June Foray: 1917-2017

A couple of days ago the news broke that June Foray had died at the age of 99. Since the news broke there have been hundreds of on-line tributes to her career in the voice-over field. I gave her a nickname that probably others have given to her as well, Voice Acting Goddess, and she's totally and completely deserving of the title. Is she the first lady of voice acting? Some may argue that she is...certainly she's the most famous and had the longest lasting career of her contemporaries Mae Questel and Janet Waldo...but some may bestow such a lofty title on Mae given that her career as the voice of Betty Boop dates back to the early '30s and it wasn't until the early '50s that June began to make a powerful mark in animation voice overs....hitting her stride in the mid '50s and beyond with a host of vocal performances in theatrically released cartoons. A lot of her earlier voice work happened to be for Disney and MGM. She had a lengthy career on radio that shouldn't be over-looked. A series she wrote, created, and hosted titled Lady Make Believe aired for a couple of years (1937-1939). The big break in radio came later in 1944 when she was chosen to be among the ensemble cast of a comedy program hosted by Ed McConnell. Smilin' Ed's Gang happened to be the show's title but many on-line sources cite the program under the title of The Buster Brown Program (the sponsor happened to be a shoe company named Buster Brown). Concurrently, 1947-1949, June appeared in a lot of comedy routines on a series titled Smile Time, hosted by future television comedy pioneer Steve Allen. June continued to pop up on various radio programs (comedy and drama) throughout the '50s...and this included the famed 1957 series, The Stan Freberg Show. By this point in time June had established herself as a top voice artist in animated cartoons. She had racked up a number of credits for Disney and MGM.

Some of her famed roles for those studios included Lucifer the Cat in 1950's Cinderella and several characters in Goofy and Donald Duck cartoons...and in one of those Donald Duck cartoons, 1952's "Trick or Treat", she portrayed a character named Witch Hazel (not to be confused with another character by that name...more on that, later...); she gave voice to a couple of characters named Mary in the MGM cartoons "One Cab's Family" (1952) and "Little Johnny Jet" (1953), both directed by Tex Avery. In 1955 she gave voice to the Warner Brothers character, Granny, for the first time. She replaced original voice artist, Bea Benaderet. The cartoon in which June makes her Granny debut is 1955's "Red Riding Hoodwinked" (directed by Friz Freleng; starring Sylvester and Tweety). Her next vocal appearance as Granny arrived later that same year in Friz Freleng's "This Is a Life?". In this cartoon Granny played the part of an audience member becoming increasingly disgusted/irritated with Daffy's obnoxious comments and opinions about Bugs Bunny and in a recurring visual gag she hits Daffy on the head with her umbrella several times to get him to be quiet. In the cartoon Bugs is being given the star treatment in a spoof of This Is Your Life. The following year, 1956, Warner Brothers released the Chuck Jones directed cartoon, "Broom-Stick Bunny". In this cartoon June takes over the role of Witch Hazel. The character had previously appeared in Chuck's "Bewitched Bunny" (1954) voiced by Bea Benaderet. June originally turned down the role of the Chuck Jones character of Witch Hazel because she felt he stole it from Disney. She'd voice the Chuck Jones character in three cartoons: "Broom-Stick Bunny" (1956), "A Witch's Tangled Hare" (1959); and "A-Haunting We Will Go" (1966) although the final appearance happened to be in a cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. June would next voice Witch Hazel in an episode of the Duck Dodgers series in 2003.

The same year that she took over the role of Witch Hazel (1956) she originated the roles of Knothead and Splinter in the Woody Woodpecker series. This series was released through Universal Studios, directed by Paul J. Smith, and produced by Walter Lantz. Knothead and Splinter are the niece and nephew of star character, Woody, and they're usually creating mischief...often appearing to be too smart for the villain of the episode. She voiced the siblings during all of their theatrical appearances...their first being "Get Lost" in 1956. 

1959 is a pivotal year in June's career as it marked the first time she voiced a starring character in an animated series. By this point in her career she had provided voices for dozens of cartoons from a group of iconic studios: Warner Brothers, Disney, MGM, and Universal; and she displayed her vocalizations in a string of comedy recordings by Stan Freberg (and she became one of the cast members of his 1957 radio show). In 1958, with made for TV cartoons being a product of the not too distant future, she was selected to voice the role of a male squirrel named Rocky for the Jay Ward studio. The series never made it to air until a year later, 1959, on ABC. The program broke ground in the area of cartoon humor. So many puns, one-liners, satire, and self-awareness by the characters flew over many of the children's heads no doubt but older children and young adults (and even older adults) watched the show. The program, "Rocky and His Friends", debuted on November 19, 1959. The show was ahead of it's time. It happened to be the shared creation of Jay Ward, key writer and voice actor, Bill Scott, and Alex Anderson. June was assigned the roles of Rocky and the Russian spy, Natasha; she also provided vocals for Nell Fenwick in a supporting segment, Dudley Dorite of the Mounties. Her co-stars in the Dudley Dorite segments were Bill Scott as Dorite, Paul Frees as Inspector Fenwick, and Hans Conried as the villain, Snidley Whiplash. She lent her voice to the other supporting segments, too: Peabody's Improbable History, Aesop and Son, and Fractured Fairy Tales. In the latter segment June and Daws Butler starred in the majority of installments. June often portrayed the fairy Godmothers or Princess characters...and many times the good or evil witches depending on the story...and Daws portrayed all of the male characters...sometimes Paul Frees would also contribute in this segment.

In time the series changed networks and title. Jumping from ABC to NBC in 1961 the series became "The Bullwinkle Show" with only slight differences. June later added the roles of Ursula and Marigold to her growing list of characters. Ursula was the mate of George, a Tarzan-like character, in Jay Ward's "George of the Jungle". In a supporting segment, Tom Slick, June voiced Tom's girlfriend, Marigold. The oddity in these characters is that, vocally, they're the same as Dudley Dorite and Nell Fenwick and yet it's not something that you actually think of when you watch the cartoons. The show is still funny but at the same time you love hearing those voices...and Jay Ward knew that.

In an interview June gave in 1987 for a Daws Butler documentary she commented that both she and Daws had performed the same voices several times for multiple characters in one session. She remarked that they recorded 5 episodes of Fractured Fairy Tales a night and they brought it to Jay's attention that she did a voice similar to Marjorie Main in 2 episodes and that Daws did his Charles Butterworth impression on several episodes in the session. After inquiring if Jay would like them to re-record the lines with different voices so there wouldn't be a feeling of sameness Jay replied that he wanted those voices. You can't fault him for that. As I watch the DVD of Season 2 of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" it never enters my mind that there's a voice similar to another character...I'm too busy grinning, giggling, or laughing to even care to notice. The same is true for Jay's other main series, "George of the Jungle".

There is another series, "Fractured Flickers", which a lot of the Jay Ward fans rate pretty high but I'm not as familiar with it because it didn't play on TV much, if at all, during my childhood (the '80s and early '90s). It's a live-action series hosted by Hans Conried in which footage of old movies (mostly silent films) are played with re-dubbed, comically-infused dialogue from June, Paul Frees, and Bill Scott. Here's an episode...June can be heard in the first re-dubbed presentation. Paul is the narrator.



June's autobiography, Did You Grow Up With Me, Too?, which you see in the photo above arrived nearly 50 years after the debut of "Rocky and His Friends". The book hit in 2009. I wrote a review of it back then and posted it on Amazon's website in addition to posting the review here on my blog. She never received any industry awards (speaking of Oscar or Emmy recognition) at the time of the book's release but several years later, in 2012, she received her first Emmy trophy at the Daytime Emmy Awards. She won for her role as Mrs. Cauldron in the CGI "The Garfield Show". At the time of her win she was 94. Speaking of industry accolades...she was instrumental in getting animation included in several awards organizations. In 1988 she received the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award (given out during The Eisner Awards). In 1995 the organization she created in 1972, The Annie Awards, began awarding The June Foray Award. The Oscars began recognizing animated feature films on a more consistent basis starting in 2001...and a lot of that had to do with June's behind the scenes efforts at getting the Academy Awards to consider animated films in the same light as live-action films. There's drama and comedy in live-action films and there's animated films that are either dramatic or comedic...so what's the difference? In both cases you have actors (on-screen or voice-over) and you have characters (live-action or animated). In 2013 she received the Governor's Award at the Creative Arts Emmy gala. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards spotlight mostly non-traditional categories which rarely get spotlighted on the televised Prime Time Emmy Awards.

In the collage to the left are just a few of the hundreds of animated characters that June gave voice to. I attempted to single out the various animation studios that she provided voices for. This of course is meant as a tribute collage but by no means is it definitive. I hadn't even mentioned, until now, her work for Rankin/Bass or her iconic role as Cindy Lou Who in the Chuck Jones classic, How The Grinch Stole Christmas. In the 1980s she gave voice to Jokey Smurf and Mother Nature in "The Smurfs" and Aunt May in "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" cartoon. So don't let this memorial blog completely satisfy you...I encourage all of you to seek out her career and delve into it and find out so many other aspects of her contributions to animation that I hadn't even touched upon. The best way to do that is to purchase her autobiography (obviously!) but also visit YouTube or Amazon and see all of the available on-line cartoons that she lent her voice to. Her two enduring characters are Granny and Rocky. She voiced Granny the longest...from the theatrical cartoons of the '50s and '60s to the various made for TV cartoon specials and later television productions from Warner Brothers: "The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries" (1995-2000), "Baby Looney Tunes" (2001-2003; 2004-2006), and "The Looney Tunes Show" (2011-2014; recurring character). Ma Beagle is a character that appeared on the Disney series, "DuckTales", as did Magica De Spell (she's the duck character in the first panel of the collage). Ma Beagle, located in panel seven, and the short tempered Grammi Gummi, located in panel nine, were both given June's Marjorie Main voice. Marjorie, for those that don't know, portrayed Ma Kettle in a string of comedy movies. Knothead and Splinter are in panel 6. The Chuck Jones version of Witch Hazel is in panel 2. Granny can be found in panels 3 and 8. When June took over as Granny in 1955 the character appeared in that kind of physical design. Later, the animators returned the character to her more familiar design seen in panel 8. In panel 4 it's Rocky the flying squirrel. In the center of the collage is a publicity photo of June at a recording studio which I opened the memorial blog post with.

June was involved in a car accident sometime in 2015...and although she survived you could say it ended her prolific, legendary career. She never lent her voice to any animated program or video game after 2014. Her voice lives on, though, in numerous animated programs and video games. How many people, I wonder, learned through her obituary that she was the voice of Talky Tina in one of the famed episodes of "The Twilight Zone"? I knew of that fact for years but many others are probably finding it out and probably rushed to YouTube to see if they could find the episode. It's an episode titled Living Doll and it stars Telly Savalas. It originally aired November 1, 1963.

June Foray was born June Forer on September 18, 1917 and died of cardiac arrest at the age of 99 on July 26, 2017.

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 always entertaining Stan Freberg...

I came across this literally minutes ago. I was doing a You Tube search of Stan Freberg and this was among the most recent uploads...a PBS special from 1982, according to the video's uploader. In the closing credits in Part 3 it states that the special has a 1980 copyright and so more than likely this was written as a response to Jimmy Carter's time in the White House.

In this special, Freberg shines the spotlight on the Federal budget being 600 billion dollars and the jokes and songs are aimed at the economy. Aside from it starring Freberg, the main reason I uploaded it is to make the comparison between the early '80s and 2012.   



Pay close attention to the lyrics in the songs...quite a few lyrics foreshadow the future. In comparison to 2012 it's amusing that it's been the Democrats in Congress that have racked up the debt and there's not been any real budget to speak of since Obama took office in 2009. He delivered a laughable budget proposal that his own party rejected for being too expensive...but that bit of information was swept under the rug nearly a year ago to where hardly anyone remembers it.

Stan Freberg puts everything into this special...music, songs, jokes, and an overall big production.

Parts 2 and 3 are located below...

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"...