Hal Smith

Harold John Smith (August 24, 1916 – January 28, 1994) was an American actor and voice actor who was best known for his role as Otis Campbell, the town drunk on CBS' The Andy Griffith Show.

Smith was also one of the most prolific cartoon voice actors in entertainment history, having played many characters on various animated productions including Owl in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and later The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Uncle Tex on The Flintstones, Goliath in Davey and Goliath, and Flintheart Glomgold and Gyro Gearloose on DuckTales, as well as multiple other characters in The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, The Gumby Show, The Jetsons, Top Cat, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Clutch Cargo, Hong Kong Phooey, and many more. He is also known to radio listeners as the original voice of John Avery Whittaker in Adventures in Odyssey.

Biography
Smith was born in Petoskey, in the northern portion of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, but he spent a significant part of his early years living in Massena, New York. He graduated from the Massena High School in 1936. His mother was a seamstress, and his father worked at the local Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) factory.

After graduation, Smith worked from 1936 to 1943 as a disc jockey and voice talent for WIBX Radio in Utica, New York. After serving in the United States Army Special Services (entertainment) during World War II, he traveled to Hollywood and would go on to appear in many television series, including The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, The Lucy Show, The Addams Family, Night Court, and The Odd Couple, as well as appearing on the dramas Gunsmoke, Barnaby Jones, The Virginian, and Ellery Queen.

On-camera, Smith usually played comedic parts (often typecast as a drunk). Smith's best-remembered on-screen character was Otis Campbell, the town drunk on The Andy Griffith Show, during most of the series' run from 1960 to 1968. Some of his film credits include the Mayor of Boracho in The Great Race, King Theseus in The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, and Calver Weems in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. He frequently portrayed Santa Claus in animated specials and on-camera (including The Brady Bunch and commercials). In the 1960 film The Apartment, he combined his two specialties, in a bit as a drunken Santa Claus.

Smith was often heard in cartoons and commercials from the sixties onward. He worked most often for Hanna-Barbera, playing many roles on The Flintstones (including Santa, eccentric uncles, and loud Texans or Southerners), Coil Man on Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles, Yappee and the King on Peter Potamus, suspicious handymen and others on Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Sludge on The Smurfs, and parts in various Yogi Bear spin-offs and specials. He played Elmer Fudd in two later Looney Tunes shorts, Goliath and all adult males on Davey and Goliath, and various roles in Dr. Seuss specials.

For Disney, he played Goofy in Mickey's Christmas Carol and various records, Gyro Gearloose and Flintheart Glomgold on DuckTales, and supplied the whinnies for the horse Philippe in Beauty and the Beast. In the Winnie the Pooh theatrical featurettes, he voiced Owl, reprising the part in later spinoffs. For a time in the 1980s, he took over as the voice of Pooh after Sterling Holloway retired (in Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore, the Disney Channel series Welcome to Pooh Corner, and various educational shorts) before being replaced with Jim Cummings.

Smith was married to Louise C. Smith from 1936 until her death in 1992. They had a son.

After the death of his wife, Smith's own health began to deteriorate rapidly. On January 28, 1994, at the age of 77, Hal Smith died from an apparent heart attack. Don Pitts, his longtime agent, said that Smith died at his home in Santa Monica while he was listening to a nightly drama hour on radio. Smith is interred in the mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica, California.

Anime

 * Saber Rider & the Star Sheriffs (1984-1985) - Additional Voices

Anime Films

 * Warriors of the Wind (1984) - Lord Yupa, Narrator

Trivia

 * Even though he played Otis Campbell, the town drunk, in The Andy Griffith Show, Hal Smith never drank in real life.
 * He alternated with actor/game show host Jack Bailey as the voice of Walt Disney's Goofy after the original voice artist, Pinto Colvig, died in 1967.
 * He was the Godfather of Jessica Gee.