R I P

 

obituaries. stan freberg, 1926 - 2015. master of comedy parodies and ad
campaigns OBITUARIES. STAN FREBERG, 1926 - 2015. Master of comedy parodies
and offbeat ad campaigns. By Dennis McLellan, McLellan is a former staff
writer.. Stan Freberg, an influential master of the lampoon who channeled
his off-the-wall sensibility into groundbreaking radio shows, comedy albums
and hundreds of humorous television commercials for products such as chow
mein and prunes, died of natural causes Tuesday at UCLA Medical Center in
Santa Monica. He was 88. His death was confirmed by his family, who said he
had a number of age-related ailments, including pneumonia. Freberg's path to
the nation's funny bone was unconventional: Unlike stand-up comics who
recorded comedy albums of their nightclub acts in front of live audiences,
Freberg went straight into the studio at Capitol Records in Hollywood and,
bolstered by actors, musicians and sound effects, created what he called
"audio moments. With totems of popular culture as his preferred targets, he
created his own satirical hit parade from sendups of chart-toppers such as
Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel"

and venerated TV series such as "Gunsmoke," "The Honeymooners" and Edward R.
Murrow's "Person to Person. His 1953 spoof of Jack Webb's "Dragnet," called
"St. George and the Dragonet," captured the cop show's famously staccato,
monotone delivery and was widely considered his finest work as a mimic and
parodist.

Announcer:The legend you are about to hear is true -- only the needle should
be changed to protect the record. St. George:This is the countryside -- my
name is St. George; I'm a knight. Saturday, July 10th, 8:05 p.m. I was
working out of the castle on the night watch when the call came in from the
chief

-- a dragon had been devouring maidens -- homicide. My job -- slay him! 

Freberg's irreverent take on the series produced the fastest-selling single
in history -- more than 1 million copies in three weeks, according to
Variety -- and earned its mastermind a gold record. "There has been nothing
comparable to Freberg's ability to seize on a pop fad and, while it was
still hot, capitalize on it," Gerald Nachman wrote in "Seriously Funny: The
Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s. Freberg's satiric vision made him an
idol to fans as diverse as the Beatles, Anthony Hopkins, Steven Spielberg
and Tom Hanks. Barry Hansen, the radio host and musicologist known as Dr.
Demento, told Nachman that Freberg's spoofs "were the true forerunners of
the satirical style of National Lampoon and 'Saturday Night Live.' " To
which Nachman added: "But with many more bull's eyes. His 1961 musical
comedy album "Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America" is often
described as his masterpiece. The droll revue covers American history from
Columbus through the Revolutionary War, with Freberg in roles such as
Benjamin Franklin, who is heard calling the Declaration of Independence "a
little overboard" in the lead-in to the song "A Man Can't Be Too Careful
What He Signs These Days. In 1996, the humorist released a sequel, "Stan
Freberg Presents The United States of America, Volume 2:

The Middle Years. When he first performed some of his parodies, the reaction
was not always positive. The original recordings of his barbed spoofs of Ed
Sullivan and Arthur Godfrey -- two of television's biggest stars in the
1950s and early '60s -- were locked in the Capitol Records vault after
vehement protests by lawyers for both entertainers. That led to Freberg's
frequently quoted comment on censorship: "My records are not released; they
escape. The son of a Baptist minister, Freberg was born in Pasadena on Aug.
7, 1926. 

Gangly and introverted, he spent hours lying on the floor with his ear next
to his family's console radio. "I was such a big radio buff when I was
growing up that when the other kids ran out to play baseball, I ran inside
to listen to the radio," he told the New York Times in 1983. "My idols were
Jack Benny and Fred Allen. Freberg's own offbeat sense of humor began to
blossom at Alhambra High School. During his senior year, he ran for student
office on the promise that he would install an 80-foot picture window in the
girls' 

locker room

and turn the principal's office into an automatic carwash. "I was elected in
a landslide but found it hard to deliver on my campaign promises," he
recalled in "It Only Hurts When I Laugh," his 1988 autobiography. He also
performed a one-man show at a school assembly, playing all of the parts in
"an original Freberg radio show," complete with background music and sound
effects. 

When his fellow students gave him a standing ovation, he was hooked. 

Although he

earned scholarships to both the University of Redlands and Stanford, his
college career was permanently sidetracked shortly after high school
graduation in 1944 when he landed a job at the Warner Bros. animated cartoon
unit as the voice of a cartoon dog based on President Roosevelt's famous
pooch, Fala.

He went into radio supplying animal sounds on a CBS network Sunday show
"Tell It Again," which dramatized a classic children's story each week. 

Later,

he was an actor on the Armed Forces Radio Network. After a post-World War II
Army stint in Special Services, Freberg did stand-up routines with the
comedy orchestra Red Fox and his Musical Hounds. He left the band in 1949 to
team up with former Warner Bros. animation director Bob Clampett on the KTLA
show "Time for Beany. Working with Daws Butler, who supplied the voices of
Beany and Captain Huffenpuff, Freberg spent the next five years as Cecil the
Seasick Sea Serpent (and the villainous Dishonest John) on the Emmy- and
Peabody Award-winning puppet show. In 1950, he launched his comedy recording
career with his classic soap-opera satire "John and Marsha," in which two
lovers (both voiced by Freberg) repeat each other's names again and again in
varying degrees of grief, anxiety, joy and lust. He also ruffled the status
quo of the Eisenhower era with parodies of rampant consumerism ("Green
Chri$tmas$"), the Army-McCarthy hearings ("Point of Order") and payola ("The
Old Payola Blues"). In 1957, after scoring a hit with his spoof of Harry
Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song (Day-O)"

record, Freberg landed his own comedy show on the CBS Radio Network,
replacing the departing Jack Benny. Critics loved it, but he had run-ins
with CBS executives over his refusal to be sponsored by tobacco companies
and other "undesirables. CBS canceled "The Stan Freberg Show" after about 15
weeks. Freberg later said the cancellation led him to concentrate on
advertising work. 

He formed his own company, Freberg Ltd. (but not very), whose motto was Ars
gratia pecuniae (Art for money's sake). One of his most memorable early
spots was a 1956 radio commercial for Contadina Foods, a small San
Jose-based tomato-paste maker that was taking on the giant Hunt's company.
Freberg came up with a jingle -- "Who puts eight great tomatoes in that
little bitty can? -- and sales of Contadina tomato paste increased
dramatically within weeks. Later dubbed "the father of the funny commercial"
by Advertising Age, he won more than 20 Clio Awards for his television and
radio spots. Freberg later promoted such varied products as Sunsweet pitted
prunes ("Today the pits, tomorrow the wrinkles; Sunsweet marches on!") and
Heinz's Great American Soups, for which he created a lavish Busby
Berkeley-style production number with a tap-dancing Ann Miller atop a giant
can of chicken gumbo soup. He summed up his advertising philosophy simply:
"Hey, folks, this is pizza we're selling, not the Holy Grail. His wife,
Donna, whom he married in 1959 and who served as his editor and producer,
died in 2000. He is survived by his wife Hunter Freberg, whom he married in
2001; a son, Donavan; a daughter, Donna; and a granddaughter. --. 

[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> .

 

 

  _____  


 <http://www.avast.com/> 

This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. 
www.avast.com <http://www.avast.com/>