Stay Tooned: Remembering Stan Freberg 1926-2015: Comedian, Recording Legend and Looney Tunes Voice Actor, Who Had Record-Breaking 69-Year Voice Acting Career, Dies at 88

Stan Freberg working on “Time for Beany,” 1950. (Photo: Allan Grant/© LIFE Magazine)

Daws Butler and Stan Freberg accept the Emmy Award for "Time For Beany".

Sad, Sad news indeed. Stan Freberg wore so many different hats throughout his career that he may as well have been a hat-maker. Acclaimed satirist, humorist, writer, songwriter, comedian, commercial producer, radio and recording artist, actor, puppeteer and cartoon/animation voice artist only scratch the surface.
Freberg, who skewered pop culture and McCarthyism and influenced generations with his satirical, witty comedy record albums and cartoon voices and memorable advertising campaigns, was one of my heroes; he passed away Tuesday April 7 from natural causes at the age of of 88 in Santa Monica, California. He had been suffering from respiratory problems and pneumonia. If you don’t know his name, you should, and if you do a search online you may find yourself an instant fan. (example: this TV spot for Sunsweet Prunes) I can’t overstate the influence he had on me during my adolescence; he helped shape my sense of humor and permanently planted his ideas, catchphrases, and voices into my consciousness. Say the name “Ben Franklin” and I think of that founding father uttering the words “life, liberty and the purfuit of happineff” from the multivolume album Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America. At odd moments his parody of Harry Belafonte’s “Banana Boat (Day-O)” (“too piercing, man…”) or his bow to radio censorship, “Elderly Man River,” pop into my head. (“You’re welcome, I’m sure.”)

Stan holding a figurine of his Looney Tunes character Pete Puma.

Stan's estranged son, Donavan, posted the news on his Facebook page, saying,

“My father died this morning. I am ok. To me, the father I knew and loved dearly and still very much do left me over a decade ago. He was, and will always be, my hero, and I will carry his brilliant legacy forward as best I am able. RIP, Stan Freberg, 1926-2015. I love you, daddy.”

Exact details are still coming forward.
Born on August 7, 1926, in Pasadena, CA, Freberg began his six-decade career doing impersonations on Cliffie Stone’s radio program in 1943. Freberg was one of the 20th Century's great satirists who would amass dozens of movie and TV credits . His skills as a voice actor (for classic Warner Bros. Disney, UPA cartoons) are less known then his work as a radio performer, movie and TV actor. He remained active as a voice over actor for animation well into the 21st century, was awarded the Winsor McCay Award by ASIFA-Hollywood in 1992, inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame and did extensive work in advertising.

The New York Times offers a comprehensive obituary and TV writer Mark Evanier has written a beautiful remembrance tribute on his blog that says it better than I could. I suggest you click over to their sites to hear from them. An influential comedy icon, Freberg counted among his fans not just artists who followed directly in his footsteps, like “Weird Al” Yankovic and SpongeBob Squarepants voice Tom Kenny, but creative people as diverse as Paul McCartney, Stephen King, Anthony Hopkins, and David Mamet.
Writer Mark Evanier noted:

"... He was gifted with an amazing imagination and the performing gifts necessary to transfer that imagination into something that others could see and hear. He was a wonderful singer, a superb mimic and a terrific actor. And take note of this: Of all the actors who'd been doing voices for animation in recent years, Stan was the guy who'd been at it the longest. He recorded his first cartoon voice roles in 1945 for release in 1946. As far as I know, his last job was in an episode of The Garfield Show I voice-directed last year. It's currently scheduled to run on Cartoon Network this October, giving Stan a career span of 69 years. ..."

As a lifelong fan, I thought I knew all there was to know about Stan as a radio, television, and recording artist, but it turns out he had more to do with movies—especially animated cartoons—than I realized when I was young. Freberg got his start in show business in the 1940s, when he walked into a talent agency that sent him out for an animation voiceover audition. Because the legendary Mel Blanc was the only performer to receive exclusive credit on Warner Bros. cartoons by contract, I never knew that Stan contributed a number of voices to the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons over the years, including Bertie of Hubie and Bertie; Tosh, one of the two Goofy Gophers opposite Blanc; the seemingly slow Pete Puma, who was asked by Bugs Bunny how many lumps of sugar he wanted in his tea. “Oh, three or four,” Pete drawled — before Bugs’ numerous shots to the melon with a mallet produced said lumps; and that unforgettable lunkhead Junyer Bear in Chuck Jones’ Three Bears cartoons (What’s Brewin’, Bruin?, A Bear for Punishment, et al.). That alone would earn him a place in the pop culture hall of fame. He finally got the credit he deserved on one classic Friz Freleng short Three Little Bops in 1957, famously playing the three pigs, the wolf and the singing narrator. He also provided the voice of the beaver in Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp; the title character of Lambert the Sheepish Lion; the Egyptian God Ra in the Hercules: The Animated Series episode, “Hercules and the Romans”; the narrator for An All New Adventure of Disney's Sport Goofy and “Down and Out with Donald Duck”; and George Pal’s Yawning Man in tom thumb. He was even featured on-camera in a 1953 Republic feature called Geraldine, singing some of his parodies including the Johnny Ray send-up “Try.” He not only appeared in It’s a Mad Mad Mad World but created the TV commercials for Stanley Kramer’s mega-comedy.

A comedy masterpiece.

Freberg also voiced the central character in the Ward-Kimball-directed-but-never-released It's a Dog's Life. His Capitol record albums are classics. He also was a regular on the 1958 summer replacement series The Chevy Show and did voice work for such series as The Ren & Stimpy Show, Garfield & Friends and narrated the 1985 series The Wuzzles. His rendition of the song “Money” appeared in episode 106 of The Muppet Show as performed by Dr. Teeth.
In the early 1960s, the writer-producer launched a successful career in advertising, winning more than 20 Clio Awards for his TV spots and earning the Los Angeles Area Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2006. He crafted some of the funniest TV commercials of the 1960s and ‘70’s, including “Today the pits; tomorrow the wrinkles. Sunsweet marches on!,” and Contadina’s “Who put eight great tomatoes in that little bitty can?”
He also scored such novelty-record hits as “John and Marsha,” “Saint George and the Dragonet” and “Green Christmas.” His 1961 comedy album “Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America” remains a classic of the form and an influence for a generation of comedians. Besides his satirical comedy albums, Freberg was perhaps best known for his song parodies like The Great Pretender and The Banana Boat Song.
Freberg produced the Emmy-winning kids puppet show Time for Beany -- Albert Einstein was said to be a fan during his years at CalTech -- and hosted numerous variety series and specials on TV and radio.
His live-action acting included roles in The Monkees, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., the role of Mr. Parkin on Roseanne (in 1996) and The Weird Al Show. His Stan Freberg Show on radio was controversial for several reasons, including the fact that he refused to accept tobacco companies as sponsors.
Freberg continued working well into his eighties and released an album, Songs in the Key of Freberg, with his wife in 2010.
He is survived by his wife Hunter, son Donavan and daughter Donna Jean.
Most news outlets will acknowledge Freberg’s body of work as a satirist and ad-man (he played a significant role in popularizing the funny commercial), but we’re going to celebrate his work as a voice actor and his collaborations with animation artists. Freberg recorded cartoon voices for 69 years, giving him quite possibly the longest recording career of any voice actor who has ever worked in animation.
I’m not sure the generations that followed the Baby Boomers recognized Stan and his genius as others did. This may have wounded his ego in recent years, but his admirers never lost sight of who he was or what he meant to us. His humor has worn well and his voice work speaks for itself—pun intended.
His loss hits me hard, because he lives inside my head, and always has. I’ll never forget him. An iconic talent has departed. Rest in peace, Stan. You were one of a kind. Freberg forever!

Here’s a “gallery” of Freberg’s voice acting work:

1947: Republic Pictures’s It’s a Grand Old Nag

1949: The narrator of Big Tim, a UPA industrial for Timken Roller Bearing Company

1949: Stan Freberg recounts working on animation director Bob Clampett’s TV puppet show Time For Beany (1949)

1951: Junyer Bear in Warner Bros.’ A Bear for Punishment

1952: Pete Puma in Warner Bros.’ Rabbit’s Kin

ca. mid or late 1950s: The rabbit of a stop-motion animation short based on Stan Freberg's 1953 record St. George and the Dragonet

1955: Beaver in Disney’s Lady and The Tramp

ca. 1955: DeSoto spot animated by Playhouse Pictures

ca. 1956: Snowdrift spot animated by Quartet Films, based on Freberg’s comedy record “John and Marsha”

1957: Warner Bros.’ Three Little Bops

ca. 1959: Butter-Nut coffee spot animated by Fine Arts Films

ca. 1960: Cheerios commercial animated by Quartet Films

1962: “Sale of Manhattan,” an animated segment directed by Fred Crippen and designed by Saul Bass & Art Goodman from Stan Freberg Presents The Chun King Chow Mein Hour: Salute to the Chinese New Year (1962). Soundtrack is from Freberg’s album “Stan Freberg Presents The United States Of America”.