Brian, thanks for a wonderful and informative site! I really enjoyed the sound bites and bios on all of these great artists. I was led here after “discovering” Paul Frees, as I wanted to know who did the voices for the Haunted Mansion at the Magic Kingdom here in Florida.
I thought that he did those voices only at Disneyland, in California……….but then I have never been to either Disneyland or Disney World, so what do I know?
Also, I always wanted to know who did all those other voices that I grew up with, and it was great to find so much info on them. By the way, do you know of any place that one could find any of the original cell art for some of these characters?
I wish I did. In the Mission Statement of our web page, I did say something about wanting to branch out, with our site, and address all aspects of animation (including the actual “animation” animation end………the drawing and print work end), but then some of those other areas just are not my forte’. None of our readers have had a whole lot to say about that either. I think that June Foray might know the answer to that question. When she wrote to me in late ‘ 73, she had a few things to say about how animation works (frames per second, and that the voice work is done first and the drawing second). She told me enough about that aspect of cartooning, that I would guess that she would know the information that you are curious about as well. Only problem is, I have not had much luck in making contact with her——-but even back in the early 70s, it took me about 3-4 tries, before I finally got a letter from her; I guess she is always busy (and right now she is working on her autobiography).
Maybe we will get REALLY LUCKY, once we post this email (I can’t promise how quickly we will post it); perhaps someone will read this and be able to be of assistance.
Also, who do you consider today, as being in that same sort of league, as maybe a Daws Butler or Paul Frees? Thanks again for all the info you provide,
Ted B
Though I know someone, whom you could contact, for that imformation, I personally would be kind of a disappointment, for answering that question. I tend to revere the past, and look at the artists from the 50s, 60s and 70s, as the voice artists from THE GOLDEN AGE. I’m not really very impressed with today’s voice actors; especially since, for the last 25-30 years, the trend has been to use MANY VOICE ARTISTS, to do a cartoon show (as opposed to just hiring a VERY SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE, to do a whole myriad of voices, as was the case with Daws, Paul, June Foray and Bill Scott). I suppose there are some voice artists, today, who do multiple characterizations……….but even among those people, I haven’t really found anyone with the quality of voices as the four people I mentioned above. I will confess, however, that I do not watch Saturday morning cartoons very much at all; almost NEVER………..most of the NEW cartoons, that I see, nowadays, are in full-length feature films, in the movie theater.
However, there is a voice actor appreciation email group, that you could join………….or even if you don’t want to join it, you could contact this yahoo group’s president, Craig Crumpton. I think that Craig has even started to do a small amount of voice work himself. Craig is a young man of about 30 years of age. Craig would be an excellent person to answer the question about who are the 21st Century’s equivalents of Paul Frees and Daws Butler. I know that Mr. Crumpton probably does have some opinions about that for sure.
Brian