That's my pal Keith Scott and that's the front cover of Volume 1 of a two-volume set of books you must have if you're interested in animation history…especially the history of cartoon voices.
Keith knows a lot about cartoon voices because he has one. Actually, he has many. He's one of the busiest voiceover actors in Australia, heard on plenty of cartoons. He does many original voices and also is called on to replicate the voices originally performed by guys like Mel Blanc, Daws Butler and Bill Scott (no relation) who have left us. He's also an impressionist and entertainer and as if that weren't enough, he's also an accomplished historian.
He wrote The Moose That Roared: The Story of Jay Ward, Bill Scott, a Flying Squirrel, and a Talking Moose, which is the definitive book on Jay Ward's animation empire. And the reason it's the definitive book is because Keith did such a thorough job that there hasn't been much room for many other books about the studio that brought us Rocky & Bullwinkle. In the unlikely event you're interested in that topic and don't have that book, you can order a copy here.
And now Keith has two new books out — Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, 1930-70. The Golden Age of which he writes spans the years when cartoons were made to be shown in theaters…made by Disney Studios, Warner Brothers, Max Fleischer, MGM, Walter Lantz and many others. Keith has researched this topic so well that he identifies…
…well not every cartoon that every American studio made for theatrical release in those years. There are a few mysteries and a few educated guesses but I think he nails down about 98% of them. Volume 1 is mostly narrative text and in it, Keith goes through every studio and discusses what they made and who they employed to speak for their characters. Volume 2 is mostly lists, going studio by studio, cartoon by cartoon.
I get lots of e-mails asking me if I know who did such-and-such a voice in such-and-such a cartoon. Well, those correspondents can stop asking me and look it up in Keith's indispensable reference books. I am so happy to have these, I can't tell you.