Today's Video Link

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…