Jim Backus

Folks are writing to remind me of a couple of other animation voices that Jim Backus performed in his career. He was in a Disney short called Plutopia that was made in 1951 and while doing the Magoo cartoons for U.P.A., he also appeared in a couple of that studio's non-Magoo cartoons. I still find his employment record in the field rather unusual. From the forties through the sixties, the "talent pool" for cartoon voicing in Hollywood was pretty small and anyone who was good enough to get repeat work from one studio was routinely working for many studios. Paul Frees reportedly once remarked that Mel Blanc's exclusive contract with Warner Brothers was a good thing for other voice actors…because if Mel hadn't had that deal, he would have had all the jobs in town.

They don't seem to be anywhere on the Internet but there are some hysterical audio recordings floating about of Mr. Backus doing his Mr. Magoo recordings. Reportedly, his deal called for pretty low money but Jerry Hausner, who directed the sessions, had it in his budget to take Backus out before and fill him with liquor. If you factored that in, Backus was apparently pretty expensive talent. Sometimes, Hausner overfilled and his star would require dozens of takes, venturing deep into filthy terrain. The joke around U.P.A. was that if business ever got bad, they could stop making cartoons and just release the voice session tapes as "party records." They'd have made a fortune.

For a while, the official Jim Backus filling station seems to have been a restaurant called The Smoke House that's still in business over in Burbank, right across from Warner Brothers. Someone should write an article about the role this place has played in the history of comic books and animation. U.P.A. was right next door and many other animation studios were close enough that it became a major lunch spot and watering hole for cartoonists. In fact, the editors from Western Publishing (Dell Comics, Gold Key) would frequently lunch there because some of the artists drawing their comics were working days at the studios and editorial business could be transacted there — scripts or checks handed out, artwork turned in, etc. — over a meal. Also of course, everyone liked the food there…especially the garlic bread, which is still quite wonderful.

Hanna-Barbera was not far away and when I was working there, I'd lunch at least once a week at the Smoke House. I always ran into other folks in the cartoon business there — often, Bill Hanna or Walter Lantz — and sometimes saw Jim Backus. He wasn't doing Magoos at the time but he'd be at the bar, tossing back a cocktail and joking with everyone. You'd hear the distinctive laugh of the Nearsighted One cackling throughout the restaurant and I always meant to go over, buy him a beverage and just thank him for being Jim Backus. Somehow, I never felt it was the right moment. Years later, when we started Garfield and Friends, I tried to hire him for a voice job but his agent said the man's health was just not up to it. Another one of the many "waited too long" experiences that we all have and regret so.