Stan Freberg was one of my heroes; he died on Tuesday at the
age of 88. If you don’t know his name, you should, and if you do a search
online you may find yourself an instant fan. (example: this TV spot for
Sunsweet Prunes) When I was a kid, committing his comedy records to memory and
eagerly awaiting his latest commercials, I never dreamed that I would meet him,
let alone call him a friend someday. I can’t overstate the influence he had on
me during my adolescence; he helped shape my sense of humor and permanently planted
his ideas, catchphrases, and voices into my consciousness. Say the name “Ben
Franklin” and I think of that founding father uttering the words “life, liberty
and the purfuit of happineff” from the album Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America. At odd moments his
parody of Harry Belafonte’s “Banana Boat (Day-O)” (“too piercing, man…”) or his
bow to radio censorship, “Elderly Man River,” pop into my head. (“You’re
welcome, I’m sure.”)
It’s heartening to know that I’m not alone. When some
friends of Stan’s mounted a tribute to him last November at the Egyptian
Theatre in Hollywood, notables ranging from Steven Spielberg to Weird Al
Yankovic sang his praises. Everyone spoke from the heart and few could resist
quoting their favorite Freberg lines.
I first met Stan when I got to interview him about his
autobiography It Only Hurts When I Laugh,
for Entertainment Tonight in 1988. When
he told me he was about to embark on a book promotion tour, I asked if he’d
ever done anything like that before. He said he hadn’t and I took the liberty
of offering some advice, based on my experiences: always have something to eat
with you for plane rides at inconvenient hours, take Vitamin C on a regular
basis, etc. Two weeks later he called me from out of town to thank me and declared,
“A book tour is the literary equivalent of the Bataan death march!”
Sometime later my wife Alice dubbed him an honorary Jew,
which delighted him no end, as many people mistakenly thought he was part of
our Tribe. In fact, he was the son of a Baptist minister. Our daughter Jessie
soon became a Freberg fan as well, sputtering with laughter while listening to
“Sh-boom” or “The Great Pretender.”
Imagine, then, what it felt like to have him as a guest in
our home. Our friends were amazed—even overwhelmed—to meet him. One night our
party turned into an impromptu musicale. I worked up my courage and asked if
he’d be willing to sing “Take an Indian
to Lunch,” from his United States
album. He said yes without hesitation but asked who might accompany him on the
piano. I said I would, if he could
perform in the key of C. He did, and needless to say, he brought down the
house.
As a lifelong fan, I thought I knew all there was to know about
Stan as a radio, television, and recording artist, but it turns out he had more
to do with movies—especially animated cartoons—than I realized when I was
young. Because Mel Blanc was the only performer to receive credit on Warner
Bros. cartoons, I never knew that Stan contributed a number of voices to Looney
Tunes over the years, including Bertie of Hubie and Bertie, one of the Goofy
Gophers, Pete Puma, and that unforgettable lunkhead Junyer Bear in Chuck Jones’
Three Bears cartoons (What’s Brewin’,
Bruin?, A Bear for Punishment, et al.). That alone would earn him a place
in the pop culture hall of fame. He finally got the credit he deserved on Friz
Freleng’s Three Little Bops in 1957.
He also provided the voice of the beaver in Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp and George Pal’s Yawning Man in tom thumb. He was even featured on-camera
in a 1953 Republic feature called Geraldine,
singing some of his parodies including the Johnny Ray send-up “Try.” He not
only appeared in It’s a Mad Mad Mad World
but created the TV commercials for Stanley Kramer’s mega-comedy.
I’m not sure the generations that followed the Baby Boomers
recognized Stan and his genius as we did. This may have wounded his ego in
recent years, but his admirers never lost sight of who he was or what he meant to
us. His humor has worn well and his voice work speaks for itself—pun intended.
He was one of a kind.
His loss hits me hard, because he lives inside my head, and
always has. I’ll never forget him, nor will I forget the kindness he showed me
and my family. Freberg forever!
