Stan Freberg

Stan Freberg (born Stanley Friberg; August 7, 1926 – April 7, 2015) was an American actor and entertainer. His best-known works include "St. George and the Dragonet", Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, his role on the television series Time for Beany, multiple characters in the Looney Tunes such as Pete Puma and Bertie, and a number of classic television commercials. Freberg was born Stanley Friberg on August 7, 1926 in Pasadena, California, the son of Evelyn Dorothy (née Conner), a housewife, and Victor Richard Friberg (later Freberg), a Baptist minister. Freberg was of Swedish and Irish descent. He was drafted in the US Army from 1945 to 1947 where he served in Special Services attached to the Medical Corps at McCornack General Hospital in Pasadena, California. Freberg's work reflected both his gentle sensitivity (despite his liberal use of biting satire and parody) and his refusal to accept alcohol and tobacco manufacturers as sponsors—an impediment to his radio career when he took over for Jack Benny on CBS radio. As Freberg explained to Rusty Pipes: After I replaced Jack Benny in 1957, they were unable to sell me with spot announcements in the show. That would mean that every three minutes I'd have to drop a commercial in. So I said, "Forget it. I want to be sponsored by one person", like Benny was, by American Tobacco or State Farm Insurance, except that I wouldn't let them sell me to American Tobacco. I refused to let them sell me to any cigarette company. Freberg's first wife, Donna, died in 2000. He had two children from that marriage, Donna Jean and Donavan. He married Betty Hunter in 2001. Freberg began his career doing impersonations on Cliffie Stone's radio show in 1943. Freberg was employed as a voice actor in animation shortly after graduating from Alhambra High School. He began at Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1944 by getting on a bus and asking the driver to let him off "in Hollywood". As he describes in his autobiography, It Only Hurts When I Laugh, 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. His first notable cartoon voice work was in a Warner Bros. cartoon called For He's a Jolly Good Fala, which was recorded but never filmed (due to the death of Fala's owner, President Franklin D. Roosevelt), followed by Roughly Squeaking (1946) as Bertie; and in 1947, he was heard in It's a Grand Old Nag (Charlie Horse), produced and directed by Bob Clampett for Republic Pictures;[citation needed] Goofy Gophers (Tosh), and One Meat Brawl (Grover Groundhog and Walter Winchell). Freberg voiced the character of Junyer Bear, but the role was actually created by actor Kent Rogers in Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears (1944). After Rogers was killed during World War II, Freberg assumed the role of Junyer Bear in Chuck Jones' Looney Tunes cartoon What's Brewin', Bruin? (1948). This featured Jones' version of The Three Bears. He often found himself paired with Mel Blanc while at Warner Bros., where the two men performed such pairs as the mice Hubie and Bertie, the Goofy Gophers Mac and Tosh, and Spike the Bulldog and Chester the Terrier. In 1952, he was the voice of Friz Freleng's "Dumb Dog" in Foxy by Proxy, who meets up with a disguised Bugs Bunny wearing a fox suit. He was the voice of Pete Puma in the 1952 cartoon Rabbit's Kin, in which he did an impression of an early Frank Fontaine characterization (which later became Fontaine's "Crazy Guggenheim" character).[citation needed] Freberg's work as a voice actor for Walt Disney Productions included the role of Mr. Busy the Beaver in Lady and the Tramp (1955), and he did voice work in Susie the Little Blue Coupe and Lambert the Sheepish Lion. He received screen credit for his voice work on Three Little Bops (1957), where he voiced all the characters and sang the titular song. Freberg's interpretation of Pete Puma also provided the basis for Daws Butler's voice of Sam, the orange cat paired with Sylvester in the Academy Award-nominated short Mouse and Garden (1960). He voiced Cage E. Coyote, the father of Wile E. Coyote, in the 2000 short Little Go Beep. Freberg was cast to sing the part of the Jabberwock in the song "Beware the Jabberwock" for Disney's Alice in Wonderland, with the Rhythmaires and Daws Butler. Written by Don Raye and Gene de Paul, the song was a musical rendering of the poem "Jabberwocky" from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass. The song was not included in the final film, but a demo recording was included in the 2004 and 2010 DVD releases of the film.[citation needed] Freberg made his film debut in the comedy Callaway Went Thataway (1951), a satirical spoof on the marketing of Western stars (apparently inspired by the TV success of Hopalong Cassidy). Freberg costarred with Mala Powers in Geraldine (1954) as sobbing singer Billy Weber, enabling him to reprise his satire on vocalist Johnnie Ray (see below). In 1963's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Freberg appeared in a non-speaking role as the Deputy Sheriff and acted as the voice of a dispatcher. Contrary to popular belief, George Lucas called upon Freberg, not Mel Blanc, to audition for the voice of the character C-3PO for the 1977 film Star Wars. After he and many others auditioned for the part, Freberg suggested that Lucas use mime actor Anthony Daniels' voice. Freberg was one of the talents recruited by Capitol Records when it launched its spoken-word division. He began on February 10, 1951, and produced satirical recordings about popular culture. One of his most notable releases was "John and Marsha", a soap opera parody that consisted of the title characters (both played by Freberg) doing nothing but repeating each other's names (with intonations to match the moods). Some radio stations refused to play "John & Marsha", believing it to be an actual romantic conversation between two real people. In a 1954 follow-up, he used pedal steel guitarist Speedy West to satirize the 1953 Ferlin Husky country hit, "A Dear John Letter", as "A Dear John and Marsha Letter" (Capitol 2677). West had played on the Husky hit recording. [citation needed] A seasonal recording, "The Night Before Christmas"/"Nuttin' for Christmas", made in 1955, still remains a cult classic.[citation needed] Another hit to receive the Freberg treatment was Johnnie Ray's weepy "Cry", which Freberg rendered as "Try", exaggerating Ray's histrionic vocal style. Johnnie Ray was furious until he realized the success of Freberg's 1952 parody was actually increasing sales and airplay of his own record. Freberg reported getting more angry feedback for this than from any of his other parodies. With Daws Butler and June Foray, Freberg produced his 1953 Dragnet parody, "St. George and the Dragonet", a No. 1 hit for four weeks in October 1953. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. After "I've Got You Under My Skin" (1951), he followed with more popular musical satires, such as "Sh-Boom" (1954), a parody of the song recorded by The Chords. At the end, he yells "STELLA!" at a woman, imitating Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. The B side was a parody of the Eartha Kitt record "C'est si bon", broadcast in 1955 on the TV show Sam and Friends. Other songs include "The Yellow Rose of Texas" (1955), where a "Yankee" snare drummer gets out of hand on the recording; "Rock Around Stephen Foster", a parody of recordings by Bill Haley and others in which a music arranger (Freberg) tries with mixed results to get a chorus to perform a medley of Foster's standards in rock and roll style at one point adding Foster's lyrics to Haley's arrangement of "Shake, Rattle and Roll"; "Rock Island Line", based on the 1955 Lonnie Donegan skiffle version, with interruptions by Peter Leeds; and a spoof