An Ode To Stan Freberg
When I was a child I discovered “Weird Al” Yankovic. Being the innocent youngster that I was I asked my grandfather if he had any Weird Al records. He didn’t mock me, he didn’t say “that’s not really my cup of tea”… my eternally awesome grandfather said “I don’t but I think I have something you’ll like”.
The next week when we visited my grandfather he handed me a cassette tape. I don’t think there exists a cassette that I’ve listened to as much as that one. Every day I’d liken to it and absorb it. It was a mix of music from Benny Bell, Spike Jonze and my favorite of the three, Stan Freberg. Some of you might be saying “who’s that?” Allow me to explain.
In the 50’s Freberg started his career at Capitol records doing parody sketches. These included classics like John and Marsha (a parody on bad soap operas), his classic Dragnet parodies and my personal favorite his “musical interruption” series.
“What was that?” I’m sure you’re thinking. To be fair I made up the name, I’m not sure if there was ever an official title for these skits but the general idea was that Freberg would cover famous songs in a spot on impression of the original singer. These performances would however be interrupted. Sometimes it’d be too much drumming (Yellow Rose of Texas), too much echo (Heartbreak Hotel) or a beatnik who hated the music (in Great Pretender and Banana Boat song).
These songs still hold up today, although having a little knowledge of music history or at the very least an awareness of the original songs goes a long way.
He continued in his popular with a satirical radio show, Ed Sullivan appearances, voice work for Garfield & Friends and even an appearance on the 1997 Saturday Morning show The Weird Al Show. He was even approached by George Lucas to voice C3P0 (despite false rumors of it being Mel Blanc) and it was Freberg who suggested Lucas look into Anthony Daniels.
Freberg never stopped working, he continued to voice numerous characters in the new CGI Garfield series.
Yesterday, at the age of 88 years old Stan Freberg passed away from Pneumonia. He will always be one of those links to the grandfather I miss so dearly.
