Today, we have a correction to make. In an article on this site, I state that the first voice job done by the great Stan Freberg was for a Warner Brothers cartoon called For He's A Jolly Good Fala. It involved him doing an impression of Franklin Delano Roosevelt but when F.D.R. died, the cartoon was scrapped and never completed. (Some of the material that was animated for it, none of which included Stan's vocal work, later turned up in the cartoon, Fresh Airedale, directed by Chuck Jones — this, despite the fact that the Fala cartoon was reportedly directed by Bob Clampett.) That all seems to be true. But then I said that Stan's first completed cartoon was Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears (1944) wherein he played the role of Junior Bear.
This is apparently not correct, even though it's the popular wisdom and was once confirmed by Mr. Freberg. As absolutely no one has pointed out to me since that column was first published and as I just realized last evening, Roosevelt died in April of 1945. So that scenario doesn't track, especially since Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears was released in February of '44, more than a year before Roosevelt's death. (There's also no evidence that the large baby bear was called Junior Bear — or Junyer, as it was sometimes spelled — until the character was revived years later. By the way, Fresh Airedale was released in August of '45.)
Moreover, Stan recalls getting his first cartoon job, whatever it was, in the Summer of 1944 — and that was long after the Three Bears cartoon had passed through theaters. And he recalls recording his first cartoon on the set of the Humphrey Bogart movie, The Big Sleep. This may be a slight error on his part, as sources indicate that The Big Sleep began filming in October of '44 and finished early in 1945.
Listening to Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears, I'm inclined to agree with voice actor/expert Keith Scott, and with Graham Webb in The Animated Film Encyclopedia, that the big baby bear was voiced in that film by Kent Rogers. Rogers was the studio's best celebrity impressionist for a number of years. He did all the male mimicry in Hollywood Steps Out and was the original voice of Beaky Buzzard — an imitation of Edgar Bergen's Mortimer Snerd — in Bugs Bunny Gets The Boid. He sometimes also did non-impression roles…most notably, Horton the Elephant in Horton Hatches The Egg. A fine acting career was cut short when he went into the Air Force and became a casualty of World War II. The Internet Movie Database, though a most useful resource, erroneously credits him with a role in the 1959 Teenagers From Outer Space.
Stan took over the role of Junior/Junyer Bear when the character returned, with his Maw and Paw, in 1948's What's Brewin', Bruin? He also performed it for their subsequent appearances: The Bee-Deviled Bruin ('49), Bear Feat (also '49) and A Bear for Punishment (1951) and took over some other voices that had been originated by others, such as Bertie of "Hubie and Bertie." Contrary to several reference books and the ever-fallible Internet Movie Database, he was not in the 1943 film that introduced those mice, The Aristo-Cat. In that cartoon, they were voiced by WB storymen Tedd Pierce and Michael Maltese.
Mr. Freberg is probably correct that his first job was the F.D.R. imitation and it may even have been in the Summer of '44. As Keith notes, WB sometimes did record voice tracks up to a year before a cartoon was to be released. My guess is that it was Freberg's second or third cartoon that was recorded on the set of The Big Sleep. Now, as for what that cartoon was…well, I think I know but, having been once-burned, I want to do more research — and huddle with both Keith and Stan — before I say so in public. So watch this space for what will I hope will be a complete filmography for Freberg's cartoon voice work. And any day now, I should be able to announce a rather exciting new project which I'm working on with Stan.
P.S. Keith Scott was the principle subject of the column I'm correcting on this page, and you can read that column by clicking here. Not only that but you can hear some of his incredible vocal feats by visiting his site, which is — you guessed it, cousin — www.keithscott.com.