I mentioned Daws Butler here the other day. We lost this wonderful man in 1988 and I still miss him. I miss hearing him on new cartoon shows and commercials but even more than that, I miss talking with him, being around him, hearing That Voice come out of an actual human being and hanging on every word he uttered.
That Voice — or maybe I should say Those Voices because he had so many — meant a lot to me when I was a kid. I heard him on darn near every TV show I loved and there was something so comforting about a Butler voice. Many of those cartoons had what we might politely call minimalist animation, "minimalist" being a much nicer adjective than "cheap." There sometimes wasn't a whole lot of personality in the characters visually but Daws more than made up for it with the voices he created for Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Hokey Wolf, Quick Draw McGraw, Augie Doggie and so many others. It was like audible comfort food.
I have been privileged — and don't think I don't appreciate it — to know and work with a number of extraordinary creative talents in TV and also in comic books. Many of them were people whose work I loved when I was a kid watching TV and reading comic books. Then amazingly, I got to meet them and found that for the most part, I loved those people. Daws was one of the nicest, most generous men I have ever met.
And honest. That voice of his could do just about anything but lie. Every single thing Daws ever told me checked out. He was wrong once in a while but he was honestly wrong.
Another great, talented man I got to know was Daws' former partner, Stan Freberg. Stan was a very honest man too but he had a tendency to embellish stories a bit, plus his memory wasn't quite perfect. He would tell me a tale about the old days, back when he was doing voices for cartoons or co-starring with Daws on the Time for Beany puppet show. The story would be so hilarious and wonderful that I would wonder how much of it was true.
So the next time I saw Daws, I'd ask him…and it would usually turn out it was like 97% or 98% — a most acceptable percentage. One little detail here or there was off. Later, I'd ask Stan about some anecdote Daws had told me and Stan would say, "If Daws said it happened, it happened." Once, he said, "If Daws told me my last name was really Schwartz, I'd probably figure I'd been wrong all these years."
That was one thing about Daws. Another was the high standard to which he held himself. And yet another was how it felt like his talent was contagious. It wasn't, of course, but you felt smarter and more gifted around him. He was totally non-competitive and able to bring out the good in everyone.
There are people who in subtle ways let you know that just because you share a room with them, that doesn't mean you share any part of their greatness. Daws treated you like you did, even though you both knew you didn't. That was a magical trait he shared with another man I was blessed to know — another man who was at the absolute top of the field in which he worked. I'm talking about Jack Kirby.
Daws was a teacher — a very good teacher whose classes output some of the best new voice actors of their generation. I have zero ability in that arena but Daws was nice enough to invite me to some of his classes and — to use a term I always thought was silly — you could get a great "contact high" from being surrounded by so much talent. It helped me as a writer.
And another of the many wonderful things Daws gave me was a great friend. His name was Earl Kress and he was a writer and actor who was one of Daws' students.
I just typed that and instantly realized it was inadequate because Earl was more than a student to Daws. There was a bit of a father/son relationship there and a vast amount of mutual affection. Daws thought I should know Earl and that Earl should know me and he was, naturally, right. We were the best o' buddies until Earl passed away back in 2011.
Daws gave us all so much. I miss Earl too but if Daws was still around, he'd be 100 years old today so I'm especially missing him this morning. And not so much for your benefit as for mine, I felt like telling you.