Ed Wynn

Much like Joe E. Brown and Oliver Hardy, Ed Wynn had the kind of face that lent itself to caricature. His cartoon likeness turned up in Warner Bros.' "Shuffle Off to Buffalo", and his face graces a pot of jam in Max Fleischer's  "Betty in Blunderland".

A successful vaudeville, radio and television comedian, he took on dramatic roles in the last decade of his life at his son Keenan's urging (although the two always seemed to be the same age to a dumb kid like me.)

A lot of things are sweet about this ad: it's originally done in watercolors, it's signed, there's a horse's nose in it, and it's about a fire- chief sponsored by a flammable product. I suppose Texaco water would have been a tough sell back then, certainly much harder to market and far less profitable.