The satirical gent above is Stan Freberg, a hero of mine who practically invented the funny commercial. Before that, he was a million-selling performer of brilliant comedy records and he was a puppeteer on the original Time for Beany TV show, voicing Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent and Dishonest John. And before that, he was a fine voice actor heard in hundreds of films including Lady and the Tramp and countless Warner Brothers cartoons.
He's also a busy actor. He was also in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
He still does voices, by the way. He made a surprise appearance — to a thunderous standing ovation — at one of our Cartoon Voices panels at Comic-Con this year. You can see that thrilling moment in the video here. The whole thing's pretty good but if you just want to see Stan, move the slider in to around the 56 minute mark and watch from there.
I believe Stan has been doing cartoon voices longer than any human being alive and like I said, he's still doing it. He's scheduled to record for me doing a role on The Garfield Show which works on Tuesday. (Tuesday, by the way, is his birthday. I'll have something to say about that here then.)
Wanna meet this man? Wanna get his autograph on a photo or the great new CD he's recorded with his wonderful wife, Hunter? Well, the two of them will be among the guests signin' and sellin' at the Hollywood Show in Burbank this weekend. Henry Winkler will be there. Tab Hunter will there. Trini Lopez will be there. Voice actors Gregg Berger and Joe Alaskey (also both working on The Garfield Show on Tuesday) will be there. Dozens of celebs will be there. Shove all the non-voice actors aside to get to Stan and Hunter, and make sure you wish Freberg a happy birthday. Details on the event are here.