In 1978, Bergen announced his retirement. Charlie would bedonated to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., to which he replied, “Well, at least I won't be the only dummy in Washington.” Only nine days after his announcement, Bergen died in his sleep after a performance at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.
W.C. Fields: “Well, Charlie McCarthy, the woodpecker's pinup boy.”
W.C. Fields: “I love children. I can remember when, with my own little unsteady legs, I toddled from room to room.”
Charlie: “When was that? Last night?”
W.C. Fields: “Quiet, Wormwood, or I’ll whittle you down to a coathanger.”
W.C. Fields: “Tell me, Charles, is it true that your father was a gate-leg table?”
Charlie: “If it is, your father was under it.”
W.C. Fields: “Why, you stunted spruce, I’ll throw a Japanese beetle on you.”
Charlie: “Why, you bar-fly you, I'll stick a wick in your mouth, and use you for an alcohol lamp!”
Charlie: “Pink elephants take aspirin to get rid of W. C. Fields.”
W.C. Fields: “Step out of the sun Charles. You may come unglued.”
Charlie: “Mind if I stand in the shade of your Nose?”
Sam Berman’s caricature of Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen for 1947 NBC promotion book
