 | edt4 (115)
03/28/2008 |  I enjoyed his character a lot as a kid, maybe because I related to him in some way. I grew up watching the series and the host who featured them (I'm thinking it was Officer Joe Bolton in NY, but now that I think of it, he was the Three Stooges host) mentioned at some point that Wheezer (Bobby Hutchins) had died in a training accident during World War II. For a long time, that haunted me, and seeing his juvenile image on our old black-and-white TV set was like seeing a ghost. Reading about the series as an adult, it turns out that a lot of the surviving Rascals who worked with him never really knew him well, as his parents tended to keep him separated. There were intimations that his father might have been abusive, and it didn't seem as if he had had the happiest of childhoods. I believe he's buried in a Lutheran cemetery in Tacoma, Washington. Sad, but I guess he's immortal in a sense (as all the Rascal members are) and will continue to bring joy to children and adults so long as film exists. Not that that makes up for a tragically abbreviated life, but in the larger scheme of things, it's not an inconsiderable achievement.
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 | MissPackRat4Jesus (42)
02/18/2005 | Wheezer (Bobby Hutchins) was especially good in the short Dogs is Dogs, in which there is a moving scene of him crying when Petey is taken to the pound. Semi-serious roles were made for Wheezer. It's sad that he died so young. At least he was serving his country at the time.
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