Category Archives: Video Links

Okay…today we have two minutes from the Broadway musical, Memphis. I watched the PBS presentation of the show and liked it a lot, and this is the best song in it…

Here is how iPads are made. In fact, I think that's mine they're putting through the gyroscope test…

Here's another one of those Capitol Records of Disney material. This is Lady and the Tramp and it says "With members of the original cast." This is so. Lady is voiced by Barbara Luddy and Tramp is Larry Roberts, plus Bill Thompson spoke for Jock, Bull and Dachsie. All of these folks were indeed in the movie.

The narrator sounds like Art Gilmore to me.  The rest of the female voices, including both Siamese Cats and Peg (the Peggy Lee role) were provided by June Foray. The rest of the male voices were done by Daws Butler. None of these three folks were in the movie but they were part of the stock company at Capitol back then.

Daws didn't do much on Disney projects over the years. He and Freberg recorded some material for Alice in Wonderland but the scene was cut. Then years later, he voiced a penguin and a turtle each of whom spoke a few words in the animated sequence of Mary Poppins. Those jobs plus a few other Capitol Records were the only times I know for certain of him working on anything Disney, though I vaguely recall him telling me he'd done a few educational films or perhaps filmstrips for the studio.

Once he got typed as the star voice of Hanna-Barbera, the Disney folks were reluctant to hire him, at least for major roles, just as they didn't use Mel Blanc. Even in the eighties when I was developing the first Disney animated show for Saturday morning, The Wuzzles, that was the case. I had Daws in mind for a lead part and while they used most of my other casting suggestions, I was told they wouldn't even call Daws in to audition: "We don't want what we do sounding like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon." That was their loss because he was always sensational…in every job he ever did. So was June. Listen how well they perform here, even doing voices where they have to imitate other actors…

Ten minutes of really odd things people have said in movies. This seems to include every line ever spoken on film by Arnold Schwarzenegger…

This is one of those "Don't ask what it's about, just click and watch" videos. So don't ask what it's about, just click and watch…

Oh, look: Here we have a trailer for a forthcoming documentary about voiceover artists. This would appear to be something I'll want to see…

Famous stars in their first screen roles…

Keith Scott, the fine voice actor (and historian of that art form) informs me that the Mickey Mouse's Birthday Party record featured as Today's Video Link was recorded at the Capitol Records Studio on April 8 and 9, 1953 — the latter date being 59 years ago today, as it turns out — and the record was released on August 3 of that year. Keith would know. I suspect the confusion over its release date flows from the fact that it was originally a 78 rpm record but a 45 was released later.

He also informs me that Dave Barry, Dorothy Lloyd and Mexican actor-singer Nestor Amaral were in the cast. I assume Amaral did the singing voice of Jose Carioca but the speaking voice was obviously provided by Stan Freberg. Señor Amaral was a supporting player in one of the two features Disney did with Jose, The Three Caballeros, but he did not do Jose's voice in either. José Oliveira did.

Dave Barry, I should have guessed, did the voice of the goldfish. He was one of the unknown voices in Warner Brothers cartoons…usually the guy who did Bogart when he turned up in something. He did Elmer Fudd in one cartoon (Pre-Hysterical Hare) and actually played Bugs Bunny in one Capitol kids' record. His main line of work was as a very popular stand-up comedian who was featured often on Ed Sullivan's program and all the top variety shows of the fifties and into the sixties. He was very good and probably would have done a lot more cartoons (he told me) if he wasn't out of town so much performing on the road.

But the main thing to note about this whole record is this: If you walked into any record/CD company (whatever they call them these days) and said, "Hi, I'd like to produce an audio story for kids. I'll need a full orchestra, a sound effects man, six or seven singers and maybe ten top voice actors and I'll need most of them for two days," what do you think the odds would be of not getting catapulted to the pavement within seconds? Yet that's how they did these.

Here's a little treasure…one of the lavishly-produced kids' records done by Capitol Records. It's Mickey Mouse's Birthday Party and it came with a full-color booklet that you followed along as you played the record. The cast is rather amazing, especially when you find out who it is doing the voice of Mickey.

It's Stan Freberg. Stan did a lot of voices on Capitol's childrens' records but I believe this was the only time he did Mickey. Usually, a Mr. Walt Disney played Mickey and when he got tired of doing it, he handed the job over to Jimmy MacDonald, who was mainly a sound effects engineer. In fact, Jimmy handled sound effects on this record and did some other voices but Freberg played Mickey, reportedly at Walt's request.

Exactly when this record was produced is the subject of some argument among the kind of folks who'd argue about this kind of thing. Some say 1953, some say 1954 and some say 1955. I asked Stan and he wasn't sure. Whenever it was, it was after he was already a major creator of comedy records for Capitol. He did "John and Marsha" in 1951. In addition to voicing The Mouse, Stan further demonstrates his great versatility in the roles of Doc, Sneezy, maybe another dwarf or two, Dumbo (!), Br'er Fox, Joe Carioca (speaking, not singing), The Crocodile, The White Rabbit, The Mad Hatter…and hey, how about that great Jerry Colonna impression as The March Hare?

Clarence Nash did the voice of Donald Duck. Vance "Pinto" Colvig played Goofy, Practical Pig, Grumpy and he probably provided the sounds of Pluto. June Foray played Snow White, Thumper, Pinocchio, Peter Pan and Alice. Nick Stewart, who originated the role in Song of the South was Br'er Bear and I think that's Johnny Lee reprising his part as Br'er Rabbit. Jimmy MacDonald played Gus Gus and Jaq.

A few of the other voices, I'm not sure about…and I imagine some of the one-line parts are studio singers. It's a great cast but they were fibbing in part to advertise this as featuring "The original voices of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and other famous Disney characters." Neither Stan nor June did any of those voices in the movies.

Give a listen and don't worry about turning any pages when Donald commands. The video will handle that for you…

Two funny friends of mine, Bill Kirchenbauer and Brad Slaight, are giving voice to The Diabetes Duo, Captain Glucose and Meter Boy. Together, the two super-heroes promote Diabetes Awareness…a good and important thing. (The three of us share a mutual friend who lost his feet and later his life because he was Diabetic and didn't take better care of himself.) This message deserves to be spread to a wider audience and we're hoping someone who can make that happen will pick this project up and help the guys take it to the next level. Any producers who read this weblog have a venue in mind? How about comic book publishers?

Meanwhile…in the latest installment, Captain Glucose and Meter Boy appear on a popular late night talk show. That's Marcel Forestieri as the host and here's another clip of him at work.

From 1983: A syndicated TV show visits the offices of MAD magazine, complete with a visit to the office of longtime (he's still working for them!!!) writer, Dick DeBartolo…

Speaking of films portraying great comedians — as I was doing here recently and will again shortly — a couple of you like Doug Dinger wrote to ask me about Stan. This was originally a radio play by the British writer Neil Brand, depicting a fictional "last meeting" between Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. It received much acclaim so it was made into a TV special. Nik Howden played the young Stan and Jim Norton played the old Stan. Mike Goodenough played the young Oliver and Trevor Cooper played the dying Oliver.

Thanks to a playlist Doug assembled, I can easily embed the whole thing below if you'd like to watch it but I'm not necessarily recommending that you do. I found it overly maudlin for a story of two very funny men. Its intent was certainly admirable and the performances are quite good but…well, it's all about Stan coming to terms with a number of issues in his life, some involving Hardy, some not. I don't know that Mr. Laurel held all or any of those feelings and Mr. Brand didn't, either. Some of the film history is accurate, some is not but I found it difficult to listen to as a radio play and not much easier as a video. Perhaps you'll have better luck than I did…

Yesterday here, I linked to an excerpt from a lecture John Cleese gave a few years ago about creativity. Today, we have a link to the entirety of a lecture he gave on the topic some years earlier. We have Robert J. Elisberg to thank for this. Let me know if the subtitles say anything about llamas and moose…

Here's 10.5 minutes of John Cleese talking about creativity. I'd like to hear the whole of this speech, wouldn't you?

Dueling Banjos…Laurel and Hardy style. Thank you for the link, Jim Newman…