Skip Hinnant, Electric Company Decoder and Voice of Fritz the Cat, Dies at 86

Skip Hinnant, the comic actor who taught a generation of American children to read as Fargo North, Decoder on PBS's "The Electric Company," died November 8 in Denver. He was 86.

Hinnant's career stretched across six decades and three performing crafts: live musical theatre, children's television and voice acting. To Broadway buffs he was the original Schroeder in Clark Gesner's off-Broadway hit "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," a 1967 production in which his older brother, Bill Hinnant, played Snoopy. To animation historians he was the voice of the title character in Ralph Bakshi's 1972 feature "Fritz the Cat" and its 1974 sequel, "The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat."

Joseph Howard Hinnant was born September 12, 1940, on Chincoteague Island, Virginia. Television found him early. He played Ted, the boyfriend of Cathy Lane, on "The Patty Duke Show" from 1963 to 1965.

What made him famous?

In 1971 Hinnant joined the original cast of "The Electric Company," the Children's Television Workshop's reading program, and stayed for its entire run through 1977. As Fargo North, Decoder — a pun on Fargo, North Dakota — he cracked scrambled messages one letter at a time, folding phonics and spelling lessons into comedy. He also starred as The Boy in the show's soap opera parody, "Love of Chair," working alongside an ensemble widely regarded as one of the strongest in children's television.

His voice work extended well beyond Bakshi's X-rated cat. In 1977 he voiced Sunny the Easter Bunny in the Rankin/Bass stop-motion special "The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town." In 1980 he played Walt Kelly's comic strip hero in "I Go Pogo." He later appeared on "3-2-1 Contact," lent his voice to "My Little Pony and Friends," guest-starred on "As the World Turns" and "Kate & Allie," and played a shoe salesman in the 1990 animated special "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

Off camera, Hinnant served as president of the New York branch of the Screen Actors Guild, advocating for fellow performers during the 1990s, when he concentrated on voice-over work.

What does his death change for his audience?

Not the catalogue, which remains fixed: "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" became one of the most produced musicals in American history, and "The Electric Company" episodes still circulate. What changes is the chance for a farewell. In 2006 Hinnant returned to celebrate the show in a PBS retrospective and on "The Best of the Electric Company: Vol. 2," reconnecting with grown-up fans who had learned their letters watching him.

That reunion is worth remembering now, and the obituary's closing claim — that somewhere an adult who once shouted along as Fargo North puzzled out a word is still reading today — is the kind of sentiment that resists verification. The record itself does not need it. Hinnant's credits spanned PBS literacy programming, Bakshi's animation, Rankin/Bass holiday specials and a Peanuts musical, and he held major roles in each.

No cause of death has been disclosed, and no surviving family members were named in the announcement. What stands is the work: a performer who made decoding words a game for millions of children, and whose recordings outlast him.