Stan Freberg - Animation

Animation

Freberg was employed as a voice actor in animation shortly after graduating from Alhambra High School. He began at Warner Brothers in 1944 by getting on a bus and asking the driver to let him off "in Hollywood." As he describes in his autobiography, It Only Hurts When I Laugh, he did this, getting off the bus and finding a sign that said "talent agency." He walked in, and the agents there arranged for him to audition for Warner Brothers cartoons where he was promptly hired.

His first cartoon voice work was in a Warner Brothers cartoon called For He's a Jolly Good Fala, which was recorded but never filmed (due to the death of Fala's owner, President Franklin D. Roosevelt), followed by Roughly Squeaking (1946) as Bertie; and in 1947, he was heard in It's a Grand Old Nag (Charlie Horse), produced and directed by Bob Clampett for Republic Pictures; The Goofy Gophers (Tosh), and One Meat Brawl (Grover Groundhog and Walter Winchell). He often found himself paired off with Mel Blanc while at WarnerBrothers, where the two men performed such pairs as the mice Hubie and Bertie and Spike the Bulldog and Chester the Terrier. He was the voice of Pete Puma in the 1952 cartoon Rabbit's Kin, in which he did an impression of an early Frank Fontaine characterization (which later became Fontaine's "Crazy Guggenheim" character).

Freberg is often credited with voicing the character of Junyer Bear in Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears (1944), but that was actor Kent Rogers. After Rogers was killed during World War II, Freberg assumed the role of Junyer Bear in Chuck Jones' Looney Tunes cartoon What's Brewin', Bruin? (1948), featuring Jones' version of The Three Bears. He also succeeded Rogers as the voice of Beaky Buzzard.

Freberg was heard in many Warner Brothers cartoons, but his only screen credit on one was Three Little Bops (1957). His work as a voice actor for Walt Disney Productions included the role of Beaver in Lady and the Tramp (1955) and did voice work in Susie the Little Blue Coupe and Lambert the Sheepish Lion. Freberg also provided the voice of Sam, the orange cat paired with Sylvester in the Academy Award-winning Mouse and Garden (1960). He voiced Cage E. Coyote, the father of Wile E. Coyote, in the 2000 short Little Go Beep.