wilbur Pope; reworked, it was first broadcast in January 1961 as a syndicated program before being acquired by CBS and aired by that network beginning in October. The 143rd and last episode was shown on September 4, 1966.

Mister Ed was voiced by Allan Lane (speaking) and Sheldon Allman (singing). The horse portraying Mister Ed was Bamboo Harvester, born in California in 1949 and died in 1970. He was trained for the show by Les Hilton. Another horse that had played Mister Ed in some publicity work died in 1979.

The show was parodied in a Harry Enfield comedy series, first shown on BBC, in which Mr Ed was transfigured to Mr Dead, the Talking Corpse.