It’s another centennial celebration. Today marks the 100th birthday of comedian, actor, and satirist Stan Freberg.
Stan was truly one of the smartest, wittiest, and most clever comedians ever. Whether he was creating a parody song or a commercial for an ad campaign, his brilliance shined.
His career started at Warner Brother in 1944. As he describes in his autobiography, It Only Hurts When I Laugh (A MUST READ), he got off the bus and found a sign that said “talent agency”. He walked in, and the agents there arranged for him to audition for Warner Bros. cartoons where he was promptly hired. Thus began Freberg’s professional career in entertainment, which lasted for more than 70 years, all the way up to his death. He voiced Pete Puma (“Oh, three or four…”) and the goofy gophers. His voice can be hear on the classic musical cartoon – The Three Little Bops.
There is one picture that always leaves me speechless:
At the microphone is Daws Butler, June Foray and Stan. The amount of talent in this photo is immeasurable. Daws Butler alone did hundreds of voices and characters including Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound. June Foray has over 400 credits on IMDB. Her voices included Rocky the squirrel and Natasha on the Bullwinkle show and Granny in the Looney Tunes. Factor in the many voices that Stan did and it is pretty amazing!
Together, the recorded St. George and the Dragonet in 1953. It was a parody of the Dragnet radio show. Jack Webb loaned Freberg his orchestra to insure the parody sounded just like the show. It was a #1 record for four weeks and sold over a million copies.
Freberg has left us lots of material to enjoy in his records, his book, his radio show, his voice work, and his classic advertising spots. If you’re unfamiliar with is work, check him out on youtube, a lot of his stuff is there.
Happy 100th Birthday, Stan. To celebrate, let’s go into the woods.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 