Before all those edgy Hulu originals and the like, there was American television in the late 1940s and early 50s.
The then-new medium tossed it all out there, as it built kinescope bridges from vaudeville to radio, to movies, to that impossibly small black-and-white screen (complete with the test pattern for the biggest part of the day).
And one of its best practitioners was Jimmy Nelson.
Nelson, the father of Morgantown entertainer Larry Nelson, was a gentlemanly ventriloquist with a quick wit.
In fact, he could adlib in two voices (without moving his lips) while also making you believe two sawdust dummies had minds of their own.
Jimmy Nelson, 90, died last week in Florida from complications of a stroke he had suffered months before.
His funeral was Tuesday, and Larry Nelson said the tributes — including a prominent obituary in The New York Times — are still popping up on his Facebook page.
“I’m overwhelmed, and I’m very touched that people still thought that highly of my dad.”
Among Jimmy Nelson’s biggest fans is Jeff Dunham, who might be America’s best-known ventriloquist working today.
Larry Nelson is especially heartened by Dunham’s endorsement, he said.
It shows, he said, that his father was still relevant as an entertainer in that art form, which is still mainly associated with those early days of television.
Jimmy Nelson, who had grown up in Chicago, was honing his ventriloquist chops in pre-Rat Pack Las Vegas, when all this talk of TV caught his ear.
When he learned of an opening for a kids’ show host at a small station in Buffalo, N.Y., he threw his voice, and his fortunes, to America’s East coast.
New York City was the next logical stop.
Uncle Miltie says hello
That came after he caught the ear of Milton Berle, the former vaudevillian whose manic zaniness and (occasional) cross-dressing antics made his Texaco Star Theater the original Must-See TV.
Jimmy Nelson joined Berle’s troupe, along with his sawdust partners.
There was Danny O’Day, a bowtie-wearing wiseacre.
And Farfel, a none-too-rattled canine who may have been smarter than he let on.
Sometimes, Larry and his twin brother, Lee, would accompany their dad to the studio.
Because Berle was a taskmaster, Jimmy Nelson would caution his sons not to speak to the star unless he spoke first.
Of course, Berle always came over, Larry Nelson remembered.
At first, it was pure slapstick — silly noises, goofy faces.
Later, Larry Nelson said, as the boys got old enough to appreciate sharper jokes and asides, Berle upped the act.
“He’d say things like, ‘Now boys, who do you love more, your dad or your Uncle Miltie? And you’d better say your Uncle Miltie, ‘cause I’m the one signing the checks.’ Then he’d wink, and wheel off, probably to go yell at a floor director or something.”
Accent on chocolate
The Berle show was where Jimmy Nelson made his real name as a pitchman for Nestle, the company that made a powdered mix for chocolate milk.
It was a catchy jingle that Danny started, and Farfel finished: “N-E-S-T-L-E’S, Nestle’s makes the very best … chawk-LUHT.”
There was only one thing, however.
When New York’s McCann-Erickson advertising agency presented the jingle, the final word in the script, “chocolate,” was to be vocalized just like that.
Sounded a little flat, Jimmy Nelson said.
So he had Farfel, the drawling dog, drawl out the word, with just a little Brooklyn worked in: Chawk-LUHT.
“Advertising history,” Larry Nelson said.
Still voicing laughs
Right up until he was felled by his stroke, Jimmy Nelson was living the good life in Cape Coral, Fla., after his retirement in the late 1980s.
He was flattered when a group or an organization that still remembered him asked him to lend his voice(s) to a cause.
“A lot of times he’d work for free,” his son said.
“I learned a lot about comic timing from my dad, but what I really learned was humility.”
Jimmy Nelson talked about life in the Sunshine State in 2002, as a part of a profile The Dominion Post was doing on Larry Nelson’s entertainment and altruism in Morgantown.
At the time, Nelson, the ventriloquist, was reducing elementary school kids to guffaws as part of the “Don’t be a Dummy — Don’t Start” anti-smoking campaign for Florida public schools.
“It’s such a pure experience,” Jimmy Nelson told the newspaper.
“The kids don’t know me. Their teachers don’t know me. It’s just going out and making them laugh.”
‘Love you too, Dad’
After the stroke, Jimmy Nelson was tenacious in rehab, his son said.
But, Larry Nelson said, he was starting to wear down.
“Hey, 90 years old,” he said, chuckling. “I should be so lucky.
“My dad was my best friend and my mentor. I was blessed.”
The father and son last spoke a couple of weeks ago. That voice Jimmy Nelson was known for was starting to fail.
His speech was a little garbled, and he was tired.
“I’m not talking very well right now.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“Well, I’m still tired. I’m gonna have to sleep, a bit. Love you, son.”
“Love you too, Dad. Take a nap.”
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