Buckwheat was the wide-eyed, African-American character played for almost ten years by William Thomas. He was famous for his signature phrase, "O-Tay!" After leaving the show, Thomas dropped from the public eye. 20/20 claimed that it had tracked him down to Tempe, Arizona where he was working at a low-paying job as a grocery bagger. It aired an interview with him in which he talked about the cruel twists and turns his life had taken. Unfortunately for 20/20, the man they interviewed was not William Thomas... The man 20/20 interviewed was an impostor named Bill English who had been claiming to be Buckwheat for the past 30 years.