Happy 88th birthday, Stan Freberg

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Fri Aug 8, 2014, 08:10 AM - Edit history (1)

Stan Freberg

{His age counter is still on 87 as I write.}

Political correctness? It's nothing new. From his 1957 radio show:

Nor for that matter is discord in the Gaza Strip:

The Stan Freberg show

The first show {on July 14, 1957,} almost did not get on the air. An extended routine entitled "Incident at Los Voraces" was a savage piece of satire which took up nearly two-thirds of the show. It was specifically an attack on the excess of Las Vegas and in general a comment on current social events including the Cold War and nuclear arms race. The original version included references to the Gaza Strip in a chorus girl song and ended with a hydrogen bomb going off. It was perhaps Freberg’s most brilliant work for the entire run of the series and almost got the show canceled before it began. The show had been pretaped in Hollywood and fed to CBS in New York the Friday prior to the broadcast. When network executives heard the show, they flipped, and Freberg and producer Barnum had to stay up all night {rewriting} the script, {re-recording} it on Saturday with a new audience, with the all references to the Gaza Strip removed and an earthquake ending replacing the hydrogen bomb.

And my hands-down favorite Stan Freberg tune:

[mockmonkey]

1. Even his commercials were funny

Way before K-Mart "shipped" their pants Stan Freberg gave us this...

[hifiguy]

2. I believe that it was Stan who voiced the not-too-bright Pete Puma

in this classic Bugs Bunny cartoon

[gratuitous]

3. Certified genius

"You mean you plan to stop me every time I do something that you think is wrong?"

Laugh if you must (and indeed you must), but this was precisely the rationale that was used in the 1950s to blacklist writers, entertainers, and even ancillary workers in television and the movies. One sponsor in New York State, Laurence Johnson, owned three grocery stores in Syracuse. If an objectionable person showed up on a New York-produced program, he'd put up signs on products to warn his customers that they were supporting commies. Network executives were so petrified of this garbanzo, he acted as a de facto censor.

[Coventina]

4. "Christmas Dragnet" is a family tradition

"Most folks call them green onions, but they're really scallions."

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. Thanks so much for that.

I've never heard it before. MeTV runs episodes of Dragnet 1967 (and up), and Freberg was always spot-on in his impersonation of Jack Webb. I haven't seen the original TV Dragnet in ages, but it's surely out there on DVD.

Thank you for sharing that with us.

[Coventina]

6. You are most welcome! Happy to introduce it to more people!

"I picked him up on a 1492 - Not believing in Columbus."

[DFW]

7. This savage satire of Lawrence Welk is eternal

[kwassa]

8. A comic genius for the ages. Statues should be built of Stan Freberg.

"Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America Volume One: The Early Years"

I had it memorized as kid. We still go "Rumble, rumble, rumble. Mutiny, mutiny, mutiny."

"Green Christmas": a great commentary on the commercialization of Christmas made in the '50s that is still accurate today.

I highly recommend him to those who have never heard his stuff. His TV commercials were hilarious, too.