Jerry Haynes

In 1961, WFAA asked Jerry Haynes to star in a children’s
show, which would take place in a music shop. Two weeks
before the program was to begin airing, Jerry was sitting at a
traffic light at the corner of Garland Road and Buckner Boulevard.
The name, “Mr. Peppermint,” came to him. He had borrowed the idea
of a striped coat and straw hat from the movie, “The Music Man,”
and decided he needed a striped name to go with it.

The first nine years of “Mr. Peppermint” were aired live. The program
was broadcast in color starting in 1968. The show returned in 1975 as
“Peppermint Place,” with a new co-star, Muffin Bear, created and
controlled by Vern Dailey. Jerry and Vern had made more than 6000
episodes when the show ended in 1996.

Jerry is a native Dallasite. He graduated in 1944 from Woodrow Wilson
High School and from SMU in 1950. Jerry then attended the American Theater
Wing in New York and worked as a sports director and variety show
host/announcer. He has been active in the Dallas theater scene and acted in
more than 50 movies and television shows including: “Walker, Texas Ranger,”
“Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” and “Places in the Heart.”

Married to Doris Gibson for more than 52 years, Jerry and she have three children: Carla, Gibby and Andy, and four grandchildren: Andrea, Molly, Mathew and Curtis.