Hey, you know who that is? That's a rather old photo of my friend and hero, Stan Freberg. Stan is an actor (on camera and voice), a writer, a director, a producer, a composer, a puppeteer and an all-around satirist. As a kid, I got a lot of my sense of funny from listening to funny records he made and watching funny cartoons in which he did funny voices and later, watching all those funny commercials he made. And the thing about Stan was never just that he was funny. He was always smart funny.
Our friends over at Shokus Internet Radio will be saluting (and welcoming) that smart funny guy next week. Commencing Monday, two of their shows will feature Freberg-intensive programming. In the descriptions I'm about to give you, I'm using West Coast times…so add hours or subtract depending on your time zone.
Crazy College, heard at 2 PM each day, will look at Stan's United States of America records. Volume One has been called either the funniest historical work ever or the most historical comedy album…or something like that. Anyway, it's a grand and silly look at the founding and evolution of this nation.
Joe Bev's Cartoon Carnival, which follows at 3 PM, will cover some of Stan's other great recordings as well as his 1957 radio series in which he appeared with Daws Butler, June Foray and Peter Leeds…and Joe tells me he's also including a few of Stan's great commercials.
Then! On Wednesday, and rerunning for six days after that, Stu's Show (4 PM to 6 PM) will welcome as its guest…Stan Freberg! I'll tell you more about that as the day draws near but I figured you might want to plan your week accordingly. In fact, you might want to practice listening to this fine, free radio station. Point your browser to Shokus Internet Radio and click where they tell you to click. Lots of folks tell me they've given it a try and gotten hooked.