The Stan Freberg Thread

"Either the world's shortest musical or the longest radio commercial"

 

I love Stan Freberg! My parents had a couple of his albums and I always liked that not everyone got his humor. I felt like I was in a special club of funny people.

 

One of the very few original Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons after 1940 not to have a Mel Blanc voice credit, Stan Freberg narrates the story of the Three Little Bops, accompanied by Shorty Rogers and his band (sorry, audio only):

 

Here is the visual, hopefully it comes through for everyone. It's a classic.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10154247560746270

 

Legendary TV spot, one of the greatest commercials of all time. To fully get this you need to know that Lark cigarettes had an ad where they went to a cocktail party and sang "Have a Lark today!" (to the tune of the William Tell Overture), and everyone at the party just happened to have Lark cigarettes. The ending is perhaps the greatest TV commercial moment ever.

 

Not sure about anybody else, but I got a "Video Not Available" when I tried to play.

Try this:



Fun fact: my dad worked with Freberg on that Butternut advertisement. Lotsa stories about what a funny, amiable guy he was. It was even covered in Time magazine, if I remember correctly. We were also treated to a sales kit which included records with alternate takes and tunes. (I would be remiss if I didn't mention that on THIS forum.)

No, of course I did not keep anything from the sales kit.

 

My first experience with Stan was a 45 of "Point Of Order" and this 5-year-old just loved it...even though I had no idea what the heck it was, or what it was parodying. Let alone, "Person To Pearson" on the flip side. No way I could get my mom to explain it to me at that age.

 

jerol

 

Great performer who sometimes to put disturbing twists in his songs. One I like is "That's My Boy":

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No need to be sorry. Rhino's That's All Folks is a 2 CD set that takes off from the two Warner Carl Stalling Project CDs and Bugs Bunny On Broadway. TAF includes a 100 page hardcover CD- size book and the set is produced by cartoon music maven Daniel Goldmark. There is some more 'toon music out there,but these are Looney Tune/Merrie Melodie centric. If Wiki is correct,this is the ONLY WB 'toon not to feature Blanc during his credit contract and the only Freberg credit on a WB ' toon,though Stan did lots of Warner work(e.g.-Junior Bear). The soundtrack without the visuals even brings attention to the music. The 'toon was directed by Friz Freleng's crew and looks relatively "modern"-post UPA influence on U.S. cartoons,yet it is 61 years young.

 

Stan's Tip of the Freberg Rhino box is a necessity,if only for the disc of commercials(sad,the video is a VHS and never updated by Rhino).I never thought I'd ever hear another Tom Sweet Milky Way Machine ad,featuring radio voice Walter Tetley(aka the real Sherman,the pet boy of Mr. Peabody-accept no substitutes) but the box has one ,along with other treasures. Tetley was the reason for the U. S. credo:Castration without representation is tyranny. In Walter's case,he probably was represented by a talent agent. You can look it up.

 

'Freeb' certainly influenced my particular sense of humor as I was growing up, for sure. He also seemed to cast a wide swath along a whole set of genres, not just the ground "Weird Al" Yankovic trod on. Who around here thinks his skewering of Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel" had an influence on many a psychedelic-era record of the late '60's, with loads of spacey and echo effects (notably the LP version of "Time Has Come Today" by The Chambers Brothers and "It's Wonderful" by The [Young] Rascals)? Who thinks in the back of their head that Stan's song parodies that have plenty of interruptions (i.e. "Sh-Boom," "Rock Island Line," "Banana Boat (Day-O)") were an impetus for Phil Spector to add opening and closing comments from the Let It Be soundtrack to The Beatles' last released album of new material of the same name? (Not to mention the market for outtakes with crosstalk, i.e. the profanity-laced commentaries at many a Chess session.) And who, when Capitol put out The Best of The Stan Freberg Shows in 1958, would have thought it would spur a market for his full, unedited, 15 shows for CBS Radio that aired in the summer and fall of 1957, culminating in the 2-CD set of his complete shows? (Well, not really complete, I have some tapes ordered via Radio Yesteryear in the late 1970's [and a few from other entities], and there are some segments on those tapes that are missing from the CD's.)

As an advertising man, Freberg's credo was "More honesty than the client had in mind." At least one regional airline who hired him to do an ad campaign found that out the hard way - by his playing on passengers' fear of flying, as the airline in question had a few plane crashes a few years before.

 

Love his 50's material!

 

For some reason CBS thought it was a good idea hiring Freberg to promote their upcoming sitcom Hogan's Heroes. This legendary radio ad, where Freberg interviews HH star Bob Crane, was the result.

 

Frebe on audiophiles:

 

This was awesome! I’ve never heard this but thanks for posting!

 

I love his "United States of America" album. I met him in Hollywood years ago at an autograph collectors show. He was amazed that I knew who he was. He was absolutely a treat!

 

Loved Stan on the Monkees TV show.

 

me too!

 

The guy cracks me up, really tickles my humour bone!

 

Stan Freberg