Stan (Stanley) Friberg is an American writer, actor, artist, vocalist, comedian, radio host, and advertising director. His career began in 1943 and continued actively until the end of the 80s. He became famous for his work "St. George and the Dragon", a role in the television series "Time for Beanie", as well as filming in classic commercials.
Personal life
Stanley Friberg was born on August 7, 1926 in Pasadena, California, USA. Father - Victor Richard Friberg (later changed his surname to Freberg) - a clergyman among the Baptists. Mother - Evelyn Dorothy, housewife. Friberg was a devout Christian of mixed Swedish-Irish descent.
Graduated from Alhambra High School in his hometown.
From 1945 to 1947, he served in the US Army Medical Corps at McCornack Hospital in Pasadena, California.
Stan's works were notable for their tenderness and sensitivity, despite the bites of satire and parody present in them. Stanley also categorically refused to appear in projects sponsored by alcohol and tobacco production. This fact later served as a serious obstacle to his career in radio.
Sen's first wife Donna died in 2000. From marriage with her, Freeberg had two children: Donna Jean and Donavana.
In 2001, Freeberg married Betty Hunter.
Stanley died on April 7, 2015.
Cartoon career
Stan Freberg's first role in 1943 was an imitation of Cliffy Stone's radio show.
After graduating from high school in 1944, Stan came to Hollywood and was recruited by the Talent Agency after an audition at Warner Brothers as a voice actor.
His first job was to voice a character in the cartoon "For what?", Which was recorded but never filmed.
In the future, he voiced the characters in the animated films "Rough Squeak", "The Great Old Nag", "Goofy Gophers" and One Meat Brawl. Together with Mel Blank, he voiced the paired characters: Hubie and Bertie mice, Spike the bulldog and Chester's terrier.
After Kent Rogers, who voiced the younger bear in Rabbits and the Three Bears, was killed in World War II, Stan Freeberg finished his work.
In the 50s Stan voiced many characters in the animated films Dumb Dog (1950), Foxy and Rabbits Kin (both 1952), Three Little Preventers (1957).
In the studio "Walt Disney Productions" Freberg voiced the characters of the animated films "Lady and the Tramp" (1955), "Blue Coupe", "Lambert", "Sheep Lion".
The voice of the orange cat in the short animated film The Mouse and the Garden (1960) earned Stan his first Academy Award.
Freeberg's last role was as the voice of Cage Coyote in the animated short Little Go Beep (2000).
Art films
Friberg, along with Ritmar and Dawes Buttlers, sang the song "Beware, Jabberwork" for the Disney movie "Alice in Wonderland." The song was never included in the film, but it was recorded in 2004 and 2010 on DVDs with the film.
As an actor, Freeberg made his debut in the 1951 comedy Callaway went Thataway, a satirical parody of American movie stars.
In 1953 he starred as the weeping singer Billy Weber in Geraldine.
In 1963, he voiced the voice of the dispatcher - deputy sheriff in the film "This crazy, crazy, crazy world."
In the 70s, he auditioned for the voice of the robot C-3PO for the film by George Lucas "Star Wars" (1977), but instead of Freberg, the pantomime actor Anthony Daniels was chosen.
Career at Capitol Records
in 1951, Friberg began recording satirical recordings for Capitol Records. His first work was John and Marsha, a parody of a soap opera. Both main characters were voiced by Friberg. Many radio stations subsequently refused to broadcast the parody, believing that it was a real romantic conversation between two real people.
In 1954 Stan played Pedal Steel Guitarist, a parody of the country hit Ferlin Husky.
In 1955, Freberg recorded The Night Before Christmas, which later became a cult classic.
In 1951, in company with Dawes Butler and Junie Foray, Friberg created the parody "St. George and the Dragon", which later became a hit number one in 1953, sold over a million copies and received a gold disc.
Freeberg's next hit was a parody of Johnny Ray's Scream in 1952, in which Stan parodied Ray's vocal style. Johnny Ray was furious with Freeberg until the success of the parody helped sell Ray's other albums.
Also Freeberg releases the parody "I got under the skin" (1951) and the parody "Sh-Boom" (1954) for the song The Chords, a parody of the song "C`est si bon" (1955), "Yellow Rose of Texas" (1955) and The Great Challenger (1956).
In 1956, Freeberg parodied Elvis Presley in the music video for "Heartbreak Hotel".
In the same 1956 he wrote a book-parody of "The Search for Bridey Murphy" - a book about hypnotic past life regression and LP hypnosis sessions.
In 1957, Freberg ridiculed Harry Belafonte's popular recording of The Banana Boat Song.
Freeberg's musical parodies, co-written with Billy May at Capitol Records, have gained popularity across America since 1957.
Very popular was the Laurence Welk taunt show, in which Friberg carefully copied Welk's lively on-air style, carefully adding false notes and unfortunate lines to his playing.
Freeberg paid a lot of attention to political satire: he ridiculed relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, ridiculed McCarthyism and Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Capitol's legal department was very nervous after every political satire of Freeberg came out and often called him in for talks.
The confrontation between Freeberg and the Capitol led to a decline in the degree of satire in Stanley's work. But before that, in the 1950s, the Capitol twice banned Freeberg's parodies Right, Arthur and Godfrey. The Capitol's Legal Department also blocked the release of Most of the City and City Toast sketches.
A 1958 parody of Green Chri $ tma $ ridiculed the over-commercialization of Christmas, reminding the public that this holiday is primarily the birthday of Jesus Christ. Each time the satire ended with the performance of a Christmas song, in which the sounds of cash registers sounded instead of bells.
In 1958, for the 100th anniversary of Oregon, Freeberg directed the musical Oregon! Oregon! A Hundred Years Fable in Three Acts”, which was recorded on a 12-inch vinyl album. In 2008, Friberg, along with the Pink Martini group, released an updated version of the musical, timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the state of Oregon.
In 1960, in the wake of the Payola scandal, Friberg released the single The Old Payola Blues, which tells the story of a corrupt record label promoter looking for a teenager who can't sing. He ends up finding a young man named Clyde Ankle and makes a 6 second tape called "High School ooo-ooo" and tries to make a full song out of it by bribing a disc jockey at a jazz station. They end up with a Big Band-style composition that heralds the end of rock and roll and a resurgence of jazz and swing.
In 1961, Freeberg publishes United States of America. Volume One. The First Years”is an original musical album combining dialogue and song in the format of musical theater and parodying the history of the United States from 1492 to the end of the 1783 War of Independence.
Subsequently, in 2019, this music album was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Register of Records as culturally, aesthetically and historically significant.
The release of Volume Two of the History of the United States of America was planned to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the United States in 1976, but in fact it was not released until 1996.
Freeberg's parodies show his love of jazz, although the images of jazz musicians appear to be stereotypical images of the beatniks. Jazz has always been portrayed as the preferred style over pop music, and especially over rock and roll.
Radio career
In the 1950s, Freeberg began hosting his own program, The Stan Freeberg Show, on CBS radio.
Despite good productions, the show failed to attract sponsors after Friberg withdrew tobacco sponsorship and began mocking advertisements with parody commercials for Puffed Grass, Food and Ajax Cleaner.
In the 1960s, Old Man's River show anticipated the political correctness movement that has become popular for decades. In this show, the main character, Mr. Tweedley, constantly interrupts Freeberg with a loud buzzer when he tries to sing the song "Old Man's River". First, Mr. Tweedley objects to the word "Old" in the lyrics, then to other "politically incorrect" words in the lyrics. As a result, constant interruption leads to a complete stop of the song after 15 unsuccessful attempts to play it.
In 1966, in the production of "Pat," he parodied Ronald Reagan and his idea of running for the presidency of the United States, ridiculed pay radio - an analogue of pay television (the nickname for cable TV at the time). In the same production, he presented Dr. Edward Teller with the Father of the Year Award for the creation of a hydrogen bomb with the phrase "Use it for health!"
Subsequently, in the 2000s, Friberg returned to radio and produced several "Twilight Zone" radio shows.
Television career
Since 1949, Friberg, along with Butler, have been puppeteers and puppet voices in Bob Clumpett's puppet show Time for Beanie. The series won three Emmy Awards in 1950, 1951 and 1953 and has received significant acclaim as a groundbreaking children's television show. According to legend, Albert Einstein himself was a fan of this series and once even interrupted a conference at a high level in order to watch the next episode of "Beanie".
Fribreg has made guest appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, Chow Maine's Sas Chow King, and Chinese New Year's Salute on other talk shows and television variety shows.
Advertising creativity
Friberg was successful in advertising satire. By doing so, he revolutionized the advertising industry. Subsequently, well-known advertising agencies added humor to their videos, imitating Freeberg.
Freeberg's list of famous commercials includes:
- The Butternut Coffee advertisement, a nine-minute musical "Omaha!"
- Contadina tomato paste advertisement: "Who put eight big tomatoes in this little jar?"
- Geno's pizza ad is a parody of a cigarette ad. Subsequently, this ad was recognized as the most brilliantly conceived and executed ad of its time, which also became the first ad to receive spontaneous applause from the audience.
- Promoted Geno's pizza as a parody of the Scope mouthwash.
- An advertisement for pitted prunes as the food of the future, filmed in a futuristic setting based on the fantasy of Ray Bradbury. After this video, sales of prunes grew by 400% over the year.
- A commercial for SunSweet sunscreen with the famous phrase “Today is wrinkles, tomorrow is pits. The sun is coming!"
- An advertisement for Heinz's American soups. In the video, a housewife turned her kitchen into a giant studio where she cooks, dances and sings. The video was filmed in 1970 and at that time was considered the most expensive commercial.
- An advertisement for Jacobsen mowers in which Jacobsen mowers are faster than sheep munching grass on the lawn.
- An advertisement for Encyclopedia Britannica starring Freeberg's son Donavan.
- Chun King Chinese food ad featuring 9 Chinese doctors and one European doctor with the caption "Nine out of ten doctors recommend Chun King by Chou Mein!"
- Kaiser Aluminum food foil advertisement.
- An advertisement for the "Prince of Spaghetti" sauce.
Friberg gained widespread popularity in Australia, where he visited many concerts as a concert performer. In 1962, commissioned by Sunshine Powdered Milk, he wrote and voiced an animated commercial, which later won the Sydney Logy's Most Popular Advertising Video of 1962.
All of these commercials are considered classics. Despite the fact that Bob and Ray were the first to produce cool advertisements, Stan Freeberg is still considered the first person to bring humor to TV commercials.
Freeberg's hilarious and memorable ad campaigns competed against elaborate classic ad campaigns. Geno Poluchchi, owner of Chun King, in gratitude for the commercials, gave Frierg a ride in a rickshaw on Hollywood Boulevard, harnessing himself to the cart.
For his videos, Friberg has received 21 Clio Awards.
Friberg's later works
In the 70s and 80s, Friberg often appeared as a guest guest at various events.
In his autobiography, written during these years, Freeberg talks about his life, about his early career, about meetings with such famous people as Milton Berle, Frank Sinatra and Ed Sullivan.
In the 90s Stan produced short radio shows on AM radio KNX, sang the song "Inspiration of the Leader" on a parody of Bill Clinton's inauguration. Has acted in the Garfield Show and Garfield and Friends on several occasions.
In 1995, Friberg was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame for his performances United States of America. Volume One. The first years”and“The second volume of the history of the United States of America”. As the third volume (which was never created), some parts were recorded that were not included in the first and second volumes.
Friberg played the character JB Toppersmith and the puppet Papa Boolie in Jankovic's The Weird Al Show. He is one of the commentators on the multi-volume Looney Tunes Gold Collection DVDs.
In the film "Stuart Little" he voiced the announcer of the boat race, and in 2008 he starred as Sherlock Holmes in the radio show "The Adventures of Dr. Floyd".
Since 2008, Friberg has voiced numerous characters on the radio and on the Garfield Show.
Friberg's last role was to provide voice-overs for the 2014 episode "Rise of the Rodents."
Death
Stanley Friberg died on April 7, 2015 at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, California from pneumonia.
