Word came this week of the passing of June Foray, a true giant in the world of cartoon voices. She was 99 years old, but forever young in the hearts and minds of boomers everywhere. Boomers may not have recognized her face — or her name — but surely knew her many voices.
Born in 1917, Ms. Foray began doing voice work by age 12 for local radio dramas in Springfield, Massachusetts. From the 1920s through the ’50s she voiced characters on a multitude of radio shows, including The Jimmy Durante Show and Smile Time with Steve Allen. She recorded several children’s albums with Capitol Records, where she met Stan Freeburg, and went on to record several comedy albums with Freeburg before appearing on The Stan Freeburg Show on radio (1957-58).
Her “foray” into animation began when she was called by Walt Disney Studios to voice a cat character, and was hired to voice Lucifer the cat in Cinderella (1950). That’s when boomers started getting acquainted with her many voices. She continued to work for Disney in uncredited roles until 1952, when she voiced Hazel the witch for a Donald Duck Trick or Treat short. Witch Hazel then became a regular character on Looney Tunes, starting with a Bugs Bunny episode in 1956. She was the voice of Granny — the owner of Tweety bird — on Sylvester and Tweety cartoons from 1955 to 2013.
Her credits sound like a Who’s Who of top boomer cartoons, films and TV shows, including vocal performances in Tom and Jerry cartoons (1965), The Road Runner as various characters (1966), George of the Jungle (1967), The Pink Panther Show (1969) and hundreds more that boomers would recognize. In 1966 her voice was uncredited in the How the Grinch Stole Christmas! TV special. She even appeared in person on popular TV shows of the boomer era, including 12 O’Clock High (1965), It’s About Time (1966), and Green Acres (1967), and lent her voice to many more, including Bewitched (1966), Lost in Space (1967) and hundreds of other shows and animations up to 2014.
Yet for Mister Boomer, her work on the many iterations of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (1959-70) were what made him a big fan. Among those famous voices were Rocky (Rocket J. Squirrel), Rocky’s nemesis Natasha Fatale, and Nell in Dudley Do-Right. She also appeared as numerous characters in Fractured Fairy Tales, another reason all the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon shows are at the top of the list for Mister B. Witty dialogue and puns galore, delivered by classic cartoon voice artists like June Foray, Daws Butler, Hans Conried and a host of others, had Mister Boomer’s family tuning in to laugh every week. The show was second only to The Road Runner for Mister B’s father. His mother preferred June Foray’s Granny.
June Foray is credited with the idea for the Annie Awards to honor the year’s best animations. The first Annies were given out at a dinner in1972. She was the the strongest proponent of creating a category for animation at the Academy Awards, and after twenty years of lobbying, saw the first Oscars for animation awarded in 2001 (Shrek won that year). Mister Boomer expects a memorable send-off by the Academy for Ms. Foray next year.
It’s hard to imagine cartoons of the boomer era without some of the giants of the medium, and June Foray was among the very best. What memories do you have of June Foray characters, boomers?