OCEAN CITY, N.J. — Never mind any questions of whether any squeezing actually took place. The real question is who gets credit for creating the catchphrase "Please don't squeeze the Charmin."

Just days after the death of actor Dick Wilson, who portrayed harried store clerk Mr. Whipple in Charmin commercials, two retired copy writers are each claiming they were the one who wrote the line.

Norman Schaut and John Chervokas, both in their 70s, say they worked at New York ad firm Benton & Bowles in the early 1960s but did not know one another. Both have clear memories of being the originator of the phrase at the center of the campaign that Advertising Age magazine ranked the 51st best of the 20th century.

"I could comfortably say it was my baby," Schaut, who now lives in Ocean City, told The Press of Atlantic City.

He recalls asking his firm's art director to make a store display with a yardstick to measure the thickness of the toilet tissue and adding the line "Please don't squeeze."

Chervokas, now the town supervisor in Ossining, N.Y., heard about Schaut's claim and was so upset he called him Tuesday, introducing himself by announcing: "You're talking to the man who created 'Please don't squeeze the Charmin.'"

A spokeswoman for Proctor & Gamble said there's no paper trail proving which Benton & Bowles employee brainstormed the enduring slogan.

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