August 3 - Corey Burton

Image courtesy behindthevoiceactors.com

On this day, in 1955, Corey Gregg Weinberg was born in the Granada Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Corey grew up in the San Fernando Valley and began his voice acting career at the ripe old age of seventeen as Corey Weinman (he eventually changed his professional name to Burton). He was fortunate enough to study radio acting under the late great Daws Butler (if you’ve ever done a bad Yogi Bear impression, it’s Daws you’re making roll over in his grave) for four years. When radio dramas enjoyed a resurgence in the late Seventies and early Eighties, Corey then got to perform with many of the remaining talents from the Golden Age of radio broadcasting who could still sit in front of a microphone and deliver aural magic.

Image courtesy behindthevoiceactors.com

Since starting his career, Corey has been one of the most prolific voice actors in the industry. You would be hard pressed to scan the radio and television dials on any given day and not hear a character of his. What has Corey done you ask? He was the longest running signature voice of Old Navy commercials. He spent five years as the voice behind NBC’s Peacock Logo and has done similar work for all four major broadcast networks. For Warner Brothers Animation, Corey has provided the voice of Brainiac on Justice League, Static Shock and Superman, played Duke the Bully on Animaniacs, as well as Cushy and Van Spoony in the Pinky and the Brain segments and was several characters on the Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries series including Tosh, One-Eyed Jack and Count Bloodcount. For the Cartoon Network, he’s appeared in Samurai Jack, Johnny Bravo and was the titular character for Ranger Smith. Transformers fans might recognize his voice as that of Spike, Brawn, Shockwave or Sunstreaker. If G.I. Joe is more your thing, Corey was Tomax in that series. And that’s just the highlights of animated parts. Corey has provided narration and other voice work for 25 different miniseries and documentaries on television airing on channels like TLC, A&E, Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel. And while he’s never won an Academy Award, he did get to play one during a special presentation to John Lasseter at the 68^th annual ceremony.

All those credits would leave a lasting legacy for anyone in the entertainment industry. When it comes to Corey, however, we haven’t even touched on the focus of this blog, his roles with Disney. You might think you’re ready for this list but you probably never realized that these voices were all done by the same guy. Here goes:

On the big screen:

Image copyright Disney

Aladdin: Prince Achmed, Necklace and Fish Merchants

A Goofy Movie: Wendell

Atlantis: The Lost Empire: Mole

The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Frollo’s guard, the Miller

Hercules: Burnt Man, End-of-the-World Man, Titans and Tour Bus Guide

Rollercoaster Rabbit and Trail Mix-Up (Roger Rabbit shorts): Droopy

Return to Neverland: Captain Hook

On television:

House of Mouse: Ludwig Von Drake, Goofy Narrator, Ranger Woodlore, Announcers and Classic Disney Character Bit Parts

Hercules: Zeus and Amphitryon

Gummi Bears: Gruffi Gummi, Toadie, Clutch (Troll Leader), Sir Victor, Flint Shrubwood  and Troggles,

Image copyright Disney

Chip ‘n’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers: Dale, Zipper, Mole and Snout

Timon and Pumbaa: Kusko Quint (in several aliases) and Speedy the Singin' Snail

Goof Troop: "How-To" Narrator and the Circus master

Lloyd in Space: King Robustus

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: Brent Starkisser

One Saturday Morning’s How Things Werk segments ": Mr. Werks and Announcer

Bonkers: Ludwig Von Drake and the Mad Hatter

Quack Pack: Prof. Ludwig Von Drake

DTV Valentine’s Day Special: Announcer and Ludwig Von Drake

The Schnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show: Ian, Rusty Crustknuckle, Percy Lacedaisy and Ultra Guy Man Dude

Image copyright Disney

Kim Possible: Dr. Lurkin and Officer Hubble

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Count Dooku and Cad Bane

In direct to video productions:

Disney Sing-a-Longs: Ludwig Von Drake and Professor Owl (all titles); the Magic Mirror in the Party at Disneyland title

The Where’s Spot series: Narrator and various characters

Fantasia 60^th Anniversary Edition: recreation of Narrator Deems Taylor’s voice; Walt Disney in Story Meeting transcripts

Image copyright Disney

Corey was also the narrator for the making of videos and other supplementary materials on the DVD releases of Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pan, Bambi, Jungle Book, The Three Caballeros, Fun and Fancy Free, Sleeping Beauty, Toy Story and Pocahontas.

In Disney theme park attractions (a fair number of which are now sadly defunct):

Magic Kingdom: the pre-show announcer for Time Keeper, the folksy narrator in Mickey’s Toon Town Fair and Red Barns in Goofy’s Barnstormer

Image courtesy thetimethespace.com

Epcot: General Knowledge and the chicken in Cranium Command, the radio newscaster and traffic reporter in the Universe of Energy, Figment in Journey into Your Imagination (the short-lived bad one) and the Farmer and Mag-Lev Man in The Water Engine and Boid in the Bird and Robot Show, both parts of the post-ride area of the World of Motion pavilion

Disney-MGM Studios: Captain Hook and Peter Pan for the animation tour

Animal Kingdom: the announcer and various minor bugs in It’s Tough to Be a Bug (this one is still running)

Image copyright Tokyo Disneyland

Disneyland: (almost all of these can still be heard) Captain Hook and Mr. Smee on Peter Pan’s Flight, the judge, cop and farmer on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, the newsreel announcer on Indiana Jones Adventure, several pirates on Pirates of the Caribbean, the White Rabbit, both Tweedles and cards on Alice in Wonderland, Captain Hook, Mr. Smee and various pirates in Fantasmic!, the announcer for Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and the parking lot trams and, saving the best for last, the Ghost Host for the holiday edition of The Haunted Mansion.

Image courtesy creativecynchronicity.com

Tokyo Disneyland: the Monorail announcer, the Railroad announcer and Dale and Chernobog in Fantillusion!

Tokyo Disney Sea: the English language welcome announcements and most of the English language ride safety spiels

Disney On Ice Shows:

Peter Pan: Mr. Darling, Captain Hook, Mr. Smee

Aladdin: Peddler/Storyteller

Image courtesy starwars.com

Hercules: Burnt Man and Announcer

Toy Story: Announcer and Sarge

Princess Classics: Jaq and Gus Gus

In addition to all that, Corey has provided the voice of his regular characters (Ludwig  Von Drake, Captain Hook, Mr. Smee, Professor Owl, etc) for dozens of video games, radio broadcasts, Disney Cruise Line shows and talking toys. Whew.

At 64, Corey shows no signs of slowing down and, considering all the joy he brings people on a daily basis, we don’t want him to. So go ahead. Turn on your television and flip around the channels until you find something Corey’s been in (it really won’t take you long) or pop in your favorite Disney Sing-a-Long tape and wish one of the best voice actors around a very happy birthday.

November 2 - Paul Frees

On this day, in 1986, actor Paul Frees passed away in Tiburon, California. Born in Chicago, Illinois on June 22, 1920 with the name Solomon Hersh Frees, Paul was gifted with a four octave voice range. He would use that voice to forge an incredible career in Hollywood although he was almost never seen on any screen, big or small.

Paul started out in vaudeville during the 1930s as an impressionist using the stage name Buddy Green. By 1942 his voice had naturally led him into radio. His career would, like so many careers at the time, take a hiatus for World War II. Paul fought on the beaches of Normandy, was wounded and returned to the States to recover. He enrolled in the Chouinard Art Institute thanks to the GI Bill, but was forced to drop out when his first wife's health began to deteriorate and return to radio.

Paul was all over the radio dial during the late Forties and early Fifties. You might hear him as the announcer of Suspense one week and then as a player on Gunsmoke or Crime Classics the next. He even had a syndicated show, The Player, in which he played all the parts.

Starting in the 1950s, Paul began doing extensive "re-loop" work. Basically this meant that Paul would redub the voice of another actor for a movie. Sometimes it was because the original actor was considered to have to thick of an accent, so Paul might redo the entire movie, like in Midway when he did all of Tashiro Mifune's lines. Other times the studio might just need a few lines cleaned up and the original actor wasn't available, so Paul would mimic them for whatever was needed. One of the most famous voices Paul re-looped was most of the falsetto lines that Tony Curtis did as Josephine in Some Like It Hot. Apparently the studio didn't think Tony was melodious enough. While many voice actors worked pretty exclusively with one studio, Paul wasn't picky who signed his paychecks and worked with nine different companies.

Paul has all kinds of classic Disney roles to his credit. One of his first roles was re-looping the role of Eddie the Garbageman in 1966's The Ugly Dachsund. Dick Wessel filmed the role but died before post production was complete so Paul had to rerecord all of Eddie's dialogue. When Disney's anthology television show changed to the Wonderful World of Color, Paul became the voice of Professor Ludwig Von Drake and helped to sell thousands of color sets with The Spectrum Song. Ludwig would become a regular gig, appearing on Color many times and even getting several children's records. Paul would narrate a whole slew of Disney shorts as well, including the classic Donald Duck in Mathmagicland. He narrated a large number of segments for Color and even had a rare live action appearance in The Shaggy Dog as military psychiatrist Dr. Galvin.

Paul's most lasting Disney legacy however, is apparent every time guests enjoy some of the rides in New Orleans Square at Disneyland. He can still be heard as the Ghost Host in the Haunted Mansion and if you hike across the square, you can hear him as several of the pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean. His most famous line from the latter attraction is the haunting "Dead men tell no tales." Paul was also used as the original narrator for the pre-show of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln at the 1964 World's Fair and was the narrator for the now defunct ride Adventure Thru Inner Space.

Outside of Disney, Paul is best known for roles like Boris Badenov in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show for Jay Ward Productions. He did a number of roles in the classic Rankin/Bass specials including the Burgermeister in Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Santa Claus in Frosty the Snowman. Paul worked on the Tom and Jerry cartoons, Mr. Magoo and was the voice of two of the Fab Four for a cartoon series called The Beatles. He also was the voice of several well known characters in television commercials: The Pillsbury Dough Boy, Toucan Sam and the Farmer for the Jolly Green Giant.

After logging hundreds of film and television credits and entertaining millions of people for decades, Paul's run ended tragically. He took his own life with an overdose of pain medication. In 2003, he was paid tribute with a singing bust bearing his likeness as part of The Haunted Mansion film. A more fitting (and less painful to watch) tribute was made in 2006 when he was posthumously made an official Disney Legend for his dozens of contributions to the Disney legacy.