Mister Ed - Other Characters

Other Characters

The other main character throughout the series was Wilbur's tolerant (to a point) young wife, Carol (Connie Hines). The Posts also had two sets of neighbors, to whom Ed delighted in making Wilbur appear as eccentric as possible. They included the Addisons, Roger (Larry Keating) and his wife Kay (Edna Skinner), who both appeared from the pilot episode until Keating's untimely death from leukemia in 1963; thereafter, Skinner continued appearing as Kay alone, without mention of Roger's absence, until the neighbors were recast. During this period her brother, Paul Fenton (Jack Albertson), who had made occasional appearances before, appeared with her (Jack Albertson was also billed as a cast member in the opening during these episodes). In the "official" pilot episode — two were filmed because the horse in the first pilot (the one where Wilbur and Carol first move into their new home and meet Mr. Ed) was unruly and difficult to work with — Roger caught Wilbur and Ed "conversing" and realized that Mister Ed could talk, but since Ed would not speak to anyone else and because Roger was a true skeptic, Wilbur defused the potential calamity by sufficiently convincing Addison that he was a ventriloquist and could "throw" Mister Ed's voice.

Following the Addisons, the Posts' new neighbors were Col. Gordon Kirkwood, USAF (Ret.), portrayed by Leon Ames, Wilbur's former commanding officer, and his wife Winnie (Florence MacMichael). They appeared on the series from 1963-65. In 1963, child actor Darby Hinton, cast thereafter as Israel Boone on NBC's Daniel Boone, guest-starred as 'Rocky' in the episode "Getting Ed's Goat." Mae West and Clint Eastwood also appeared in different episodes as themselves.

Ed's ability to talk was never explained or, indeed, even much contemplated on the show. In the first episode, when Wilbur expressed an inability to understand the situation, Ed offered the show's only remark on the subject: "Don't try. It's bigger than both of us!"

For the final season, the Kirkwoods were phased out, while Carol's grumpy and uptight father, Mr. Higgins (Barry Kelley), who appeared occasionally throughout the entire series, apparently moved in with Wilbur and Carol during the final episodes. Mr. Higgins loathed Wilbur since Wilbur's quirky eccentricity always clashed with his own emotionless and uptight personality. Carol's father never stopped trying to persuade her to divorce Wilbur, who he often referred to as a "kook" because of Wilbur's clumsiness. Alan Young performed double-duty during the final season of the series, also directing nearly all of those episodes.

Although Connie Hines retired from acting a few years after the show's cancellation in 1966, she and Alan Young made public appearances together.