Stan Freberg, Acclaimed Satirist, Dies at 88
He was not on the list.
Stan Freberg, whose freewheeling comic career in advertising
garnered him worldwide acclaim and whose satirical entertainments abounded on
TV, the radio and on records, has died. He was 88.
Freberg died of natural causes at a Santa Monica hospital,
his son and daughter, Donavan and Donna Freberg, confirmed to The Hollywood
Reporter.
“He was and will always be my hero, and I will carry his
brilliant legacy forward as best I am able,” his son wrote on Facebook.
The godfather of humorous and irreverent commercials,
Freberg lampooned cultural institutions and described himself as a “guerilla
satirist.” The New York Times dubbed him the “Che Guevara of advertising,” and
years later, “Weird Al” Yankovic called him a major influence on his career.
“Very sad to say that one of my absolute all-time heroes has
just passed away,” Yankovic wrote on Twitter. “RIP Stan Freberg. A legend, an
inspiration, and a friend.”
Freberg also was known for his musical parodies. “Wun’erful
Wun’erful,” his 1957 spoof of “champagne music” — on which he collaborated with
orchestra leader Billy May — lampooned The Lawrence Welk Show.
He also parodied Johnnie Ray’s hit “Cry,” which Freberg
rendered as “Try.” (Ray was quite angry until he realized Freberg was fueling
sales of his record.)
The Los Angeles native had hit records of his own, including
St. George and the Dragonet, a 1953 send-up of the series Dragnet. His
recordings were so popular that he landed his own radio program in 1954, That’s
Rich. Three years later, he presented The Stan Freberg Show on CBS Radio, where
he regularly mocked commercials by advertising bogus products.
He won a Grammy Award in 1959 for best performance,
documentary or spoken word for The Best of the Stan Freberg Shows.
Earlier in the 1950s, Freberg helped create and write the
Emmy Award-winning comedy Time for Beany, also working with puppets and
performing on the show. Its droll, off-the-wall humor appealed to fans
including Albert Einstein. During Beany’s early gestation, he and the other
writers had no office, so they wrote in coffee shops at night as well as in an
“office” in a condemned building.
Not surprisingly, Freberg ruffled institutional feathers.
Capitol Records balked at releasing his satires of radio-TV personality Arthur
Godfrey and Ed Sullivan’s variety show Toast of the Town.
Freberg disdained the hard sell. He created such classic
comic ad capers as “Nine out of 10 doctors recommend Chun King Chow Mein,” and
his Jeno’s Frozen Pizza campaign featured the Lone Ranger and Tonto. He
skewered the greed of the ad business in “Green Chri$tma$, which criticized the
over-commercialization of the holiday.
In 1958, Freberg opened his own ad agency, Freberg Ltd. His
slogan was “More Honesty Than the Client Had in Mind,” and he even had a
corporate motto: “Ars Gratia Pecuniae” (Art of the Sake of Money).
Freberg, whose inspirations were Jack Benny, Fred Allen and
Norman Corwin, worked in cartoons for decades, starting in the 1940s. He
provided the voice for Junyer Bear in the 1948 Chuck Jones Looney Tunes cartoon
What’s Brewin’, Bruin, and he famously played the three pigs, the wolf and the
singing narrator in another Looney Tunes classic, 1957’s Three Little Bops. He
teamed often at Warner Bros. with the great Mel Blanc.
Freberg also was the voice of Beaver in Disney’s Lady and
the Tramp (1955). For the feature Looney Tunes, Back in Action (2003), he was
heard as a baby bear.
Survivors also include his wife, Hunter, and a
granddaughter.
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