They Come in Threes, but hopefully no more than that.
MAN. It's been a bad week or so -- Thurl Ravenscroft just died. I'm not sure which he's more known for -- doing the songs in How The Grinch Stole Christmas, or being Tony the Tiger. Either way, though, this is really sad, because he was an awesome voice talent, and from the stuff I'd read about or seen him in, he seemed like a really cool, friendly guy.
I saw this over at the Drink At Work blog (by the guy who does Medium Large and also writes Sally Forth (yes, that Sally Forth), and he also posted a link of some old commercials for Frosted Flakes from the 1960s.
So, yeah, that's kind of a downer. Hopefully this is the last of the "Awesome Voice Talent Passes On" series of posts for a while.
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me @ Wednesday, May 25, 2005
2 Comments:
Oh, now that's sad, and I never even knew this guy's name. But I knew Tony the Tiger, and the music from How The Grinch Stole Christmas is practically embedded in my DNA, I've been watching it for so many years. What a strange, cool name, too.. "Thurl Ravenscroft."
There is actually a guy at TBS whose speaking voice sounds almost EXACTLY like this guy, BTW. He's not an on-air person- he runs the music library, and he has an encyclopedic mind when it comes to the huge collection of production music that Turner owns. I suspect he's a former announcer, though, because everything he says comes out SO rich and mellow. When he says your name, it's like seeing it written in lights. I always enjoy dealing with him, because he's a nice guy AND just because I enjoy hearing his amazing voice.
I'm not sure _how_ I've always known Thurl Ravenscroft, but somehow I have. His name just seems stored in my trivia memory banks pretty much forever, so, when I saw that, I got pretty sad. Just because from everything I've read about him, he seems like he was just a really nice, kind man who loved people -- one show I saw had him on, talking about how he was Tony, and he was in a grocery store talking to a little girl, maybe 3 or 4 years old, and he did the Tony voice, and she was just amazed. And you could tell he really enjoyed making her happy (and probably got a kick out of her response).
...and, yeah, he's got one of those Perfect Names -- one of those that's too _good_ to be a psuedonym (as far as I know, it is his real name).
That was one of the neat things about my job -- most of the people there had done annoucing work, so it was kind of like working on a TV Sitcom or something, just because pretty much everyone had those Perfect Voices. (And it was kind of funny when sometimes they'd go into the Annoucing Cadence for a laugh -- you know, the Casey Kasem type delivery... well, when he's not ranting about coming out of a goddamn uptempo record when he's gotta talk about a fuckin' dog dyin'.)
There's some people who I always think it's surprising when they've got a really Announcerly Voice, and it turns out that they're not doing anything -- it's just their voice. One of my best friends in college had one of those; strangely, he didn't seem to think he had a good voice... even though, you know, I probably would have killed to have his voice.
Also -- spending time an at NPR station is fun, because the hosts there can just drop right into the NPR Cadence, and then as soon as they're off air, get sort of rowdy and loud. If you're not expecting it, it's a little surprising. I think a lot of people think they just talk in that sort of quiet 'you're listening to Marketplace' voice all the time.
Another great voice -- Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy. His real voice is probably closest to Brian's, but it's this really rich wonderful voice... the funny thing is, though, it doesn't seem to really fit how he looks, since he looks like a relatively young, hip 30-year-old or so. Same with Mr. Lawrence, who does Plankton on SpongeBob -- he's another with a really deep Quintessentially Grown-Up Voice, who looks really young.
Man, I wish I had a voice like those guys!
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