This is a tribute to my friend Skip Young. Skip was an actor best known for his role as Wally Plumstead on TV's "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet". We were friends for over twenty years.
Skip use to come over to my house when I was a kid. He was always laughing and made the best shrimp salad. He always had a cocktail in his hand whenever I saw him outside the radio station. I remember him being so heartbroken when Ricky Nelson died in that plane crash. He had just seen him a short time before when he played a concert at the fair grounds. Skip was definitely a good guy.
I met Skip Young (Wally Plumstead) on a USO tour in Bangkok, Thailand while in the Army around 1973/74. He was the same upbeat character that everyone remembered from his movie and tv appearances. I recalled him being in one of my favorite Elvis movies-"Loving You", and how full of life he was. RIP Skip. 💫
He came to Quang Tri and talked with a few of us while in the rear C-1-11, 5th Inf Division, Vietnam. He told us of the show, friendly guy. I respected him for coming to show support for us in unpopular time; a rare thing, no fanfare, meaningful. I can't remember any other civilian doing that, but I was seldom in the rear area.
Thanks Randy-- I recall him visiting the Station a lot- a real nice guy-- he was friends with Elvis and was in one or 2 of his movies-and went to parties at Graceland-a real piece history.
A very fine tribute to a performer who made me laugh every time he was on screen. I remembered "Wally Plumstead," as a child, but years later Nickelodeon re-ran "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," and I eventually got all my work colleagues to tune in, especially if it featured Skip. Thanks for the tribute and thanks to your friend for making me smile.
Charlene Salerno who played Ginger the girlfriend of Wally Plumstead Skip Young was A beautiful and talented Actress.Charlene Salerno And Pat Woodall (Bobbi Jo Bradley)on Petticoat Junction And Skip Young(Wally Plumstead) all passed away Too young and I miss those 3 actors and I also miss Rick Nelson. RIP Skip Young Charlene Salerno Rick Nelson Pat Woodall Bobbi Jo
My Favorite character on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was Wally Plumstead Played by Skip Young. My Favorite character on Happy Days was BAG ZOMBROSKI played by Neil J Schwartz.
I remember Skip when I was a kid back in the day. He was a great guy and fun to be around. Great job Randy as always. Keep.up the great work. I will be starting a new Motovlog if spring ever comes. I will be travelling around on my motorcycle filming trails and scenic rides and things of interest. The Midwest winter has been brutal this year,can't wait for spring to come.
The picture loving you, with Elvis was almost a Hollywood version of the way Elvis got started in music period? He was a relative unknown with a tremendous talent.
Do you know anything about his life prior to acting? The 1950 census said he worked in mailroom at a movie studio, then went to Navy Boot camp in San Diego in August 1950.
He was actually a superb actor. You have to be to play a fairly ridiculous caricature of a character yet still make it come across as believable. (Like Don Knotts as Barney Fife or Tony Randall as Felix Unger.) On Ozzie and Harriet, "Wally" was always bright and sunny and off the wall. A nice contrast to ALL the Nelsons who were usually so laid back they sometimes seemed barely awake. "Wally" always woke things up. The writing they provided him was excellent for his talents.
@@gerrydooley951 There was a lot amusing about the show. Including bringing their real-life wives into the cast like June Blair who died just a couple days ago. Not great actresses but I think Ozzie directed and/or helped pretty well and got the best out of people. A while back I watched many reruns and was more tuned in to the "product placement" they did for their sponsor. It was really blatant. Like with Kodak, even when The Nelsons are introduced at the beginning, Ricky has a camera hanging around his neck. And they had an entire episode "The Camera" where Ozzie buys four cameras for everybody to use. But Coca Cola was the most blatant. All the time somebody was offering somebody a Coke. Ozzie could be in the garage and suddenly come up with a couple of cokes (they would have been warm, of course). In one Episode David is talking to a girl editor about the college paper in a classroom and she offers him a Coke. There just happens to be a refrigerator nearby with, I presume, free Cokes for the taking. The funniest was when Ozzie and Harriet had two other couples visiting in their living room and Harriet offers Cokes. She enters from the kitchen with a tray of six bottles of coke perfectly arranged in a 2 x 3 patter with all labels facing precisely toward the camera and each with a long straw sticking out, all at exactly the same angle. They looked like little soldiers.
@@trainliker100 a lot of the guys who were hired as Rick's college friends were terrible actors because they really weren't professionals, not all but most. James Stacey was ok, Kent McCord definitely graduated from the Rick Nelson school of acting. I noticed the coke stuff, very funny. Also, everyone spoke perfect English and the girls sounded like Stepford wives. Compared to AOAH Leave it to Beaver was a gritty documentary on the late '50's. All this being said, I really like the show, you can enjoy it on a few different levels.
@@gerrydooley951 It think Ozzie and Harriet was perhaps the best show of the style that revolved around a somewhat hapless and bumbling father (and I go back far enough to remember all of them, such as "The Life of Riley".) Father Knows Best might be a better example of a "gritty documentary" as they had many episodes where especially one kid or the other was an emotional wreck badly in need of some XANAX. But when Father Knows Best first came out (on TV, it was on radio before), it seemed influenced by the Ozzie and Harriet format and it was lighter and "Jim Anderson" in the early episodes was more of a bumbling father before he became wise and more of a straight man for the others to be comedic. And "Betty" was a squealing "bobby soxer" (sort of like today's "valley girl") in the first episodes before she became mature beyond her years. I think Leave it Beaver was pretty light drama compared to the frequent tragedy drama in Father Knows Best.
@@trainliker100 I would say that the three best family sitcoms of the 50's were LITB, AOOAH, and FKB. On radio there was a question mark in the title of FNB? .
Actually, Skip's *real* name is "Winter", &-last I heard-he's residing in Florida. He lived in Janesville, Wisconsin for awhile, before moving to Florida.
As far as I'm concerned SKlP YOUNG who played Wally Plumstead on Ozzie and Harriet And Charlene Salerno who played Ginger were the funniest persons On the show Wally and Ginger Should have had their own spin off show Also the character of Bag Zombroski played by actor Neil J Schwartz on HAPPY Days Wàs very similar to the character of Wally Plumstead.Bag.played Jokes on Richie Potsie and Ralph And Wally played jokes on Rick and David Nelson I think that the character of BAG Zombroski was modeled.after Skip Youngs character of Wally Plumstead
Yes Bobo. When Ozzie cast him to be Wally they needed a last name for the character.... Skip said why don't we use my real last name. Ozzie said Wally Plumstead.... that's it! Perfect.
