Howard Jerome Morris (September 4, 1919 – May 21, 2005) was an American actor, comedian, and director. He was best known for his role in The Andy Griffith Show as Ernest T. Bass, and as "Uncle Goopy" in a celebrated comedy sketch on Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows (1954). He also did some voices for television shows such as The Flintstones (1962–1965), The Jetsons (1962–1987), The Atom Ant Show (1965–1966), and Garfield and Friends (1988–1994).
Life and career
Morris was born to a Jewish family in the Bronx, New York, the son of Hugo and Elsie (née Theobald) Morris. His father was a rubber company executive. Morris attended New York University on a dramatic arts scholarship. During World War II, Howard was assigned to a United States Army Special Services unit where he was the First Sergeant. Maurice Evans was the company commander and Carl Reiner and Werner Klemperer were soldiers in the unit. Based in Honolulu, the unit entertained American troops throughout the Pacific.
He came to prominence in appearances on Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows (a live sketch comedy series appearing weekly in the United States, from 1950 to 1954). In April 1954, Morris joined Caesar and Carl Reiner in "This Is Your Story," an 11-minute takeoff on Ralph Edwards's This Is Your Life. Morris claimed it was his favorite sketch role. As The New Yorker'''s David Margolick wrote in 2014,
This opinion is shared by The New York Times and Hollywood.com, among others. Conan O'Brien tweeted in 2014, "Saw this Sid Caesar sketch when I was a kid. It made me want to make people laugh." Billy Crystal later called it a defining early influence: "That's how I used to go to bed. I'd grab my dad's leg, and he'd drag me to bed like Sid Caesar." The sketch can be viewed here, Morris enters at the 4:14 mark.
Morris also appeared twice in 1957 in episodes of the short-lived NBC comedy/variety show The Polly Bergen Show.
Although Morris was a classically trained Shakespearean actor, he is best remembered for playing the wily and over-the-top mountain man character Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show. Also, he played George, the TV mechanic in the episode, "Andy and Helen Have Their Day." He had lampooned southern accents while in the army at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He starred in one of the more comical early hour-long Twilight Zone episodes, "I Dream of Genie." Other roles included that of Elmer Kelp in The Nutty Professor, a movie studio clerk in the short film Star Spangled Salesman, and an art appraiser in an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. He also had appeared in several Broadway shows including the highly regarded 1960 revival of Finian's Rainbow as Og the leprechaun opposite Bobby Howes as Finian. He played the role of Schmidlap in Way... Way Out and appeared in the movie, Boys' Night Out (1962) starring Tony Randall, Kim Novak and James Garner.
Voice acting
Morris was first heard in animated cartoons in the early 1960s. He and Allan Melvin teamed up for a 50-episode King Features Syndicate series, Beetle Bailey, for which he and Melvin also wrote a number of episodes. He also provided the voices for Gene Deitch's Academy Award-winning Munro, about a four-year-old boy who was drafted into the Army.
Beginning in 1962, Morris played a variety of voices in many Hanna-Barbera series including The Jetsons as Jet Screamer who sang the "Eep opp ork ah ah!" song, (said to be Morris' first work for Hanna-Barbera) and The Flintstones. He was the original voice of Atom Ant and provided the voice of Mr. Peebles in The Magilla Gorilla Show, teaming up again with Allan Melvin who performed the voice for Magilla. In another series, Morris was heard as the voice of Breezly Bruin which was similar in tone with the Bill Scott vocalization of Bullwinkle. Morris had a disagreement with Joseph Barbera prior to production of the 1966–1967 season of Magilla Gorilla and Atom Ant and all of his voices were recast, mostly using Don Messick. Years later, the two men reconciled and Morris was back doing those voices and others. He also lent his voice to Forsythe "Jughead" Jones on Filmation's series The Archies through the life of the franchise, 1968–1977. Moreover, he was the voice of Leonard Blush, "The Masked Singer" - he had a skin condition - as well as the regular voice of the Mount Pilot radio station's host on The Andy Griffith Show.