The New Haven Register reports that Mike Warren, TV companion to young Baby Boomers in the 1960s as Mr. Goober on New Haven television, died Friday at age 80.
Warren played the aging Mr. Goober five days a week on WNHC-8 (later to become WTNH). In the 1970s Warren went on to do the morning talk show “Dialing for Dollars” at Channel 8 with the late Bob Norman. The show led to breezy “AM Connecticut” and “12 O’ Clock Live,” which continues at WTNH as “News Channel 8 at Noon” and its companion show “Connecticut Style.”
He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Ronna, and five of his six children. Services are scheduled for Wednesday at St. Therese Church in Branford.
We always used to wake up and watch Mr. Goober before changing the channel to watch Capt. Kangaroo. He will be missed…
As Mr. Goober, he would often introduce a Popye, Mighty Mouse, or Clutch Cargo cartoon with the catch phrase, “Turn the crank, Frank!” The young puppeteer that worked with Mike on the show in its later years eventually went to Los Angeles and created the puppet Alf for an NBC sitcom. I remember seeing Mike Warren’s last regular appearance on Channel 8; I believe it was in the late 1970s on the noon program, 12 O’Clock Live. He said that one of the reasons that he was getting out of television was because the business had changed so much from the time that he started in it. He implied that the changes weren’t for the better. Shortly afterwards, he hosted a 1-5AM local call-in talk show on WTIC-AM. He would discuss subjects like the paranormal, and a woman once called in to calmly talk about the poltergeists in her house. One regular caller would always end his call by saying, “Good-bye, Mr. Goober.” Mike Warren would chuckle at this because he realized that the caller knew his alter ego.
Spelling correction: Popeye