Chris Hayward Dead at 81
Dec. 18th, 2006 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ltmurnauDudley Do-Right writer dies
Last Updated: Monday, December 18, 2006 | 11:56 AM ET
CBC Arts
Chris Hayward, a television writer who brought his off-beat sense of humour to the Rocky and Bullwinkle TV show and comedies such as Get Smart and Barney Miller, has died.
Hayward, 81, died of cancer Nov. 20 at his Beverly Hills, Calif., home, his wife Linda said on Sunday.
Hayward is credited with helping create the bumbling Mountie Dudley Do-Right for the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, which debuted on ABC in 1959, then moved to NBC in 1961.
Hayward was part of the animation comedy writing team that developed at the Sunset Boulevard studios of Jay Ward.
Ward's "philosophy was: 'Just write sharp stuff for yourself and the audience will get it.' It was very freeing," said Allan Burns, a Bullwinkle writer who was Hayward's partner.
The show was packed with puns and parodies of classical literature and developed an adult following for the cast of zany characters. Much of that quick wit came from Hayward.
"He was an amazing writer. I never knew where that offbeat sense of humour came from," said Burns.
Dudley Do-Right's strong chin may have been a nod to Hayward's own, his wife said, and the episodes had a melodramatic style modelled on old silent movies, one of Hayward's passions.
Burns and Hayward teamed up as writers after leaving the Ward studio in the early 1960s.
At a time when air time was dominated by stories about wholesome families, they formulated a plan to do a show "about a family that was just plain weird," Burns said.
The result was The Munsters, about a family of friendly monsters, which premiered on CBS in 1964. They were not credited with creating the concept until later, when the Writers Guild of America made a case for them.
They continued writing for TV comedies, earning an Emmy in 1968 for their work on the CBS sitcom He & She, about a sophisticated New York couple.
After writing for Get Smart, Burns and Hayward split up, with Burns moving on to help create The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970.
Hayward wrote for Barney Miller, an ABC series that satirized life in a police precinct, sharing writing credits with co-producer Danny Arnold.
Born June 19, 1925, in Bayonne, N.J., Christopher Robert Hayward moved to Los Angeles when he was 17.
He took a night class in scriptwriting at Fairfax High School, before seeking work in television in the 1950s. One of his first jobs was on Ward's Crusader Rabbit, the first cartoon show created specifically for television.
Hayward is survived by his children from a previous marriage, Laurel, Victoria and Tony.
***
This guy had some of the cleverest scripts, and certainly the concept guy behind The Munsters deserves to be remembered.
All of the good humour seems to be draining out of this world. I think it was Mort Sahl who started the practice of reading newspaper headlines to present truth as comedy, this is all we are left with now....
Last Updated: Monday, December 18, 2006 | 11:56 AM ET
CBC Arts
Chris Hayward, a television writer who brought his off-beat sense of humour to the Rocky and Bullwinkle TV show and comedies such as Get Smart and Barney Miller, has died.
Hayward, 81, died of cancer Nov. 20 at his Beverly Hills, Calif., home, his wife Linda said on Sunday.
Hayward is credited with helping create the bumbling Mountie Dudley Do-Right for the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, which debuted on ABC in 1959, then moved to NBC in 1961.
Hayward was part of the animation comedy writing team that developed at the Sunset Boulevard studios of Jay Ward.
Ward's "philosophy was: 'Just write sharp stuff for yourself and the audience will get it.' It was very freeing," said Allan Burns, a Bullwinkle writer who was Hayward's partner.
The show was packed with puns and parodies of classical literature and developed an adult following for the cast of zany characters. Much of that quick wit came from Hayward.
"He was an amazing writer. I never knew where that offbeat sense of humour came from," said Burns.
Dudley Do-Right's strong chin may have been a nod to Hayward's own, his wife said, and the episodes had a melodramatic style modelled on old silent movies, one of Hayward's passions.
Burns and Hayward teamed up as writers after leaving the Ward studio in the early 1960s.
At a time when air time was dominated by stories about wholesome families, they formulated a plan to do a show "about a family that was just plain weird," Burns said.
The result was The Munsters, about a family of friendly monsters, which premiered on CBS in 1964. They were not credited with creating the concept until later, when the Writers Guild of America made a case for them.
They continued writing for TV comedies, earning an Emmy in 1968 for their work on the CBS sitcom He & She, about a sophisticated New York couple.
After writing for Get Smart, Burns and Hayward split up, with Burns moving on to help create The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970.
Hayward wrote for Barney Miller, an ABC series that satirized life in a police precinct, sharing writing credits with co-producer Danny Arnold.
Born June 19, 1925, in Bayonne, N.J., Christopher Robert Hayward moved to Los Angeles when he was 17.
He took a night class in scriptwriting at Fairfax High School, before seeking work in television in the 1950s. One of his first jobs was on Ward's Crusader Rabbit, the first cartoon show created specifically for television.
Hayward is survived by his children from a previous marriage, Laurel, Victoria and Tony.
***
This guy had some of the cleverest scripts, and certainly the concept guy behind The Munsters deserves to be remembered.
All of the good humour seems to be draining out of this world. I think it was Mort Sahl who started the practice of reading newspaper headlines to present truth as comedy, this is all we are left with now....
