Monday, May 23, 2005

Thurl Ravenscroft, R.I.P.

Jesus Christ, it's been a bad week or two for voice people.

Thurl Ravenscroft, best known as the voice of Tony the Tiger in the Kellogg's Frosted Flakes commercials, has died at the age of 91, the cause being reported as prostate cancer. His rich, bass voice was also known to audiences from his many years as a singer, plus you could hear him all over Disneyland. (That's Thurl singing, "Grim, Grinning Ghosts" in the Haunted Mansion, and one of the busts along that ride was fashioned to look like him.) He also sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" on the animated TV special, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and appeared on hundreds of records and radio shows and other cartoons over the years.

Thurl was, in a way, the oldest working cartoon voice actor in the business. During the thirties, he was heard on radio as part of several different singing groups that eventually came to be known as The Sportsmen and later, he was in The Mellomen. One of his groups recorded voice tracks for a couple of Warner Brothers cartoons, such as the 1939 Sioux Me. Soon after, he began appearing in shorts for Mr. Disney, such as The Nifty Nineties (1941) and Springtime for Pluto (1944). Walt evidently liked the Ravenscroft sound because not only was he heard throughout the theme parks but he was also a voice in Dumbo, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, Mary Poppins and many more.

All of this was in addition to Thurl's many, many credits as a studio singer. His most famous hit may have been backing up Rosemary Clooney on "This Old House," but he was also heard in many records for Spike Jones (like "Wyatt Earp Makes Me Burp," a Dr. Demento fave) and The Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby and even Elvis. He was also called upon often to dub singing voices for other actors. All throughout the 1958 movie of South Pacific, there's a handsome sailor with a rich, deep singing voice. The voice is that of Thurl Ravenscroft. In the seventies, he did a lot of work for arranger Johnny Mann and was featured often as "Pappy" on the TV show, Stand Up and Cheer.

I never had the honor of working with Thurl, as he was semi-retired by the time I was in a position to cast him...but I sure tried. We spoke on the phone a few times and he always politely, and with some expressed regret, declined. He was living in Orange County and even though I offered to send a limo for him, he said that it would be too tiring, plus he was having too much trouble walking. The only times he went out to record, he said, were "doing the tiger" and his many spots for religious groups close to his home. I was disappointed, but it sure was amazing to hear That Voice over the phone, especially when I'd mention one of his old songs and he'd wistfully rattle off a few bars, a cappella.

You can learn a lot about Thurl and even hear some of his songs and commercials over at his website. And here's a link to an obit in The Orange County Register. True to their name, they make you register.

• Posted at 7:51 PM · LINK

Howie in the Papers

The obituaries for Howard Morris are just now appearing in the press. I'm always a little amazed at what gets mentioned in these things and what's left out and what they get wrong and such. The Associated Press obit, for instance, includes this paragraph...

In the 1950s, he joined a comedy sketch group including Carl Reiner and Imogene Coca on several TV variety shows, including "Admiral Broadway Review," "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour."

Yeah, and I think that "comedy sketch group" was headed up by a guy named Sid Caesar, who was the star of those shows. You get the feeling the guy who wrote this piece didn't know who Sid Caesar was, or how those programs have been honored and recognized over the years? Then over here in a piece in The New York Sun, it says...

While his face was less known to later generations, Morris's voice popped up all over the airwaves. He could be heard in cartoons, as Fred Flintstone's boss, Mr. Slate...

Uh, no. As ten seconds over at Google would have shown, John Stephenson played Mr. Slate. Howie played a wide array of non-recurring supporting roles on The Flintstones.

And of course, both leave out darn near everything he did since the mid-sixties, plus things like The Dick Van Dyke Show and all the movies he appeared in and all his stage work. Maybe I'm quibbling but, hey, Howie sure would have bitched about it. One time, we were in the parking lot of Canter's Delicatessen on Fairfax and a man who was walking past noticed Howie and thought he recognized him. "Hey, you're that funny guy on that show," he said. And then the man mimed a short cigarette and said, "Verrrry interesting."

I had to stop Howie from killing him.

• Posted at 6:42 PM · LINK

Jes' Fine

Nice article by Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post about Walt Kelly's Pogo. You can see some nice samples of said newspaper strip over at The Official Pogo Website.

• Posted at 9:39 AM · LINK

More Morris

I feel like posting some photos and facts about Howard Morris over the next few days. Here's Howie with Howard Duff, Tony Randall and Kim Novak in the 1962 movie, Boys' Night Out. It's one of those not-wonderful movies with a wonderful cast. The main thing it meant to Howie's life, apart from his near-encounter with Ms. Novak, was that it convinced him his future was in Hollywood, not New York, and it prompted him to move out here. He immediately got busy with loads of TV work and animation voiceover jobs. His first Hanna-Barbera gig was playing interplanetary rock star Jet Screamer on an episode of The Jetsons, and he wound up in almost every H-B show for the next few years until the day he told Joe Barbera to perform an anatomically-impossible feat. Maybe I'll tell that story in the next few days.

In the sixties, Howie worked darn near every day, and turned down three jobs for every one he could squeeze in. Working on camera in his first three years in Hollywood, he did episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ensign O'Toole, The Twilight Zone, Alcoa Premiere and The Dick Van Dyke Show, to name but a few. I'm told his Van Dyke Show ran this morning on TV Land. It's the one where Rob and Laura go to an auction, accidentally buy a painting by "Artanis" and then call in an art expert named Holldecker (Howie) to appraise it. He also directed several episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show, as well as directing and appearing on The Andy Griffith Show.

Howie also directed a number of episodes of Hogan's Heroes. He told me once that he originally got involved with the show when he was asked to audition for the role of Colonel Klink, which at that point was a somewhat different role than it became. The way Howie explained it, they wanted him to play Klink until Werner Klemperer came in to read for a different role. The producers decided to install Klemperer as Klink and Howie wound up directing instead, which he preferred. Now, I can't swear this story is true. At least, I don't think it's the way they recount it in the "official" histories of the show. But it's the way Howie said it was, and the one time I met Werner Klemperer, he seemed to think that's how it happened. He also added that as a director, Howie was invaluable in helping actors who needed to feign a German accent and he said that if you listen to the episodes Howie directed, you can hear some of the actors "doing" a Howard Morris dialect.

And not only that but didja know Howie directed the pilot of Get Smart? And that he was largely responsible for the casting of Ed Platt as The Chief in that series? I told this story back on this page.

I'll post more about Howie in the next few days...and don't think for a moment I'm doing it for your benefit. It's for me. I miss the guy.

• Posted at 12:17 AM · LINK