At a ceremony last Saturday evening, my hero Stan Freberg received the prestigious Los Angeles Area Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. These are the Emmy-giving-out people. Nancy Cartwright, best known as the voice of Bart Simpson, made the presentation and Stan accepted, accompanied by his puppet, Orville. In the screen grab above, Orville is the one without the glasses.
The Academy has put the entire event online in webcast format at this link…but wait. STOP! For God's sake, in the name of all that's holy, don't click on that link yet! The show's almost three hours long and even though Keith Olbermann does a nice hosting job, there's no way you want to sit through the whole thing. You just don't.
Here's what you want to do. Go to that link (here it is again) and start playing the webcast…then fast-forward or move the slider over to 01:09:10, [SEE BELOW] which is about where Olbermann introduces Nancy Cartwright who, in turn, introduces Stan. The whole presentation, including Stan's wife Hunter, a film about his career, Stan (with and without puppet) and his acceptance speech runs about eighteen minutes. And make sure you stay tuned after Stan exits to hear a quick story about him from Mr. Olbermann.
Lastly, a brief aside to the Academy, of which I am a member: I think it's wonderful that you honored Freberg. No one deserves it more. But if you're going to honor someone, it would be nice if a wee bit more research was done. Yes, Stan was the voice of Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent on Time for Beany…but you played him on and off, not with any of the dozens of hit songs he wrote but with the theme song from the Beany and Cecil cartoon show, which he had nothing to do with. And he made that wonderful entrance right after the tribute/history film on which you MISSPELLED HIS NAME! Come on, Academy. Your Mission Statement says you exist to "…promote creativity, diversity, innovation and excellence through recognition, education and leadership in the advancement of the telecommunications arts and sciences." Somewhere in there, it's kind of implied that you should your spell your honoree's name correctly. I would return my Emmy in protest if I'd ever won one.
[UPDATE: Since this was posted, the Academy folks have done a re-edit on their online webcast, shortening the proceedings. The introduction of Ms. Cartwright now commences 56 minutes into the video. So leap ahead to 00:56:00 and watch from there. And thanks to Don Brockway for calling this to my attention.]