Mr. Ed - Pinnacle of Bad Television

My wife made a good point tonight - "How did a TV show like Mr. Ed ever make it? A talking horse? Please."

Certainly worthy of a blog post to explore that question. Here you have a television show that lasted five years. Let me repeat that: FIVE YEARS. The entire premise revolved around a talking horse. Come on, people. How do you squeeze out 5 years of crappy episodes about a talking horse?

Kathryn just asked me - "Didn't the horse give advice?" I don't remember. But I really wanted it to. Like - so-and-so was in a jam, and Mr. Ed was able to talk them out of it. Kathryn is now fairly convinced that this was the point of the show. People would get in jams, consult the horse, and crisis would be averted. The horse was the wise sage. The guru. Mr. Ed.

How is this possible in a post-Enlightenment, educated, Western civilization? Entertainment derived from watching a horse talk? Come on.

It did say "Wilbur" a lot. And the voice was all wobbly. W-w-w-w-i-i-i-l-l-l-b-b-b-urrrrr!! Somehow the horse, though able to speak English, was not able to overcome its "horsey" nature, and thus its "horsey" accent. Ahhh, the sage does have his limitations.

I did just find out via Wikipedia, that Mr. Ed was euthanized due to increasing poor health.

Mr. Ed became Elmer's.