Stan Freberg: 1926-2015

There have been a lot of comedians, comedy writers, and brilliant witty minds over the course of the last 50+ years. Comedy is subjective and there are many styles of humor...and there are certainly many performers of those many styles of humor. Comedy ranges from the gentle to the provoking...the folksy to the urbane...parody...satire...it all goes into the mixer. Satire is not everyone's cup of tea, though, Stan without question was a master satirist. The ironic thing about it all is most satirists are entertaining and witty, yes, but on some level a satirist can be off-putting or just too aggressive/relentless in their efforts (coming across as being bitter or vindictive). Even though Stan is quoted as describing himself as a "guerrilla satirist" I don't happen to think it fits. I think Stan's unpretentious personality shined through on all of his records...whether it be a song or a comedy sketch...and even if the intent on Stan's part happened to be that of a savage, take no prisoners style, you couldn't help but be entertained by the results and that's something, in my opinion, that elevates his material above any of his competitors in the field of satirical entertainment. I'm sure he's said things in his recordings that a listener may not have agreed with...but I bet those same listeners found themselves laughing at something they heard, nevertheless.

On April 7, 2015 Stan Freberg passed away at the age of 88 (born August 7, 1926). In the above photo I'm displaying the must-have 1999 project titled Tip of the Freberg. I became familiar with the name of 'Stan Freberg' by accident...it happened during the 1990s at a time when I started to pay more attention to the opening and closing credits of cartoons. Nickelodeon used to air Looney Tunes cartoons and during several episodes some of the cartoons from the mid to late '60s would get some air-time. These cartoons were produced after the exclusive screen credit for Mel Blanc had expired and we got to see more of the names of Mel's co-stars appear on-screen.

Well, like I said, I seen the name 'Stan Freberg' in the opening credits of a late '60s Looney Tunes cartoon.

Coincidentally a certain collection of Christmas comedy songs came into my possession in the early 1990s, too. The various artist project, titled Christmas Comedy Classics, originated in 1985 but I didn't a copy of it until the early 1990s. Stan has 2 recordings on that project...the whimsical rendition of "Nuttin' for Christmas" and the gutsy "Green Christmas". Talk about 2 recordings that are the polar opposite of one another! I later discovered that Daws Butler played the part of Bob Cratchit in "Green Christmas".

As I've pointed out a lot of times I didn't begin to become familiar with the names of voice actors/actresses until the 1990s...and so I was still learning a lot about those that worked alongside Mel Blanc in the Looney Tunes theatrical cartoons. In 1949 Stan joined forces with Bob Clampett to create the puppet series, Time for Beany. Stan provided the vocals for half of the characters. This program also featured the vocal talents of Daws Butler and he voiced a lot of the other characters. The 2 main roles for each voice artist happened to Beany and Captain Huffenpuff (voiced by Butler) while Stan voiced Cecil and Dishonest John. Years later an animated program based on the puppet series debuted on television. The animated series, Beany and Cecil, didn't feature the vocals of either Stan nor Daws Butler. By the time the animated cartoon had premiered Daws had become the top voice artist for Hanna-Barbera and Stan had moved on to advertising all the while keeping his lengthy recording career intact. In the picture above it's Stan's partial autobiography...the book covers his meteoric rise up the ranks amongst voice-over artists in the late 1940's and all the twists and turns his career took on through the early part of the 1960s.

The book arrived in 1988...but yet it cuts off in the early 1960s. That in itself is comical...and there's never been a sequel that picked up from the early '60s...hopefully there's going to be some sort of memorial magazine (hint, hint) that'll be released at some point this year that can offer highlight and insight, in book form, into all of Stan's activity from the mid '60s right on through his final days.

Until such a memorial magazine comes along, though, it's best to research his career on your own and along the way enjoy the comedy recordings and television commercials he worked on.

Some of the animated cartoon characters that Stan became associated with over the decades included Pete Puma, Junyer Bear, Chester the Terrier, Bertie the Mouse, and Tosh, one of the Goofy Gophers (all appearing in the Looney Tunes franchise). In addition to those roles Stan also gave voice to the Gambling Bug in a cartoon titled "Early to Bet" and one of the chefs in "French Rarebit". Each of those cartoons directed by Robert McKimson. He voiced the Beaver in the Disney film The Lady and the Tramp and for pure trivia sake he voiced a cattle baron in a Tom and Jerry cartoon titled "Posse Cat".

I had taken a series of photo's of myself in late March of this year for future blogs that I happen to write and given the recent death of Stan Freberg I felt this particular image to be perfect. I happen to feel it can be interpreted as a bit of visual humor related to Stan's hilarious parody of "The Banana Boat Song" (also known as "Day-O"). I'm either displaying my euphoria over the bunches and bunches of 'ripe banana' or I'm frightened by the black tarantula...take your pick. You can hear that song on various sites on the internet...I heard it for the first time on one of the CD's in the 1999 career retrospective I posted in the photo at the start of this blog. Tip of the Freberg...that's the name of the box set...I already mentioned the title of the project and it's year of release in the opening and I'm mentioning it once more...I mention it just for the sake of the facts...just the facts...and that of course should make any fan of Stan Freberg instantly think back to "St. George and the Dragonet"! This recording happened to be a sketch comedy featuring Daws Butler and June Foray as co-stars. Stan and company made 2 additional Dragnet parodies: "Little Blue Riding Hood" and "Christmas Dragnet". The box set provides a lot of material from Stan's radio program from 1957 and some of his recordings from the "pay radio" concept album Stan issued in the mid 1960s. Some of the biggest personalities of the 1950s found themselves being a target of Stan's humor. Ed Sullivan's program received spoofing by Stan in a sketch called "Most of the Town". Lawrence Welk became the target in the hilarious sketch "Wun'erful, Wun'erful!". Elvis and a host of other rock and roll performers had their recordings parodied by Stan...and then there's the incredible take off on Arthur Godfrey in a sketch called "That's Right, Arthur" that had never been heard until the 1999 box set came along. Among the many highlights in the box set is "Elderly Man River"...it's a prophetic comedy sketch featuring Stan and Daws. In the sketch Stan attempts to sing "Old Man River" but the censor (Daws Butler) objects to so many words and phrases that the song is re-titled "Elderly Man River". It's years ahead of it's time...it skewers political correctness decades before the movement began to latch on and grow tentacles in pop culture.

The box set features recordings lifted from Stan's 1961 album, Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America: The Early Years. Paul Frees does the narration of the project. Ironically the supporting players do not include Daws Butler but June Foray is among the cast as is Marvin Miller, Jesse White, Walter Tetley...just to name a few. It's largely regarded as Stan's masterpiece. A follow-up arrived decades later in 1996 (!) to nostalgic waves of support. By this time Stan had become an icon in the advertising business...his funny, sarcastic, and iconoclastic television and radio commercials became Clio winning slices of comedic salesmanship. The Clio is the top award in the advertising industry.

It was in the 1990s that seen Stan become a radio commentator, of sorts, on NPR stations in a series of essays airing under the Stan Freberg Here... banner. Several of those commentaries appear on the 1999 box set. Four years earlier, in 1995, Stan became the second host of the syndicated old-time radio tribute program When Radio Was (Art Fleming had been the previous host). I have fond memories of this program, as hosted by Stan Freberg, and I remember listening to episodes of it on a local AM radio station at the time. It aired from 11pm to Midnight. Fred Foy, of The Lone Ranger fame, provided the introduction for each of the episodes Stan hosted. The intro included some of the dialogue Fred used in his intro's for The Lone Ranger. I assume Stan's affiliation with old-time radio and his reputation as a champion of 'theater of the mind' entertainment happened to be the big reason he was picked to host the old-time radio program.

I got word of Stan's death like most of the other millions of people...through social media and internet reports. I couldn't believe the news, though, because in my mind I had always pictured Stan to be in good physical health in spite of his older age. In one of the internet reports it indicated that he may have been suffering from pneumonia...but other than that there hasn't been any official statement given as to the cause of death. Stan had a long and successful career...his recordings are going to live forever. If you had never heard of him until today then do yourself a favor and visit YouTube or Amazon and get yourself familiar with his contributions to comedy.

Here's a brief time-line:

1926: Born on August 7th.

1944: Arrived in Hollywood, California (age 17).

1946: voices Bertie in Chuck Jones' "Roughly Squeaking".

1947: voices Charlie Horse in Bob Clampett's "It's a Grand Ole Nag".

1948: Succeeded the late Kent Rogers as the voice of Junyer Bear; "What's Brewin', Bruin?".

1949: helped create television program Time For Beany; Voiced Cecil and Dishonest John, among other puppet characters; remained in production until 1955 and received multiple Emmy awards.

1951: Released his first recording for Capitol Records, "John and Marsha".

1951: voices the Gambling Bug in the cartoon "Early to Bet".

1952: voices the dimwitted hunting dog in the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Foxy by Proxy".

1952: Released "Try", a parody of Johnny Ray's hit single, "Cry".

1952: voices Pete Puma in the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Rabbit's Kin".

1953: Recorded "St. George and the Dragonet"; hit #1 in October 1953; B-side is "Little Blue Riding Hood".

1953: Released "Christmas Dragnet".

1954: Starred in the CBS radio sitcom "That's Rich" (January-September).

1954: Released "A Dear John and Marsha Letter".

1954: voices the rancher/cook in the Tom and Jerry cartoon, "Posse Cat".

1955: Released "The Night Before Christmas" and "Nuttin' For Christmas".

1955: voices the Beaver in the animated Disney film The Lady and the Tramp.

1957: Released "Wun'erful, Wun'erful!".

1957: Host of The Stan Freberg Show, the last-ever network radio comedy program (July-October).

1957: Provides narration and voices all the characters in the cartoon "The Three Little Bops".

1957: Released a parody of "The Banana Boat Song"; B-side is "Tele-Vee-Shun".

1958: Released "Green Christmas".

1960: Released "The Old Payola Roll Blues".

1961: Released the album Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America.

Beginning around the same time as the release of the 1961 album Stan became heavily involved with advertising (his earliest commercials date back to 1956). His recordings began to grow further and farther between but every so often he'd release something.

1966: Released the album Freberg Underground! (billed as 'pay radio'; the LP featured a presentation in the form of a radio sitcom).

Stan remained active in advertising...among his clients were Esskay, Chun King, Sunsweet, Contidina, and Jeno's. Stan also provided voice-overs for movie ads and dabbled in political humor during the height of the Vietnam protests. Some of his ads for George McGovern, for example, are featured in a later career box set.

1982: Starred in the PBS special, Stan Freberg's Federal Budget Revue.

1985: narrates the cartoon series The Wuzzles.

1988: Released autobiography "It Only Hurts When I Laugh".

1995: Inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

1995: Began hosting old-time radio anthology series, When Radio Was.

1996: Released the CD Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Volume Two.

1997: voices Pete Puma in the cartoon "Pullet Surprise".

1999: Rhino Entertainment issues the career retrospective Tip of the Freberg. It's a must-have for any fan or admirer of Stan Freberg's work; it spans the years 1951-1998.

2000: voices Cage E. Coyote in the cartoon "Little Go Beep".

2003: narrates Irreverent Imagination: The Golden Age of the Looney Tunes documentary for the DVD project titled Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One. Stan appears on-screen in various bonus features throughout the entire Golden Collection DVD series in the mid 2000s.

2006: Retires as host of When Radio Was after 11 years.

2015: Dies on April 7th at age 88.

Stan Freberg: 1926-2015

Daws Butler and those Character Voices...

Voice Magician, Part 1

Voice Magician, Part 2

Voice Magician, Part 3

Voice Magician, Part 4

I decided not to embed the videos just in case at some future date they vanish from You Tube. Instead, each URL contains each separate installment of the 1987 documentary Daws Butler: Voice Magician. This is a special that I have been aware of for more than 15 years (or more). It originally aired in 1987 and has a running time of just under 1 hour. The one that uploaded it onto You Tube a couple of days ago broke it into 4 individual segments (each running a little more than 14 minutes each). Once you click Part 1 and you're taken to You Tube, from there you can click Parts 2 through 4 and see the entire documentary for yourselves. The guests are plenty...from voice acting side-kicks and co-stars to several legendary animation giants (Walter Lantz as well as Hanna and Barbera).

One of the thrills of the special is seeing Daws perform a lot of the cartoon characters on camera. In one scene he and Don Messick perform on camera as the voices of Yogi (Butler), Boo Boo (Messick), and Ranger Smith (Messick). Stan Freberg appears during several moments throughout the special and near the end of the documentary focus shifts to Daws' time working for Jay Ward in the Rocky and Bullwinkle series. The final minutes focus on Daws' voice acting class.

Some of the guests in the documentary are: Don Messick, Stan Freberg, June Foray, Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, and narration provided by William Conrad.

Daws Butler: 1916-1988

The Hair Bear Bunch DVD...

While looking through the blog entries in my archives I found that I had written a blog about the animated series "Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch" back on December 4, 2009. At the time of that writing there wasn't any DVD in print offering the complete series but now there is. Released 2 months ago yesterday (March 12, 2013) was the Hair Bear Bunch DVD which contains all 16 episodes of the 1971-1972 series. You can find out more about it in the Amazon link found above. It, too, will be a future DVD purchase as I slowly but surely build up a personal collection of cartoons that I enjoyed as a kid and still enjoy. No, I wasn't around in 1971 or 1972 when the series originally aired...I came along in December of 1976...but I first saw this cartoon series, like many others my age, while watching the Cartoon Express on the USA Network in the 1980's and early 1990's. You can read my commentary about the show itself HERE. I don't usually put a time table on when I'll purchase anything but more than likely it'll happen this coming weekend.  

Classic Cartoons on DVD...

Over the course of the last several months quite a few Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the '60s and '70s have finally saw their release on DVD. The only catch is the discs are DVD-R's but I'm pretty sure the discs will play in any brand name DVD player. I've got some DVD-R discs that play in my DVD player and so I feel confident that there will be no problems.

I haven't placed an order for any of the collections, yet. I'm waiting on the holiday season to pass and then place my order(s) in the new year. However, I may slip in an order next month for one of the collections as an early Christmas present for myself. The collections are for sale at various on-line stores. Amazon is where I purchase things and so that's where the following links will take you...

The Herculoids: This series features the adventures Zandor, Tara, and Dorno who battle a different enemy in each episode. They're aided by Igoo, Tundra, Zok, Gloop, and Gleep. Mike Road and Don Messick provided a bulk of the voices.

Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles: This series deals with a kid named Buzz and a flying robot patterned after the Frankenstein monster. The second segment stars a rock band that doubles as a crime fighting trio. Fluid Man, Multi-Man, and Coil Man each have distinct powers and in many of the episodes there's spoofs of pop culture. Ted Cassidy voices Frankenstein Jr. while Dick Beals voices Buzz. Don Messick, Paul Frees, and Hal Smith voice Multi-Man, Fluid Man, and Coil Man respectively.

Moby Dick and The Mighty Mightor: This series deals with the whale, Moby Dick, acting as a guardian/protector of two kids. Along side this trio is the kid's pet seal, named Scooby! Typically the kids get into trouble and the seal acts as a messenger of sorts...escaping the latest trap and getting Moby to come to the kid's rescue. The Mighty Mightor segments are a lot like another series, Young Samson, although in this series the teenager named Tor uses a club to turn into his alter-ego, Mighty Mightor. In Young Samson the teenager clings his two gold bracelets together.

Jabberjaw: This series from Hanna-Barbera came along during the mid '70s. The previous collections all originate in the mid and late '60s. Unlike the emphasis on realistic science fiction and adventure in the mid '60s cartoons, Jabberjaw is light and patterned after the mystery solving format. Jabberjaw was a shark, who had a voice like Curly from The Three Stooges, and he played drums and doubled as the mascot for the show's teenage rock band, The Neptunes. This group consists of leader, Biff, easily annoyed Shelley, scatterbrained Bubbles, and cowardly Clamhead. Although it's often referred to as a Scooby-Doo clone given the teenage mystery solving format it has much more in common with Josie and the Pussycats. Shelley has similar facial expressions with Alexandra but Clamhead could pass as Shaggy's long-lost brother.

Speed Buggy: In this series we see the adventures of three teenagers and their talking race car, Speed Buggy. The teens this time around are named Mark, Debbie, and Tinker. Michael Bell, a frequent voice on cartoons, is the voice of Mark while face actress Arlene Golonka is Debbie. Phil Luther, Jr. does the voice of Tinker while Mel Blanc is Speed Buggy. In later years Tinker would be voiced by Frank Welker (Laff-a-Lympics, specifically).

Those are just 6 of the DVD releases that have come up for sale during the last several months focusing on classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. One of the long-time voice actors at the studio, John Stephenson, can be heard in many of those programs. He was typically cast as villains, policemen, scientists, and sometimes he'd do vocal effects, too. He had a varied career in radio and TV drama as well...I found this clip on You Tube the other day and it's John Stephenson acting in a daytime soap called Morning Star in 1966. John's natural voice will immediately be recognizable to Hanna-Barbera cartoon fans because he used his natural voice a lot in addition to doing celebrity impressions. In the soap he plays the part of Stan Manning and he has a substantial role in this particular episode, too. His scene starts at the 6 minute, 2 second mark:

Help!!! It's The Hair Bear Bunch

Yes, the cartoon series from 1971 will put you in a goofy mood...but let that not distract you all from experiencing the Hair Bear Bunch for yourselves. The series lasted just 16 episodes which was a common practice for Hanna-Barbera in the late '60s on through the 1970's. On more than one occasion networks that aired cartoons on Saturday mornings, which would mean all three networks, were always on the look out for material to program their fall schedules with. Unlike Warner Brothers whose major contribution to Saturday morning television were four decades of theatrical cartoon reruns, Hanna-Barbera was putting out made-for-TV cartoons in quick succession. A lot of Hanna-Barbera's cartoon series seem to have more episodes than actually exist and a large part of this feeling stems from the consistent re-runs. Jabber-Jaw, for example, had only a handful of episodes but they've been re-ran off and on for decades. A lot of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons were spoofs and parodies of pop-culture. JAWS of course was the inspiration for Jabber-Jaw but in order to trump the potential violent over-tone of a cartoon focusing on a shark they gave the title character the sound of Curly from The Three Stooges. Frank Welker mimicked Curly Howard's voice in that series. Critics and fans alike refer to the cartoon as Scooby-Doo underwater because of it's mystery/teenager concept and a talking shark, instead of a talking dog.

So, what was the inspiration behind this 1971 cartoon that focuses on three bears and a couple of zoo keepers? The full title of this series is Help! It's The Hair Bear Bunch. The program isn't based on Scooby-Doo, surprisingly enough. Instead, the series is based pretty much on The Phil Silvers Show. Hair Bear, the leader, has the smooth-talking con-artist voice that Daws Butler often gave characters with this personality. Phil Silvers never actually spoke like this but yet the personality of one cooking up schemes in order to get rich quick is so synonymous with Phil Silvers' Sgt Bilko character that it's hard not to make the connection. Hair's two friends are Square Bear and Bubi Bear. Each bear has a distinct voice and personality. Hair being the leader and the brains behind their schemes. Square is the laid-back, almost hippie-like bear with an invisible motorcycle and a huge appetite. Bubi on the other hand is the short bear who talks in gibberish. It's hilarious listening to his gibberish because nobody watching the cartoon understands him but Hair and Square do. Bubi was voiced by Paul Winchell and Square was voiced by Bill Callaway. Several other animals from the Wonderland Zoo stopped by the bears cave...one of the gimmicks is that the inside of the cave could transform into a swinging singles pad but if either of the two zoo keepers was spied making their way to the cave then the bears would flip various rock switches in their cave and transform the interior back into a barren, empty cave to hide how comfortable they lived. Peevly ran the zoo as if it were a military base...another connection to Phil Silvers' TV show.

What about those zoo keepers, though?? The head zoo keeper, Mr Peevly, was always peeved about something...taking out his anger on his assistant, Botch. 99% of Peevly's irritation came from Hair Bear. Peevly was always on the quest to expose the bears for hi-jinks but he could never catch them that much...on the rare moments that he had the bears cornered and threatened to ship them off somewhere else, Hair would use blackmail and threaten to go over Peevly's head about a prior incident involving Peevly himself. This often caused Peevly to bellow one of his catch-phrases which went something like "I'll get ya for this, Hair! MARK MY WORDS!!!! ONE OF THESE DAYS..." and he'd go stomping off with Botch tagging along beside him. The zoo keepers were voiced by John Stephenson as Mr. Peevly, doing his Joe Flynn high-nasal impression, and Joe E Ross as Botch. Joe used the voice he was famous for and the "ooh-ooh" catch-phrase he made popular in the 1960's on the sitcom, Car 54, Where Are You? Botch was incredibly stupid and Peevly was short-tempered anyway...an explosive combination...factor in Peevly's irritations at the Bears and you had a walking time-bomb of anger. Joe Flynn, incidentally, played Captain Binghamton on McHale's Navy and his voice quickly became parodied on cartoons with John Stephenson often providing the vocals. Stephenson would use the Joe Flynn parody voice on other cartoon characters with similar short-tempered personalities.

This series, much like a lot of Hanna-Barbera cartoons, is mostly memorable not for any specific episode but instead for it's theme song and characters. Once a person watches this cartoon series and gets a grasp of what it's all about the individual episode plots don't necessarily tend to stick out as much as it's theme song and the personalities/voices of the characters. I think this is true for a lot of the cartoons of this time period from Hanna-Barbera. There once was a series called Where's Huddles? and if someone with some knowledge of cartoons attempts to cite certain episodes it's almost impossible to do...but yet the person can quote some of it's theme song and tell you what the show was about.

For those interested, the series can be seen on-line at various video hosting web-sites. It also airs on Boomerang.

June Foray: The Autobiography

This book about the first lady of voice acting, called Did You Grow Up With Me, Too?, chronicles the life and times both on and off the air of June Foray. There are quite a collection of pictures of June and her voice acting co-stars...one that caught my eye right away, given that it was the first picture in the book, is a glorious picture of June surrounded by 5 amazingly talented people in the animation business. They're all standing side by side. There are pictures of June during the 1940's and 1950's...pictures of her, Stan Freberg, and Daws Butler and pictures of character's she gave voice to. It's a nice balance between her career and personal life, which of course is what an autobiography is. The epilogue section was written by June and it's dated July, 2009. Leonard Maltin wrote the forward...and do you know the story behind June Foray having a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? You'll find out within the pages of this book.

A lot of the book is broken up into chapters that follow a theme. Near the end of the book there's a chapter dedicated to a few people June knew that are no longer living. Bill Scott, Jay Ward, Paul Frees, and a few others. She tells the intricate details of what "looping" means and she explains that it's wise to be punctual because it pays by the hour. Chapter Eight, called "My Rocky Life" is dedicated to her being cast in the Bullwinkle series, once known as Rocky and His Friends. This is where she remembers much of the Jay Ward era and offers pictures that were taken in the studio with her and Bill Scott and there's a picture of her, Bill, and Jay Ward; and a picture of her and Paul Frees. There are cartoon stills of the characters. In Chapter seven, called "Chuck Who?" for comical purposes, is about her association with Warner Brothers director, Chuck Jones. The chapter was called that because June didn't know who Chuck Jones was. In a lot of her interviews she admits to not being much of a cartoon watcher so she didn't really know who made the cartoons. Chuck cast her as Witch Hazel, the name of another witch that the Disney studio cast her as.

Legal acrobatics enabled Warner Brothers to continue using the Witch Hazel name. Bea Benaderet, the prominent female voice on mostly all of the Warner Brothers cartoons before June came along, was the original voice of Witch Hazel and was the original voice of Granny...Bea had did the Granny voice for almost 15 years before June took over the role in 1955...off the top of my head I believe Bea started voicing Granny somewhere around 1943 or 1944. It was Bea's on-camera work in Burns and Allen plus her other on-camera assignments that led to her cartoon roles being re-cast in the mid 1950's. Her workload had become too hectic to continue and so she concentrated more on the TV sitcom's she appeared in.

June's been the voice of both characters, Witch Hazel and Granny, ever since...her most recent assignment as Granny was the Baby Looney Tunes series a few years back. There is an interesting story that June talks about when it came time to cast the voice actors for the Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries series in 1994/1995. According to June, the producers were wanting her to come in an audition for the role of Granny...whoever was in charge apparently wanted the Granny voice to resemble the one provided by Bea Benaderet. June recalls how outraged she felt but then lets us in on how she came about being cast as Granny on the Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries after all.

This brings me to a small little rant that I have about such things. When a voice actor or actress plays a role for a good number of years, he or she pretty much know the in's and out's of the character{s} they voice and the producers or casting directors should give the voice actors and actresses associated with the role automatic casting because of the proven track record. I feel the only time a character's voice should be re-cast is if the voice actor/actress can no longer do an adequate job...meaning they've lost their voice. I don't think a voice artist loses their natural talent...so whether someone is 21, 41, 61, 81, or 91, if he or she is still capable of doing their job they should be given the first shot and THEN if the producer isn't satisfied then a re-cast should happen. This notion that you have to audition voice actors for roles they've played for decades is ludicrous and offensive to the voice artist, as you'll see when you read June's thoughts about it.

In the "Chuck Who?" section she talks about how she was called on to do the voice of an Irish lady from the waist down on Chuck's version of Tom and Jerry plus she talks about the various witch characters she has performed. It is also in this chapter where she relates a story about cigarette smoking and how it was a big advertising sponsor at one time. There's a priceless story about how she gave up smoking but a lot of others didn't and she tells about a recording session in the mid 1980's during the revival of The Jetsons and it involves Mel Blanc. It's a cute little story about Mel's smoking in the studio. There's a picture of June and Mel in the studio, too.

As I mentioned earlier, there are quite a few pictures...and there's one on page 129 of June and some friends at the 1974 Annie Awards. Before any can ask, the Annie Awards is short for the Animation Awards...a gala where animation big-wigs and voice actors and actresses gather. It's much like the typical awards programs you see but cartoons are being honored and celebrated instead of live-action.

One of the things you may or may not notice is that the chapter's are short...well, a lot of them are. "Chuck Who?" is a rather lengthy chapter as is "My Rocky Life". There's a section called "The War Years" where she talks about her career doing radio shows and offers a picture of her as part of a dance group. She makes a lot of jokes about her short stature and reflects that her short stature must have been a good reason she clicked so well with Daws Butler in the recording studio.

It's really a great look at June's life and career.

If you do much You Tube searching, be sure to look up some clips of Ma and Pa Kettle. The clips will feature an actress, Marjorie Main, in the role of Ma Kettle. This is the voice that June based a lot of the older lady types on...the voice is heard prominently in Fractured Fairy Tales, a segment in the Rocky and Bullwinkle series. June usually gave fairy godmothers or witches that voice. In the Disney cartoons, Duck Tales and Gummi Bears, June gave the Ma Beagle and Grammi Gummi characters the Marjorie Main vocal characterization.

Beany and Cecil, Volume Two DVD

There is going to be a new DVD collection coming along this fall. The release of "Beany and Cecil, Volume Two" will happen on September 8th. This comes on the heels of a DVD collection from nearly 10 years ago.

In the early part of this decade there was a DVD released called "Beany and Cecil: The Special Edition" which consisted of a wide variety of Bob Clampett programs. Of course, 90% of the material was Beany and Cecil related...but a lot of the extra's dealt with other projects. In the previous collection the DVD consisted of 4 episodes of the live-action puppet show, Time For Beany, which ran for six years, 1949-1955. The puppet show ran locally, 1949-1950, but then started airing nationally later in 1950. The first volume DVD featured quite a few of the episodes of the animated version, simply called Beany and Cecil. In the animated version, the voice actors were slightly different than what viewers of the puppet show heard. In the puppet version, Daws Butler and Stan Freberg voiced the characters. In the animated version, which ran for one season of first-run episodes, but aired in reruns on the network for four more years, the voice actors for the animated version were Jim MacGeorge and Irv Shoemaker.

The cartoons usually had a sing-a-long/rhyme segment which lead up to the two characters singing together "...a Bob Clampett Cartoon" prior to the start of each episode. Beany's voice in the animated series lacked the cuteness, I think, that Daws Butler gave the character in the puppet version. The boy's voice in the cartoon is nothing like Butler's while Cecil and the villain, Dishonest John, sound somewhat close to the way Stan Freberg did the characters in the puppet version. Captain Huffenpuff, Beany's uncle, was the fourth major character. Daws voiced the puppet version while Jim MacGeorge voiced the animated version.

Much of the program's charm was the dialogue between all the characters...when the cartoon version began a lot of the charm lay in the pun's that Clampett was noted for. In one episode there was a reference to Dinah Shore as "Dina Saur" {Dinosaur, get it?}.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/classic/time-for-beany-online-photo-archive.html

If you can't open that link, copy and paste it in your search box, click enter, and see if a link to the site comes up. If not, try Googling CartoonBrew and navigate their site until you come across the Beany and Cecil photo album. They have a fabulous pictorial up of both Stan Freberg and Daws Butler performing on the 1949-1955 puppet show. There's 10 pages of black and white pictures of the two! I saved quite a few of them.

In closing...

There were 26 half-hour productions that started to air in 1962. There were 78 segments...which means there were something like 3 segments per episode, of varying length, if my math is correct which it usually never is. So, these 78 segments/26 episodes aired consistently in reruns until 1967. The show remained in syndication on into the 1970's but eventually it left the airwaves. The cartoon and the puppet show have a cult following today and the DVD releases have been sparse. The first release that I wrote of earlier, "Beany and Cecil: The Special Edition", was the first DVD release of it's kind to focus on these characters with any degree of respect. Fast-forward a decade later, 2009, and we're about to have a second volume released to us. "Beany and Cecil, Volume Two"...

All this and Wally Gator

During the late 1980's into the early 1990's part of my daily habit was watching the USA Cartoon Express. The marathon cartoon series at one time was a once a week program, airing on Sunday mornings beginning usually at 7am and going until noon. 5 or 6 hours of back-to-back cartoons which were mostly Hanna-Barbera or Ruby-Spears productions. Later, the Cartoon Express became a daily program...airing at first during the 6-7pm hour but then shifting to a 6-7am hour. The daily version being only an hour meant just two half-hour cartoons were aired. All of these shifts in schedule and cartoon line-up changes ultimately ended that show's run in 1996. The program had began in 1982...reaching it's peak in the late '80s and early '90s prior to Ted Turner buying the Hanna-Barbera library and shifting 90% of the cartoons to his new Cartoon Network. One of those Hanna-Barbera cartoons was a series called Wally Gator. This cartoon originally aired in 1962-1963 and 52 episodes were produced. Daws Butler provided the voice of Wally, doing an impression of Ed Wynn. The zoo keeper, Mr Twiddle, was voiced by Don Messick. The other one-shot characters were voiced by Daws and Don, too. Wally was depicted as a pampered alligator who loved life in the zoo but boredom usually sets in and he escapes...by episode's end he's running back to the zoo. It aired under the umbrella title The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series. Each episode consisted of three short segments which was a trademark of Hanna-Barbera made for TV cartoons.

Along side the Wally cartoons you had a self-titled cartoon starring two characters named Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har. The voice for Lippy was Daws Butler, doing an impression of Joe E. Brown. Lippy was a con-artist, always looking for quick way to make money at almost any cost. Daws would use this voice again for a different character, Peter Potamus. Mel Blanc was the voice of Hardy Har Har, a pessimistic hyena in spite of his name. Daws and Mel would voice any other character written into the episode...or sometimes, Don Messick would play a role. A lot of the female characters in many of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons during this era were voiced by either Jean Vanderpyl or Janet Waldo.

The third segment featured in the series featured two swashbucklers by the name of Touché Turtle and Dum-Dum. They fought on the same side of the law, though. Touché Turtle was up-standing, well-meaning, and heroic while his partner, Dum-Dum, was as his name implied: dumb. Bill Thompson gave this turtle character the same voice he gave Droopy. Alan Reed was on hand as Dum-Dum. It was never really explained why this series didn't feature Daws Butler or Don Messick in the lead roles. Each segment contained 52 episodes. So, in the years/decades to come, there were plenty of short-subject cartoons to fill Saturday mornings with. Doing the math that's 52 + 52 + 52 and that equals 156 short-subject cartoons produced in a season's time.

Moving on...in the 1970's Hanna-Barbera ended this practice and focused on half-hour programs, 22 minutes minus commercials. Often, these half-hour's would contain at least 16 separate episodes airing once a week...and that would be the norm throughout the decade. A lot of their late 1960's and 1970's cartoon shows featured no more than the standard 16 episodes a piece and those were re-ran continuously for at least a decade. Everyone whose a fan of older cartoons knows how Speed Buggy, for example, only consisted of 16 episodes. The original network, CBS, aired the show for two years, 1973-1975. 16 episodes...plus the re-run cycle...that's 32 air-dates for the show. What happened is, CBS aired the series but then kept repeating the same episodes for an additional season. It was on the CBS line-up from September 1973 until August 1975. Then ABC and NBC aired the 16 episodes. According to research, ABC aired the cartoon for a few months in early 1976 and then NBC picked it up and aired it on their schedule during 1976-1977. In the 1980's it moved to the USA Network's Cartoon Express, the show that I started this blog entry writing about.

I know it sounds mind-boggling...but those 16 episodes of Speed Buggy got a lot of mileage.

The Jetsons hold the record, though, for longest running cartoon series with the fewest episodes. That series by Hanna-Barbera began in prime-time in 1962 on ABC and originally 24 episodes were produced. These 24 episodes would be re-ran continuously on Saturday morning...up until 1985 when all-new episodes started airing. 23 years worth of repeats of the same 24 episodes {1962-1985}. Amazingly, 23 years later, all of the original voice actors/actresses were on hand to reprise their roles. Original voice cast: George O'Hanlon, Penny Singleton, Daws Butler, Janet Waldo, Don Messick, Mel Blanc, and Jean Vanderpyl were joined by other voice actors like John Stephenson, Frank Welker, Julie McWhirter, Hamilton Camp, and others.

There were 21 additional episodes produced in 1985...bringing the total of episodes altogether: 65. These episodes aired along side the 1960's version...and then 10 more new episodes were produced in 1987...bringing the grand total to 75 episodes...a much better total than 24.

I want to touch upon, just briefly, the huge celebrities and famous people who passed away during the month of June. David Carradine's mysterious death happened on June 3rd. Later in the month long-time TV personality Ed McMahon passed away on June 23rd. Now, what happened afterward is something I've never witnessed before and I'll probably never witness it again. On June 25th two legendary figures passed away on the same day. Early in the day Farrah Fawcett was reported to have died. The media and news programs aired their tribute's to her and then the news broke that Michael Jackson had died...and he was 50. This isn't all...on June 27th news breaks that 1950's sitcom star, Gale Storm, died...and then a day later, on June 28th, news breaks that commercial pitchmen Billy Mays has died at the age of 50 and on the same day news breaks that impersonator/voice actor, Fred Travalena, died after a battle with cancer.

Gale Storm was a weekly fixture on TV for eight years, 1952-1960, starring in two back-to-back comedy shows: My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show. Obviously, a lot of female comics during this era are over-shadowed by Lucille Ball but Gale Storm was one of the few, along with Eve Arden and Gracie Allen, to enjoy popular careers along side Lucy. Unfortunately, Gale's two sitcom's weren't heavily syndicated in their repeat cycle as other programs were and this caused less familiarity as the years went by.



Fred Travalena had a career that paralleled Rich Little. The two of them were known for their impressions. Fred often used heavier make-up to visually look like the character he was impersonating. As with Rich Little, the two impressionists couldn't break out into the contemporary scene...their impressions were of celebrities and singer's of a different time period enjoyed more by those like myself who have interest in the past. Also, their impressions were enjoyed more by those who are old enough to remember the celebrities that either Fred or Rich were impersonating. Fred did a brilliant Humphrey Bogart impression and he used this on the cartoon series, Shirt Tales, in the 1980's. The character he gave voice to was Bogey, obviously named after Bogart. Fred also voiced several characters on the Smurfs and other 1980's cartoons. His legacy, aside from his impressions, was his many appearances on TV game shows and talk-shows showcasing his impressions. I saw him numerous times on game shows...also, he sang...but it's the impressions and voice-over work that brought him fame. In 1972 he was part of a group called the Kopycats on The ABC Comedy Hour. Among the other impressionists in this group were Rich Little, Frank Gorshin, George Kirby, and others.