Lennie Weinrib, a character actor and prolific voice-over artist who supplied the voice for the title character in the children's fantasy television series "H.R. Pufnstuf," has died. He was 71.

Mr. Weinrib died last Wednesday at a hospital in Santiago, Chile, after suffering a stroke, said his daughter, Linda Weinrib. He had retired from show business in the early 1990s and moved to Chile, where his second wife, Sonia, was from.

Known as warm, funny and full of gusto, Mr. Weinrib had a varied career that included working as a stand-up comic, appearing in the "Billy Barnes Revue" on Broadway in 1959 and being co-author of the 1963 elephant joke classic "The Elephant Book."

As a character actor, he appeared on such TV series as "My Favorite Martian," "77 Sunset Strip," "The Twilight Zone," "The Munsters" and the "Dick Van Dyke Show," including an episode in which he played an insult comic who asks the bald Mel Cooley (played by Richard Deacon), "Do you pluck your scalp?"

Mr. Weinrib also had a stint as a director of low-budget teen flicks in the mid-1960s, directing the beach comedy "Beach Ball," the spy spoof "Out of Sight," and the ski-slope comedy "Wild, Wild Winter."

But it was as a voice-over artist for more than 30 years that he had his greatest success.

By the mid-1960s, he was considered one of the top 10 voice-over talents working in commercials -- supplying voices for everything from Ford and Avis to Pepsodent toothpaste and Hunt's tomato sauce.

He also provided voices for numerous TV cartoon series, including "The Flintstones," "The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show," "The New Tom & Jerry Show," "Garfield and Friends," and "Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo" (on which he did the original voice of Scrappy-Doo).

On the Sid and Marty Krofft-produced "H.R. Pufnstuf," which was set on "Living Island," Mr. Weinrib provided the voice for Pufnstuf, the island's dragon mayor, as well as many other characters.

Mr. Weinrib was instrumental in developing the live-action Saturday morning series, which debuted in 1969, and was its main writer. Although only 17 episodes were made, the series ran continuously on NBC and ABC for five years and has aired intermittently since then.

The New York City-born Mr. Weinrib moved to Los Angeles with his family as a child. He went to the University of California, Los Angeles.

His father, a traveling salesman, wanted him to become a dentist. But Laura Weinrib said her father made up his own mind on a career after running into fellow student Carol Burnett, who invited him to see her in a campus production.

Mr. Weinrib's first big TV exposure came on zany bandleader Spike Jones' CBS summer show in 1960.

His flair for doing voices, including various dialects, came naturally to Mr. Weinrib.

In the 1960s, he dubbed David Niven's voice on "The Rogues" TV pilot, dubbed Peter Sellers for "Pink Panther" movie spots and did a variety of voices for the movie comedy "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."