John Stephenson at BotCon 2001...

In my recurring quest to find video footage of the late voice actor, John Stephenson, I came across a video last month on YouTube that I have yet to spotlight in a blog entry...but that's being taken care of in this blog. Video surfaced last month of BotCon2001...which is notable, for me at least, as being the edition of that event in which John Stephenson made a rare public appearance. He was part of a three person panel discussing not only their careers in animated cartoons but their time spent on the Transformers series of the 1980s. Michael Bell and Gregg Berger are the other voice artists on the panel. BotCon is the name of the convention celebrating all things Transformers.

If you know your classic Hanna-Barbera history then you'll know that both Michael Bell and John Stephenson worked on the animated series, Super Friends, at different points in that program's history. John was actually part of the first season of that series in the role of Col. Wilcox. He would also lend his voice to a villain, Sculpin, in a second season episode. Michael Bell became a cast member of that series beginning with Season Two in the roles of both Zan and Gleek.

As soon as John begins speaking you should recognize the voice immediately. He used his natural speaking voice in a lot of the cartoons because it lent itself perfectly to characters of authority. He voiced all kinds of policemen, doctors, scientists, and military officials...but he could also deliver evil versions of those professions, too...with just a growl or snarl of the voice. In the opposite extreme he could be silly, too. In Wacky Races he voiced Luke and the forever whining Blubber Bear. He did impressions of Paul Lynde's voice, for example. A lot of internet sites mistakenly credit Paul Lynde as the voice of Mildew Wolf in the 1977 animated series, Scooby's All Star Laff-a-Lympics, but in fact it was John Stephenson voicing that character. The confusion arises from Paul Lynde having originally voiced the character in an animated series called It's The Wolf, a segment of the animated Cattanooga Cats series. Mildew Wolf appears as a co-host on the 1977 Scooby series so I guess a lot of people just assume Paul Lynde voiced the character in that series, too. Several years later John resurrected the Paul Lynde vocal impression for another wolf...this time Wilfred Wolf on Tex Avery's Kwicky Koala series. Tex passed away in 1980 during the development/production of the series and didn't see it hit the airwaves in 1981. Wilfred's catchphrase is "Gotcha!!" whenever he goes to capture the quick-to-vanish koala. Kwicky twitches his ears in order to disappear from Wilfred's clutches. In the Top Cat series John could be heard as the suave Fancy-Fancy as well as Officer Dibble's superior in the police precinct. John's most publicized role is Mr. Slate in The Flintstones. When watching the video keep alert for John's Mel Blanc story, his recollections about voice director Wally Burr, Joe Barbera, and later in the clip John informally re-creates the cries of Blubber Bear while telling a story of his bleeding hand...oh, and John does a roar of a Dinosaur. He referenced a series, not by name, in which he was vocally cast as a Dinosaur and in the clip he demonstrates a roar!