I found so much good information I put it all in. Overkill.

February 2, 2012 11:27 AM

Remember me? I'm the kid who had a report due on space neat blog about growing up Freberg.

Content on this blog is more safe for work than previously linked on MeFi.

posted by infinitewindow (16 comments total)

It would be great if you could post some examples of Freberg;s stuff to those who don't know him. My only encounter is a play of The Ol' Payola Blues on the radio once years ago, so I don;t know what I should know.
posted by mippy at 11:50 AM on February 2

"My father and I aren't talking. We haven't spoken in nearly a decade. He's a prisoner of his own confusion and the warden is a black widow spider with an ego for an hourglass."

There's a whole lot being left unsaid here. Parents estranged from children, what a bummer.
posted by Doleful Creature at 11:52 AM on February 2

Remember Me? I'm That Kid Who Had A Report Due On Space
By That Kid Who Had A Report Due On Space

posted by Ian A.T. at 11:57 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]

I love Stan Freberg. His material is just brilliant. His deconstructions of Old Man River and The Banana Boat Song are as fresh and funny as they were when he wrote them more than fifty years ago. And the relationship between Donavan Freberg and his father wasn't always broken-- they were collaborating and working together as recently as the late '90s. Whatever happened to tear them apart, it was recent, it was sudden and it was bad, and I don't think I want to know any more.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:02 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]

Most people who grew up in a wealthy Hollywood family WISH they had stories like these. And it is a dirty shame that they didn't. Many of them would be better adjusted.

Still, no stories of dad telling bedtime stories in the voice of Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent?

Interesting that my best source of celebrity info, Mark Evanier is a personal friend of both Stan Freberg and the current wife described as a 'black widow spider' (example from the fractured archives of his blog). Well, at least it wasn't like Paul & April Winchell.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:06 PM on February 2

There's a whole lot being left unsaid here. --- If I can deduce from Stan Freberg's wiki entry, the "black widow" might be his second wife, who he married about the same time that Donavan stopped contact.
posted by crunchland at 12:08 PM on February 2

It would be great if you could post some examples of Freberg's stuff to those who don't know him.

Here's a sampling from archive.org. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to include "Bang Gunleigh: U.S. Marshall Fields." Ah, well.

http://www.archive.org/details/stan_freberg_show
posted by steambadger at 12:34 PM on February 2

Sorry; that should have been linked.
posted by steambadger at 12:35 PM on February 2

Oops. My mistake; Bang Gunley is on the September 22 show.

"Somebody sure cut through that fence, all right."
posted by steambadger at 12:52 PM on February 2

I was in middle school when those commercials were popular, and I was so, so proud of the fact that I could do (in my mind) a dead-on impersonation of the Link Hogthrobby disembodied voice. So much so, that a friend and I reenacted the commercial for a French Camp talent show. It went over about as well as you'd expect.
posted by cottoncandybeard at 1:28 PM on February 2

I miss his porn blog.
posted by jonmc at 1:37 PM on February 2

It would pretty much HAVE to be more SFW than some of the other stuff he's been FPPed for.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:38 PM on February 2

He's my friend on Facebook.
posted by Lillitatiana at 1:47 PM on February 2

Some idiot asked Richard Burton about the perfect beauty of his then-wife, Elizabeth Taylor. Burton replied, "She is a little short in the leg". Stan Freberg immediately asked, "Which one?"

Stan was also the author of the anti-bigotry commercial that featured the bigot remarking, "Hang him, it'll teach him a lesson."
posted by Cranberry at 1:58 PM on February 2

Stan's magnum opus.

We going out on that joke?

No, we do reprise of song. That help. But not--

Not much, no.
posted by ShutterBun at 8:46 PM on February 2

I found it strange that Donovan listed "George Lucas" among Stan's list of important phone numbers, until I was reminded of this bit of trivia from Star Wars:

"Contrary to popular belief, George Lucas called upon Freberg, not Mel Blanc, to audition for the voice of the character C-3PO for the 1977 film Star Wars. After he and many others auditioned for the part, Freberg suggested that Lucas use mime actor Anthony Daniels' own voice in the role."
posted by ShutterBun at 9:27 PM on February 2