0:01

No Battle of

0:03

Goan and Lexington April

0:05

nineteen, seventeen seventy

0:08

five Declaration

0:10

of Independence six.

0:14

I learned to read when I was six, so

0:17

I must have known the name Mel Blank before

0:19

I turned seven. Looks

0:21

like the genius is trying to show

0:24

me his name was at the start of

0:26

so many of the cartoons I watched after

0:28

school. Blank was the voice, most

0:30

famously of Bugs Bunny,

0:33

but he was also the voice of Daffy Duck

0:36

Your co and

0:38

Sylvester the Cat Rocket,

0:42

both characters I could relate to because

0:45

they also had trouble with says suffering

0:48

sucotash Nope, I still can't

0:50

say it and not sound like a cat. But

0:54

that's not even close to the whole list.

0:57

On the flint Stones, Mel Blank was both

0:59

Fred neighbor Barney Come

1:02

On Fred,

1:05

and Fred's pet Dino.

1:08

Fast

1:11

forward a few thousand years and he

1:13

was George Jetson's hot tempered boss

1:16

Cosmos Space Lee, What

1:19

are You Toy? He was the original

1:22

to Can Sam in commercials for fruit

1:24

Loops Cereal, I wasn't allowed

1:26

to eat and he poured on the sugar

1:29

as peppy lapew You are

1:31

Pino, I am

1:34

you a Blank. There's

1:37

a good reason why mel Blanc was known

1:39

as the Man of a thousand

1:41

voices. I mean there wasn't a voice

1:43

he didn't do right, Oh,

1:46

hockey smoke. I wouldn't agree with that. I

1:48

stand corrected, bullwinkled J

1:51

Moose's best friend Rocket J Squirrel,

1:53

I'm here. He wasn't voiced

1:55

by Blank, Rocky's pot Sylvanian

1:58

nemesis Natasha Fatale Dylink,

2:00

I am here. Mel Blank didn't

2:02

play her either. Blank didn't

2:05

make the Grinch's heart grow three sizes

2:07

as Cindy Luhu Candy car

2:10

Why why are you

2:12

taking our Christmas tree? Or keep

2:14

Sylvester from snacking on Tweetie

2:16

as Granny. If there's one little

2:19

said, just one little feather

2:21

hand of this bird, I'm going to sell

2:23

you to the violin string actory.

2:26

Those are just a few of the characters

2:28

voiced by a four ft eleven dynamo

2:31

named June Fay.

2:33

Why should we know the name June Fay.

2:36

June Foray was the go to female

2:40

voice artist Daddy

2:42

Candy Daddy Caddy An. She

2:44

was the voice of Chatty Cathy, the doll iconic

2:46

doll. Oh my gosh, that my sister Mary Beth

2:48

had really yeah, this was in the sixties,

2:51

and how did you Chatty Cathy work? By the way, did you

2:53

pull a train string? And then she would say,

2:55

good play, how

2:58

how do you change my Later

3:01

on The Twilight Zone, June showed

3:03

off her dramatic chops, playing a sinister,

3:06

murderous version of Chatty Cathy,

3:09

Nickie Tina Can I'm

3:11

beginning to hate you. Sometimes,

3:15

June worked blue literally

3:17

as the petite prankster Joki on

3:19

The Smurfs were

3:23

I'll throw in one. You may not even know because

3:25

she was uncredited. She was the voice of Little

3:27

Ricky's dog barking and I Love Lucy?

3:30

Are you serious? Don't

3:34

you know what time it is? Among

3:36

her many fans, legendary

3:39

animator Chuck Jones. While

3:41

many called June the female Mele

3:43

Blank, Jones like to say that mel

3:45

Blank was the male June Farrey.

3:49

Why would you know June farre because she's part

3:51

of your childhood. But even though most

3:53

of us grew up with her characters, June

3:56

Farrey isn't widely known today.

3:59

It turns out there's a bit of a story behind

4:01

those Looney Tunes credits from

4:04

CBS Sunday Morning and I heart

4:07

I'm Morocca and this

4:10

is mobituaries, this

4:17

moment June Fay, July

4:21

two thousand seventeen, The

4:24

Woman of a thousand voices.

4:34

You know, eat my shorts as a little rude and

4:36

I threw it out as just an ad

4:38

lib, eat my shorts And next

4:41

thing, yes, it's on all these T shirts

4:43

and it became a catchphrase. You probably

4:45

wouldn't recognize Nancy Cartwright

4:47

if you passed her on the street. That's

4:50

because Nancy isn't a famous face.

4:52

She's a famous voice. Actually,

4:55

like June far Ay, she's a lot of

4:57

famous voices.

5:01

For the past three decades, Nancy

5:03

has played several young boys on

5:05

The Simpsons, including Ralph Wigham

5:08

Nelson Months and of course don't

5:10

have a cow man Bart

5:13

Simpson and I'm like this perennial

5:15

ten year old boy, which is so awesome

5:17

and best job for me because it's

5:19

kind of what I wanted to do, just

5:22

like me. Nancy watched a lot of

5:24

TV growing up, The Jetson's

5:27

and the flint Stones, and then in the

5:29

seventies it was Mary Tyler Moore. It

5:31

was nothing was better. Yeah, I was inspired

5:33

by Ruth Buzzy on laughing.

5:39

You know, I'm saving it until after I'm married.

5:42

On next Saturday Night, each Other comes

5:46

another one of those under the radar famous

5:48

people, Bob Bergen, b

5:51

E. R G. And I am an actor

5:53

and a pig, porky pig to be specific,

5:56

but that pretty impressive. Look.

5:59

We have to do the same amount of

6:01

work times ten that

6:03

an on camera actor does, because it's just with

6:06

the voice. It's true. Voice

6:09

acting doesn't get the credit it deserves.

6:11

A lot of cartoon characters aren't even human,

6:14

but somehow voice actors are able

6:16

to make them seem well like people.

6:19

My friend Rucy Taylor was Huey,

6:21

Dewey and Louis for Disney for years.

6:23

Rats that was still going the

6:26

stairs. CA's okay, that's

6:28

way I'm quicker at anyway. She

6:30

used to perform it like this and people can't

6:32

see what I'm doing. But I'm sort of like doing Mr spox

6:34

vulcan thing with my fingers. Uh.

6:36

And I said her, why are you doing the ducks like

6:39

this? She goes webbed feet. I

6:41

said, those aren't feats. She goes, they are when I'm

6:43

performing. You know, it's whatever works for you.

6:46

A lot of it is in my face. Bart

6:48

is Bart's pretty open. I don't think I

6:50

change with him, but like Nelson months, I

6:52

look at my lips like every kind

6:55

of like talking out of the side of my mouth, you

6:57

know. And when did I do rap

6:59

for my eyebrows? Go really really

7:02

hi? Hi mom?

7:05

And to be clear, we're not editing

7:08

this. She just did that back to back

7:10

to back. Nancy's

7:13

and Bob's voices make me laugh, but

7:16

I wanted to talk to them about a voice that

7:18

originally terrified me. In

7:22

the Looney Tunes episode Broomstick

7:25

Bunny, Witch Hazel is a green

7:27

faced tag with a single snaggle

7:29

tooth. Her hair is a mess. She's

7:31

a witch. But it wasn't so much what she

7:33

looked like that scared me, but how

7:36

she sounded. That

7:42

cackle way too close to

7:44

Margaret Hamilton's in The Wizard of Oz.

7:51

You know her laugh for Witch Hazel.

7:53

It's so quintessential, right, which

7:55

it's funny, it's also terrifying

7:58

when it was little. Yes, I

8:00

loved her. I loved almost

8:05

as menacing as Witch Hazel's cackle was

8:07

the song she sang while she was preparing

8:10

her witches brewn

8:13

a spider some glue.

8:17

That devilish ditty ran

8:19

in a loop through my head as a child.

8:24

Freak you out. It freaked me out,

8:27

and I had for years

8:29

running through my mind a cup

8:31

of tea spider, some

8:33

glue. Yeah.

8:36

In the cartoon, Witch Hazel gloats

8:38

about being the ugliest witch

8:40

of all until Bugs Bunny shows

8:42

up. This trick of treating is a pretty

8:45

nice rackon dressed as an even uglier

8:47

witch. I don't remember seeing her

8:49

rigetti of the union meetings,

8:52

and it's such a witty cartoon. It's hysterical.

8:55

I'd forgotten that she feels so threatened

8:57

cause she's no longer going to be the ugliest witch.

8:59

That's I wore new dearie.

9:02

I'm going to worm all of your ugly

9:04

secrets out of you. Gear me now,

9:06

Coan does your hair, which

9:09

Hazel ends up chasing Bugs around with

9:11

a butcher knife that shop

9:13

enough to split a hair. In

9:17

the end, of course, Bugs outwit switch

9:19

Hazel. He gets her to drink a potion

9:22

that makes her pretty, and

9:25

the pretty woman she turns into at the end

9:27

of that short was modeled after the

9:29

woman voicing her June

9:31

for Ay. What

9:34

was she like physically? Uh?

9:37

Like four ft nothing really, yeah,

9:39

a tiny little thing like a gymnast guy.

9:41

Yeah, eight, like you

9:43

wouldn't believe, and never gained weight. And

9:45

she's like this turbo charged,

9:48

a little spark plug in a tiny little

9:50

body. Indeed,

9:52

June Foray had stamina. She

9:55

lived until almost one hundred and

9:57

worked nearly to the end. Her

9:59

story. He began in Springfield, Massachusetts,

10:02

where she was born in nineteen seventeen.

10:05

Not long after June learned to talk. She

10:08

was imitating animals, barking at neighborhood

10:10

dogs, and doing the impressions for

10:12

her mother's Bridge club of the theater

10:14

actors who came through town. But

10:17

June's mother wanted her to be a dancer,

10:19

so we enrolled her in tap classes

10:22

until about with pneumonia and did June's

10:25

dancing career before it ever began.

10:27

So it was on to piano lessons,

10:31

but June hated the piano. Lucky

10:33

for her, one day, when she was playing baseball,

10:36

she was hit by a pitch hey

10:39

right on her finger. I was fortunate

10:42

enough to break my finger playing baseball with

10:44

my brother, so I didn't play

10:46

piano anymore. That's June

10:48

for Ay in the year two thousand talking

10:50

about the pitch she called a gift

10:52

from heaven. So I said, whether I

10:55

really wanted to be in actress? And

10:57

so she and dad got

10:59

the best drama teaches that there

11:01

were. By the time she was fifteen,

11:04

June was performing in dramas on local

11:06

radio station w b z A, where

11:09

she developed the granny voice she'd used

11:11

throughout her career. Around

11:14

this time, June's father lost his

11:16

autoparts business, so the family

11:18

moved across the country to Los Angeles.

11:21

That was just fine. By June, she'd

11:23

already written herself a character called

11:25

Lady Make Believe, a go get

11:28

her. Even back then, June called

11:30

every radio station in town until

11:33

one of them agreed to put Lady Make Believe

11:35

on the air. Here's the story

11:37

about the Happa Doodle. This is from a recording

11:40

June made decades later. Our

11:42

little Happa Doodle, when you first looked at him,

11:44

looked just like a pixie. He

11:47

had a tiny face that's showed with merriment.

11:49

I wrote them with a voice in mind, and

11:51

they were gentle

11:54

stories. There was no violence in any

11:57

of them. Fast forward to World

11:59

War Two, and June, by now a

12:01

young woman, was writing and performing

12:03

on radio dramas, boosting the

12:05

morale of an anxious public. Better

12:08

hurry,

12:10

here you are here. She is playing

12:13

a nurse in episode

12:15

of the Cavalcade of America. Yes,

12:19

already, here's your alcohol scrubbing.

12:21

Thanks. June's radio

12:24

career would end up lasting well into the

12:26

fifties. In one of my favorite

12:28

bits she ever did, she played a sort

12:30

of robot interplanetary

12:32

beauty queen on the Stan Freeburg

12:35

Show. Some dope that turly

12:37

an tennis at the girl got cube

12:39

suction cups. I

12:41

got shapely wheels. Yeah,

12:48

they're they're pretty shapely

12:50

at that. I see

12:52

you I in them.

12:54

One radio show turned out to be especially

12:57

important to June. On Smiling

12:59

Ed's bus dr Brown Gang, she met

13:01

a writer director named Hobart Donovan.

13:04

Several years later, they married and

13:06

stayed married until his death in nineteen

13:09

seventy six, It's time for

13:11

My Favorite Husband, starring Lucille

13:14

Ball. Hello everybody

13:18

now one big radio

13:20

stars were making the transition into

13:23

the brand new medium of TV. Lucille

13:26

Balls hit radio show My favorite

13:28

Husband. Now hurry and get me out of this type

13:30

thing. I feel like a ten inch weenie in a

13:32

five inch roll. Led to TV's

13:34

I Love Lucy that very same year

13:37

I Want a Divorce. Dady

13:41

White's radio appearances on shows

13:44

like Family Theater, I Make the Salad

13:46

Mrs McGee led to a legendary

13:48

and legendarily long television

13:50

career that included hosting Saturday

13:53

Night Live in two thousand and ten. Many

13:55

of you know that I'm I'm dy

13:57

eight and a half years old. Well,

14:01

it's going to be here for

14:03

no reason. June

14:06

occasionally went on camera. Here

14:08

she is playing a housewife opposite Johnny

14:10

Carson on The Johnny Carson Show in

14:14

I'm going to be very firm about this matter of an

14:16

allowance. Well, I'm telling you're right now,

14:19

you're not going to get one. But

14:21

acting on TV didn't make

14:24

use of June's real talent. Off

14:26

camera and on Mike, she could

14:28

become anyone. And

14:31

with the Golden Age of animation in full swing,

14:33

June Farrey was about to find

14:36

her voice, come

14:39

on and join us. We

14:52

mentioned earlier how as a kid, June

14:54

Farrey was doing voices for anyone

14:56

who would listen. Well, Nancy

14:59

Cartwright and Bob Bergen, Ak Bart

15:01

Simpson and Porky Pig started

15:03

early two for them. The classroom

15:06

was the preferred venue. There was one

15:08

teacher that I kind of drove crazy because I would

15:10

do I would do this thing,

15:13

listeners, I'm I'm I'm plunking

15:15

my cheek right now, I can do it

15:17

under my chin and

15:21

doing that, and he he would walk in

15:24

the room and it would kind of drive him nuts.

15:27

Mr Dwarkin, wherever you are, sir

15:29

um, it would kind of and and he never did find

15:31

out that that was me. Or if I wanted

15:33

to get a drink of water, I would pretend

15:36

like I add the hiccups. And

15:38

the trick to hiccups is you don't

15:40

go You don't make it so obvious

15:43

you just as you're talking, you

15:45

just sort of pull back. I

15:47

would answer questions in school like

15:50

either the teacher or porky pig. When

15:52

I when I was a kid and I got sent to

15:54

the principal's office and the principal

15:57

would say, okay, which teacher, I'd

15:59

say, Mr Snyder, do him? And

16:01

if I did him, well, I got

16:03

to go back to class. If I did allow the

16:05

impression, I got detention. How serendipitous

16:08

was that that you had a principal who

16:11

was incentivizing you to

16:13

get even better the voices.

16:15

There you go. And I had also encouraged me

16:17

not to do as well in school because I was like, oh, this

16:19

is working for me. Did you dream of

16:21

being porky peg even though there already

16:23

was a porky bag since I was five? That was

16:25

my goal in life,

16:32

That's all. Folks don't believe him.

16:34

This is Bob practicing porky at home

16:36

as a teenager. Gush.

16:40

I don't know why I have to learn

16:42

the older I plug leadens

16:44

anyhow. Some kids want to be a baseball

16:47

player, some kids want to be an astronaut,

16:49

and they alternate back and forth whether it's Monday or

16:51

Friday. This is what I wanted in

16:53

life. The porky Bob grew up

16:55

with was voiced by mel

16:57

Blank, didn't they say it will be would be a wonderful

17:00

lester camping way out here in the

17:02

middle of nowhere, who had been doing the pig's

17:04

voice for almost forty years,

17:06

since seven, not long

17:08

after the start of what's known as the

17:11

Golden Age of animation. That

17:13

era began with the introduction of cartoons

17:16

with the sound Walt

17:20

Disney's Mickey Mouse spoke his first

17:22

words in ninety nine

17:28

Meanwhile, Warner Brothers debuted

17:31

Porky Pig, Jaffy Duck, Elmer

17:33

Fudd, and of course Bugs Bunny,

17:36

of cause you know this means

17:39

war By the latter

17:41

half of the century, production studios

17:43

like Hannah Barbara created characters

17:46

specifically for TV, the

17:48

flint Stones, the Jetsons, Yogi

17:50

Bear, and a personal favorite,

17:52

snaggle Puss. The kid has class

17:57

recognizes Tell him

18:00

now. June Farrey got into animation through

18:02

a sort of side door. In the late

18:05

nineteen forties, she went under contract

18:07

with Capitol Records doing

18:09

a range of voice of her work for kids

18:11

and grown ups. Here she is

18:13

once again with satirist Stan Freeburg,

18:16

doing a parody of the police drama

18:18

Dragnet. Ma'am, but I talked to me

18:20

just a minute, ma'am. What about not much?

18:22

Man, Just want to ask you a few questions. What's your name?

18:25

Blue Riding Hood? Where you going to

18:27

Graham House? What you got in the basket?

18:30

What are you trying to take up in the basket? Here?

18:33

Soon enough, Disney, which pioneered

18:35

feature length animation, came calling

18:38

with a part in nineteen fifties

18:40

Cinderella.

18:43

Now. Cinderella is nominally about

18:46

Cinderella, but a lot of the movie

18:48

focuses on a devious cat named

18:50

Lucifer, which was voiced by

18:53

June Farrey.

18:59

He was a mean old thing. He

19:02

didn't have any dialogue. But I was

19:04

working for Disney. Cinderella

19:07

was a big hit, and just a few

19:09

years later, June was summoned by

19:11

that other big player in town. My

19:17

agent had called me and said, would

19:19

you work for Chuck Jones at Warner

19:21

Brothers? And I said, well, I'd

19:24

love to work at Warner Brothers. But who is

19:26

Chuck Jones? As June would discover,

19:29

Chuck Jones was a genius. Time

19:31

Magazine once wrote that he made

19:33

movie goers laugh as often and as

19:36

well as Charlie Chaplin or

19:38

Buster Keaton. He directed over

19:40

two hundred fifty shorts for the studio,

19:44

including one of the greatest cartoons of all

19:46

time, What's Opera Doc The

19:49

Webbit Killed the Webit,

19:51

Killed the Webit Killed

19:55

the Webbit. Under his direction,

19:58

characters may have moved in exact dreated

20:00

ways and had extreme facial expressions

20:03

just to picture any of them getting hit with a frying

20:05

pan. But like

20:07

any good comedy, these characters

20:10

tapped into the audience is very real

20:12

wants and meads and anxieties.

20:15

Here's Chuck Jones in comedy

20:18

is concerned with small things. That

20:21

sort of thing that I am familiar with and you were familiar

20:23

with. That is how to get something to eat,

20:26

how to get someplace to sleep here, how

20:28

to uh, how to get your girl, how

20:31

to get the boy. All these things are

20:33

very important. In June

20:35

drove her Cadillac over to the Warner Brothers

20:37

studios to meet him, and this

20:40

gorgeous hunk of men shook

20:42

hands with me and he said, I'm Chuck. Well,

20:46

it was just astounding that this effervescent,

20:49

wonderful human being had wanted

20:52

me to work for him. Their

20:54

meeting kicked off a long term collaboration.

20:57

June loved working with Chuck Jones.

21:00

She performed in about forty of his shorts

21:02

at Warner Brothers. He would give her

21:04

just enough direction and she would deliver

21:07

the characters he was after, including

21:09

Granny and Witch Hazel. Later,

21:11

after he left Warner Brothers, Jones

21:14

continued to hire her for projects

21:16

like Tom and Jerry and How the

21:18

Grinch Stole Christmas and Ricky

21:21

Ticky Tavi, about a mongoose

21:23

protecting a family of humans. Here's

21:26

June as the villainous Cobra nagaina.

21:29

If you move, I strike,

21:32

and if you do not move, I

21:35

strike, O

21:38

fleeh Plea. Toward

21:41

the end of his life, Jones fought

21:43

for June to get a star on the Hollywood

21:46

Walk of Fame. She said, he told

21:48

her, mel Blank has a star, You're

21:50

gonna get one if I have anything to say

21:53

about it. And in the

21:55

year two thousand, June, for a

21:57

finally got one. By

22:01

this point you might be wondering, with all the

22:03

characters June voiced, why didn't

22:05

I know her name? Well, one reason

22:08

is that voice actors didn't and still

22:10

don't, get much recognition. The

22:13

animators, the directors, the writers,

22:15

everybody got credit, but the actors

22:18

didn't. I guess we weren't that important,

22:21

except we were. But

22:23

there is one actor who did become famous

22:25

for his voice work in the forties, fifties,

22:28

and sixties, Mel Blank.

22:30

If you read the credits to Warner Brothers cartoons

22:33

from this goldenest part of the Golden

22:35

Age, he's almost always the

22:37

only voice actor listed them.

22:42

Bob Bergen explains Mel

22:44

Blank had asked for a raise. I

22:47

think in the forties and the studio

22:50

said, no, we're not going to give you

22:52

a raise. Instead, the studio

22:54

gave Mel blank soul screen

22:56

credit. No matter how many other actors

22:58

were in a cartoon, only his name

23:01

appeared on screen. June's name

23:03

nowhere to be seen. What a way to

23:06

run a railroad. I asked her

23:08

what I did that bother you? And she

23:10

said it bothered everybody. Her ego I

23:12

think was bruised. It

23:14

wasn't the only disappointment June faced

23:17

in the late nineteen fifties. June played

23:19

Betty Rubble in a pilot for Hannah Barbera

23:21

called The Flagstones Wilma,

23:25

When are We Going shown? But

23:27

by the time The flint Stones went into production,

23:30

Joe Barbara had replaced June with

23:33

b Benadarrett Finney.

23:35

We've got our very old baby,

23:39

June said, missing out on that show broke

23:41

her heart. That much was clear.

23:44

A few months later, Joe called

23:46

my agent said, we feel very bad about

23:48

June. We'd like to hire it for something

23:50

out And I said, you tell him to take a

23:52

long walk off a short pier. And

23:56

I didn't work for Bill and Joe for a long

23:58

time. But

24:01

June, Foray was about to start a whole

24:03

new chapter thanks to a maverick

24:05

in the animation world named Jay

24:08

Ward. Jay Ward had not

24:10

planned on a career in animation. After

24:13

graduating from Harvard Business School,

24:15

he opened a real estate office, but

24:17

on day one, a runaway lumber

24:20

truck crashed into his office, apparently

24:23

while Ward had been reciting a poem to

24:25

his mailman and pinned Ward

24:27

against a wall. While recovering

24:30

from his injuries, he decided he wanted

24:32

to work in cartoons. His show

24:34

Crusader Rabbit, which debuted in ninety,

24:37

was the first animated series produced

24:40

for television. Down in Texas, they're

24:42

still talking about the little rabbit that had come

24:44

down from the United States to wipe out the

24:47

warld state of Texas. Obviously,

24:50

the rabbit must have been Crusader Rabbit

24:53

or grew else would have thought of such a wonderful

24:55

idea. The

24:57

drawings and movements may have been simpler

25:00

and cheaper than the Warner Brothers artwork,

25:02

but the humor was edgier, more off

25:04

kilter. June hadn't heard

25:06

of Crusader Rabbit or Jay Ward

25:09

when he came calling in the late fifties,

25:12

but he was a fan and he had an

25:14

idea for a show that would help define

25:16

both their careers. So

25:19

June tells me that she gets a call from

25:21

Jay Ward to meet her for lunch.

25:23

So I thought, oh boy, that's an you know, free

25:26

lunch. And

25:28

I met this jocular man with a walrus

25:31

mustache and he

25:34

orders martiniz and June although

25:36

she could hold her own, and she

25:38

said, oh, Jay, I can't. I can't drink

25:41

at lunch, and he goes, oh, come on, you'll

25:43

love this. We

25:45

started to talk and he gave me an idea of

25:48

a most in the Squirrel, which

25:50

seemed a little odd, but after the second Martini,

25:52

I thought it was one hell of an idea.

25:55

Here's Bob's impression of June calling

25:58

her agent after that lunch from Member.

26:00

She was four ft eleven and had had two

26:02

Martini's dies. June,

26:05

I love this show. It's about

26:07

a talking moose and a flag squirrel

26:10

and it's a complete that tire of the

26:12

Cold War, and they want me to play.

26:15

No, I'm not that drunk. It's true.

26:18

This is this show. The

26:20

show was Rocky and his Friends.

26:23

You might know it as Rocky and Bullwinkle,

26:25

with June Foray as Rocky Rocket.

26:28

Jay Squirrel was his full name. June

26:30

also voiced the pots Albanian spy

26:32

named Natasha Fatal. It

26:35

managed to be both smart and

26:37

supremely silly from start

26:39

to finish. I'm not sure if more puns

26:41

have ever been packed into a half hour. But

26:44

as You went to College, ten

26:46

state, no state

26:49

pen. It was a great

26:51

show. It was a genius,

26:54

genius show. The series

26:57

made good use of June's acting range.

26:59

They were segments like Dudley Dowright,

27:02

which sent up old fashioned melodramas

27:04

think Damsel in Distress tied to railroad

27:07

tracks,

27:11

and fractured fairy Tales, which

27:13

put fresh spins on classic stories.

27:16

Just then a remarkable thing happened. Sleeping

27:19

Beauty's eyes opened and she

27:21

sat up. Don't worry, kids, I wasn't

27:23

really asleep. Then, Why the big year

27:26

at I just wanted to see if I

27:28

could make it in show beers.

27:31

But the stars were Bullwinkle, the moose,

27:33

voiced by Bill Scott and June's

27:36

Rocky Harry Bullwinkles. The

27:38

show's about the start.

27:41

The show premiered in nine

27:43

and maybe people may not know this. It aired

27:46

in prime time since it was aimed at

27:48

adults. Steven Spielberg

27:51

still remembers watching his parents

27:53

watch it, As he told The New York Times,

27:56

it was the first time that I can recall my

27:58

parents watching a cartoon show over

28:00

my shoulder and laughing in places

28:02

I couldn't comprehend. Oh, Minkle,

28:04

this is terrible. What kind

28:07

of game can you play with girls? Oh?

28:10

It is really easy. Children should, isn't it.

28:13

Rocky and Bullwinkle ran for five years

28:16

until nineteen sixty four, living

28:18

on long afterward in syndication

28:21

where I discovered it. It's satire,

28:23

influencing generations of

28:25

show creators. We offended

28:29

nations, countries, politicians,

28:32

school teachers, whether people,

28:36

no matter what. And unlike her early

28:38

work with Warner Brothers, June Farrey's

28:40

name appears in the credits

28:43

bequit Me, Booby, and your name will

28:45

be in lights. By

28:53

the nineteen eighties, June Farrey was

28:55

kind of a living legend. And I want

28:57

companionship. I need to be served

29:00

if they want to get stuck, I'm

29:04

not that kind of Here she is returning

29:07

to radio on The Howard Stern Show,

29:09

reprising the role of Rocky with Howard

29:12

as Bullwinkle. In an even more

29:14

adult version of the original show.

29:17

What could I go, Bruik, I've got

29:19

a Woody that won't quit. Hey,

29:23

I told you she worked Blue sometimes.

29:25

Now, when another Landmark animated

29:28

series was just getting off the ground in

29:30

the late eighties, naturally, June

29:32

made an appearance those Simpsons,

29:35

which a bunch of savages, especially

29:37

the Big Eight Father. June

29:40

was on The Simpsons one. She was that's

29:42

Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson.

29:45

Again. They brought her in because she's

29:47

June for Ray and to have her come in

29:49

and say, you know, the baby bunky

29:51

bumper babysitting servies Rocky

29:54

and Bart. It turns out share something

29:56

very special Rocky Squirrel

29:59

in Bartholomy, Jay's Simpson. That

30:01

j in there is for j Ward.

30:03

Did you know that? I did not know that. So

30:06

the genealogy these two great characters

30:09

are linked. June was revered

30:11

throughout the animation world. One

30:14

reason was her talent. June

30:16

was simply a master of her craft.

30:19

I'm trying to think of her equivalent on

30:22

camera. June was the who

30:25

of voice acting. You know what this

30:27

is. It's a big hoo, but I'm

30:29

gonna say Meryl Streep, oh oh

30:32

gosh, was the Meryl

30:34

Streep of voice actors,

30:37

and she was a genius comedic

30:39

actress. You know, there's there's certain

30:41

things you can't learn no matter who you study. With pitch

30:44

and timing, you're born with that. How

30:47

animated physically was she while

30:49

she was doing her voice work, very um

30:52

and and as we said earlier, I use

30:55

a lot of facial expressions, so watching

30:57

her do Rocky, I can't do Rocky, but she

30:59

would do this with her lips because it added youth to

31:01

the character Hoky Smoke. But we go, I can't

31:03

do the falsetto, but she would do that with that character

31:06

Hoky Smoke. Look

31:08

there and what we're talking

31:10

Tina's She had a little smile on her

31:12

face, which was kind of sinister because the

31:14

k that the doll kills you super spooky

31:17

twilight killing people who

31:21

not really but I could hurt

31:23

you, you know. I remember when we

31:25

worked on I think it

31:28

was Space Jam and watching

31:30

her do Which Hazel and Granny for

31:32

that she was standing as her arms were flailing

31:35

all over the place when she was doing Which Hazel double

31:38

double toil and trouble, fire

31:41

burn and cald and bubble.

31:47

Not bad. So yeah, she totally

31:50

physically took on every character. To

31:53

hear Bob Bergan tell it, she was also just

31:56

a pretty swell person. When

31:58

is the first time that you work with her? My

32:01

very first job doing Leoney Tuns, Yeah,

32:03

it was. It was a cartoon called Tiny Toon Adventures,

32:06

and I was doing Porky and Tweetie and

32:09

terrified, you know, um. And

32:13

it was at a studio where they had these partition

32:15

walls between the actors to block the sound,

32:18

and June was right next to me, and I remember

32:20

her grabbing my hand and holding my hand as

32:22

we walked into the studio and

32:25

she's doing Granny and I'm doing Tweetie and you never

32:27

you know those feelings when he's like, I think someone's

32:30

watching me. And I just felt someone

32:32

watching me from above. And I looked up

32:34

and June was standing. She was tiny, She was standing

32:36

on a chair looking below, and she said, oh, Bob,

32:38

I swear it was Mel, which, by the way,

32:41

it didn't sound a thing like Mel. But that was her

32:43

way of just making me feel at

32:45

home. Nancy Cartwright met June

32:48

even later, but she had long felt

32:50

a kinship. We had a few things in

32:52

common. Height is one thing that

32:54

we had in common. They were also two

32:57

women who famously voiced boy

32:59

characters. Producers

33:01

realized that, you know, you can't hire a real

33:03

ten year old kid to do a ten year old voice.

33:05

His pipes are going to be changing, and he's going to go

33:08

through adolescence. And how many parts would we

33:10

have now if they really would have stuck

33:12

to that just as not economical at all.

33:15

Nancy also gives June a lot of credit

33:17

for fighting for animation to be treated

33:19

as an art form. June led

33:22

the way to establish the Annie Award

33:24

so that voice over actors could get acknowledged

33:27

because at that time we weren't being acknowledged

33:29

with the with an Emmy, which

33:32

was wow, that's kind of not okay.

33:35

And June was a leader and pushing the

33:37

Motion Picture Academy to award

33:39

an OSCAR for feature length animated

33:41

movies, which they finally did in two

33:44

thousand two. I'd like to think

33:46

that Lucifer the Cat, the character she played

33:48

in Cinderella half a century before, was

33:51

looking up that night. But

33:57

just as animation was being taken more

33:59

serious a sleep in the United States, the

34:01

opportunities for voice actors began

34:04

changing. It's no secret for

34:06

a while now. The big roles, the

34:08

kind that used to be played by voice actors

34:10

like June, have been scooped up by actors

34:13

with familiar faces. What

34:16

we will never be those of us who aren't

34:18

well known is uh buzz

34:20

light Year. We won't be

34:23

Woody in toy story, but

34:26

we might be a green army man. We're

34:29

called utility players because when you see in the end of a

34:31

feature movie I animated feature additional voices,

34:33

that's us. This was a change that dismayed

34:36

June. She hated

34:38

it. She did not understand

34:41

why are they going to people whose faces are

34:43

known for a part that's recorded. But

34:46

even June's like, even if they're good, there

34:48

are people like you and me who

34:50

can do this, and why

34:53

are they going to celebrities. It doesn't

34:55

make sense. That really bothered

34:58

her a lot, But even as the the street

35:00

changed around her, it's veneration

35:02

for June continued into her nineties.

35:06

So at the end of her life, there was a

35:08

Rocky and bullwinkled Geico commercial and

35:11

from what I understand, they brought

35:13

June in to record it, and

35:15

they knew that she was up there in age just

35:18

to see what happens,

35:21

and she didn't have the energy. She

35:23

didn't have she was just frail, so

35:26

they hired another actress to do

35:28

it. The other actress's

35:30

voice ended up in the ad. Come

35:34

and I remember that the

35:37

commercial was airing, and she called me. She goes. I

35:39

don't know what they were complaining about. I sound great. I

35:42

know very well the actress who did it. I won't mention

35:45

names, but they swore her to keep

35:47

your mouth shut out of respect for June, out

35:49

of compassion. The industry

35:51

respected and loved her enough to let her

35:53

think it was her which

35:55

and they paid her. I don't think it was

35:58

a stretch to say to the ad agency,

36:00

please pay the queen of this

36:02

industry. I love everything I

36:05

do, with all of the parts

36:07

that I do, because there's a little bit

36:09

of me and all of them. So

36:13

many of us really did grow up with June's

36:15

voices, learning to be irreverent

36:18

from Rocky and Bowlwinkle at Christmas

36:20

time, listening to her pure innocence

36:22

as Cindy lu Whu, or like

36:25

me, being freaked out by her witch

36:27

Hazel. Come on, it can't just be me. But

36:30

there's this one detail. Bob Bergin told

36:32

me about June something I hadn't heard

36:34

before that I find so telling

36:37

about the care and love that

36:39

she put into what she did, and it

36:41

has nothing to do with her voice.

36:45

She always dressed to the nines

36:47

recording cartoons to show

36:49

up for work. Yeah, like

36:52

she was going over the evening and I

36:54

would ask her why, and she

36:56

said, because I

36:59

respect what I do and

37:01

I want to make a good impression. I'm going to

37:03

work. I always. I always used to think

37:05

she had something to do after, but no,

37:08

it was for the job. She had that much respect

37:10

for what she was doing. I remember one time we did have

37:12

a conversation she got a little deeper. She said, you know,

37:14

I think it comes from my radio days, where

37:17

we have a live audience and everybody

37:19

in the audience is wearing you know, coat and tie and hats

37:22

and gloves. The actors

37:24

did too, So she just carried

37:26

that over even though there was no audience there.

37:28

She dressed the part. She wasn't wearing

37:31

pajama pants just because she wouldn't

37:33

be seen listen. If she were still with us, I would say

37:35

to her, so in your home studio with COVID, what are

37:37

you wearing? Knowing Jewish you'd have the ear rings and

37:39

the makeup of

37:42

all the characters you've played. If

37:45

one were to deliver a tribute

37:48

to June for a which would it be?

37:51

Alive? My little, my

37:53

little edged you're

37:56

a magnificently, your magnificent, You're wonderful,

37:58

the you're wonderful. They it will be all.

38:00

I wish there was lets more. And

38:04

that's all, folks. Well,

38:10

it looks as if for a time it's just a bone run

38:12

out. You've got the credits, Paul

38:15

Winkle. I

38:21

certainly hope you enjoyed this Mobituary.

38:24

May I ask you to please rate and review the

38:26

podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries

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38:30

can follow me on Twitter at Morocco.

38:33

Listen to Mobituaries on Amazon Music

38:36

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38:39

check out Mobituaries Great Lives

38:42

Worth Reliving, the New York Times best

38:44

selling book, now available in paperback

38:46

and audiobook. It includes plenty

38:49

of stories not in the podcast.

38:51

This episode of Mobituaries was produced

38:54

by Jake Harper and Aaron Shrank.

38:57

Our team of producers also includes Wilco,

38:59

Martin Is Caccero, and me

39:01

Morocca. Editing was by

39:04

Moral Walls, engineering by

39:06

Sam Bear, and fact checking by

39:08

Naomi Barr. Our production company

39:10

is Neon Homme Media. Our

39:13

archival producer is Jamie Benson.

39:15

Our theme music is written by Daniel

39:17

Hart. Indispensable support

39:19

from Craig Swaggler, Dustin Gervei,

39:22

Alan Pang, Reggie Basil and everyone

39:24

at CBS News Radio. Special

39:27

thanks to Roger Rains, Megan Marcus,

39:29

and Alberto Robina. Mobituary

39:32

Senior producer is the Indomitable Aaron

39:35

Shrank. Executive producers include

39:37

Steve Raises and Morocca. The

39:39

series is created by Yours Truly

39:41

and as always on dying gratitude

39:44

to Rand Morrison and John Carp for

39:46

helping breathe life into Mobituaries