Portraying Wacky Old Ladies

Today would have, well, should have, been June Foray’s 100th birthday. Posts in celebration were banked for this blog and Tralfaz some months ago. It was not to be. June died last July. However, we’ll put up the posts nonetheless to remember her wonderful voice work, most of which you were likely never exposed to.

June recorded countless commercials over her career; trade magazines claimed she was the busiest voiceover actress in Hollywood. She recorded for at least three different banks, as well as Sears, Ford and, well, a list would be pointless. She looped dialogue in films. And, of course, she was heard in who-knows-how-many cartoons, the first of which was The Unbearable Bear at Warners, recorded in 1942, for which, studio records show, she was paid $25 (Keith Scott’s tireless research found that).

Her first job at Hanna-Barbera was with a more bearable bear—Yogi—in Bear on a Picnic (early 1959). Evidently Bill Hanna and/or Joe Barbera didn’t want Don Messick playing a woman’s role in falsetto as had been done a number of times at the studio. Foray had recorded voice tracks at MGM when Hanna and Barbera were directing there in the mid-‘50s. She went on to a number of other parts and series at H-B we won’t try to mention.

This story has nothing to do with Hanna-Barbera. It’s the earliest article I can find on June’s career. It’s in the July 1, 1945 edition of Radio Life, a Los Angeles based radio magazine. She was very busy even back then.

She Never Says “No!”
June Foray’s Policy Is Never to Say No to Producer’s Wanting Strange or Unusual Voices; She Can Do ‘em All
WHEN tiny, 4' 11 ", 100 lb. June Foray steps to the microphone (quite often she uses "Little Beaver's" on "Red Ryder") an audience smiles approvingly. "Isn't she cute?" they whisper.
Suddenly they may be shocked into stunned silence. For from this dainty little figure might come the sound of a hoarse kiss (which is pretty ghastly) or on the more subdued side, hiccups, sniffles or screams.
Whenever a producer wants the impossible performed on his radio show, he sends for June. "Can you do such and such ?" he asks. "Yes," answers June.
"But how do you know you can do it ?" we asked the little actress while having tea with her.
"I don't," she confessed. "But I never say no or I never experiment. I just do it."
Sound effects aren't June's only talent. She is just as well-known for her wacky old ladies, dialects and very-moving dramatic performances. She recently did a "straight" part on Norman Corwin's Special V-E Day show.
Did School Program

In 1936 she made her debut on radio by reading poetry. Then followed three years as "Lady Make Believe," a program which was piped directly into Los Angeles City schools. June wrote the program herself.
Today she has nine regular shows including "Sherlock Holmes," "Holly wood Mystery Time," "Red Ryder,” "Which Is Which," "That's A Good Idea," "Romance of' the Ranchos,” and "This Is My Story."
Married to an Army officer, who is in Texas at present, June occupies an apartment in Hollywood. She possesses an unlimited amount of energy and divides her time between what she calls "politics" (she's an active member of the Hollywood Democratic Committee) and her duties as a member of the AFRA board. That isn't all. Since June of 1942 she has regularly been making camp show appearances.
Being such an active person, she admits that although she doesn't follow a schedule, she writes notes to herself. They all start "Dear June" and end with "Love, June." She follows them religiously.
She likes keeping house. Her family lives nearby and so she has little time to be lonely. At home she wears shorts—or nothing at all. She drives a 1937 Chevvy. She likes portraying wacky old ladies and thinks the most unusual thing she does is the little boy on the Gallen-Kamp commercial.
In Movies
Because of her unlimited knowledge of sound effects and dialects, she is in demand for a lot of work for motion pictures. She was the baby cry in Paramount's "Dr. Wassell." In the forthcoming "Kitty" she hiccoughs for Paulette Goddard.
Once she was to do whooping coughs for a screen child. Having no idea what the coughs sounded like she received special permission to visit a hospital ward and listen to them. “They were the most wracking sounds I'd ever heard,” she recalled, “and I nearly wrecked my throat perfecting them.”
Once they had been perfected and "dubbed" into the sound track, the producer and director found them so unpleasant to the ear that they cut them out and gave the child diphtheria instead. "All in a day's work," June observed.

June Foray in Rhyming Verse

Up until 1959, female characters in Hanna-Barbera cartoons were handled by Don Messick or Daws Butler. The two of them could voice anything, meaning the studio didn’t have to use up its budget hiring other actors. But there were rare exceptions. One was Bear on a Picnic (airing the week of February 1, 1959). The mother picnicker is played by a real, honest-to-goodness woman who everyone reading this blog should know—June Foray.

We’ve talked about the early days of June’s career at Hanna-Barbera on the blog several times. Click on the highlighted link to read them. To sum up—she voiced a demo reel for The Flintstones (maybe it was still The Flagstones then) as Betty, but the part in the series went to Bea Benaderet. She did a couple of incidental voices on the series over the years and a part in the feature film The Man Called Flintstone. Maybe her biggest role at H-B was some years later as Jokey Smurf.

I’m sure you know by now June has passed away not too many weeks before what was to be her 100th birthday. As a remembrance, here’s a cute little poem published in the Toronto Star on December 23, 2013. Joseph Hall is the author.

Whose voice gave the Grinch a heart? Well, she's more than 2
(With apologies to Dr. Seuss)

Cindy Lou Who is a lot more than 2.
The voice of the tot from the classic Grinch story
Well she's now 96 and her name is June Foray.

And though decades have passed since her Who-ville connection,
She recalls Cindy Lou with undying affection.
"Oh she's everyone's favourite," Foray says via phone
As she talks from her Woodland, Los Angeles, home.

Her shortest of roles, it was easy to make:
"It was only one line. It was done in one take."
But her plaintive, sweet voicing of the blue-eyed Who girl
Has earned her acclaim from all over the world.

She's got letters from Poland. She's got letters from China.
From India, Holland and North Carolina.
She's got letters from places where people talk Finnish.
"People whom you'd think would never speak English."

In Foray's career she's done dozens of voices,
In cartooning terms they were some of the choicest.
She did Granny for Warner's old Tweety Bird shows.
She was Jokey the Smurf, and Lord only knows.

She was Witch Hazel, Aunt May, and that isn't all.
She voiced Chatty Cathy, the string-pulling doll.
She's done voices she now wracks her puzzler to name.
She was Rocky! Of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame!

Hokey (Birthday Cake) Smoke!

The world loves June Foray. The world loves a party. So why not put them both together?

That’s what happened yesterday as Stu Shostak and Jeanine Kasun threw a 95th birthday party for one of the finest voice artists in history (two days early, but who cares?). Among the people there was Fred Frees, the son of Solomon Hersh Frees who appeared with June as Boris opposite her Natasha in the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Oh, yes, S.H. is better known to us as Paul. Perhaps he didn’t want to be confused with Green Stamps.

June’s early Hanna-Barbera cartoon career was limited to one appearance on a Yogi Bear cartoon on “The Huckleberry Hound Show” in 1958 before she won the role of Betty Rubble then had it inexplicably taken away. Anyone who frequents this blog must be familiar with her career so I don’t need to geek out and write some kind of list, though I will point out a guest shot on “Teen-Age Trials” starring Jerry Dunphy some 59 years ago (I presume it was a local Los Angeles TV show).

We’ve had June Foray Day on the Yowp and Tralfaz blogs already this year, but they didn’t include this cover story from Tele Vues magazine from the Independent Press-Telegram of Long Beach, California. It’s from June 11, 1962.

Bert’s Eye View
By BERT RESNIK
TV and Radio Editor
June Foray is a girl who goes around talking to herself—and gets paid for it.
On NBC's Sunday “Bullwinkle” TV show, for example, she’s Rocky the Squirrel and Natasha.
The hero squirrel and villainess Natasha frequently are involved in verbal tilts but June never has the bushy-tail sounding like the sinistress.
On the same show, she's also Nell Fenwick in the “Dudley Du-Right of the Mounties” segment.
She supplies the feminine voices for CBS’s “The Alvin Show” and many of the falsetto tones for ABC's “Calvin and the Colonel.”
For Walt Disney, she’s Grandma Duck and Witch Hazel.
She has been, in fact, about 150 “voice-overs” and each character has been a little “different.”
HER FAVORITE VOICES are those that she does on commercials.
“I get paid more money in residuals (repeats),” she said. "And they're always doing something different with commercials."
The real June Foray, a petite, 4-feet, 11-inch-tall, 95-pound doll, smiled engagingly.
“I had quite a challenge with one commercial last year,” she said. “I did an empty peanut-butter jar.”
So how does an empty peanut-butter jar sound—old, blase, young, vigorous?
“I tried it halfway between a straight voice and a Tallulah (Bankhead),” said June. “They seemed to like it.”
Another which the sponsors “liked” was the radio voice June used to sexily plug a fertilizer. You know the one: “So-and-so is the word for fertilizer.”
The advertisement comes across like an invitation from the world’s most glamorous girl to a midnight rendezvous for two, you and Miss Sexy.
And anybody with common sense knows that midnight is a poor time to fertilize your lawn.
FOR THE SEXY VOICE, June used low, breathy tones; Low tones, according to June, are necessary to transmit glamour over the radio.
“Marilyn Monroe, who has a real high voice, would come over flat on radio,” she said.
On television, except for a few rare exceptions, June has been seen and not heard.
“I’m little,” she said. “There aren’t many seeing parts for little girls.”
It’s the TV audience’s visual loss. The small package comes in a pretty container.
BUT JUNE, who made her radio debut when she was six years old and has been working steadily since she was twelve, has found that there can be recognition even for the unseen.
A doctor recently gave her a prescription for a sore throat.
During the course of his examination, he learned why June felt it was so urgent the throat should be healed quickly.
When the doctor left, he told June:
“I’m going to be a big man in my house when they find out I treated Rocky and Natasha.”
June, with her cartoon voices, has “treated” millions of children. The knowledge of the pleasure she’s given them is worth more than her residual payments.
“They may not stop me at Hollywood and Vine to ask for my autograph,” she added, “but I’m the star in my own neighborhood.”



The birthday party was far from June’s first honour. The first one may have been by Los Angeles City Council on May 1, 1963, as reported by Pasadena’s Independent newspaper the following day.

L.A. Council Resolution Pays Tribute to June Foray
Blonde June Foray, “the Lady of Many Voices,” was honored by the Los Angeles city council yesterday for “her contributions of voice characterizations to the entertainment world and for her participation in many community activities.”
The resolution, unanimously adopted by the Council, was presented to the petite performer by Councilwoman Rosalind Wyman, who described Miss Foray as “a person who
is often heard, but seldom seen.”
Her voice has been heard by millions in such shows as “Bugs Bunny,” “Woody Woodpecker,” “The Bullwinkle Show,” “Disneyland,” “Mickey Mouse Club,” “Cinderella,” and “Peter Pan.”
Miss Foray lives in Woodland Hills.

Courtesy of Stu Shostak, here’s a clip from June’s party. In the background you’ll see another trouper—Rose Marie of “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

June Foray

June Foray didn’t get a lot of work at Hanna-Barbera, despite being the top female voice actress around, and having voiced for Joe Barbera in the waning days of the MGM cartoon studio when he and Bill Hanna were producers. Maybe it was a matter of cost; Daws Butler was getting more than scale, according to cartoon producer and H-B expert Mark Evanier, so the acting budget may have been tapped out. Or maybe they just didn’t need her; Daws and Don Messick generally handled the women’s voices in falsetto until Jean Vander Pyl was hired in 1959.

At H-B, June appeared in ‘Bear on a Picnic’ in the first season of The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958). She won, then lost, the role of Betty on The Flintstones (and got a paltry few incidental roles as a kind of consolation). And that was pretty well it until The Smurfs came along some years later.

It’s not like she needed the work. Her talent kept her constantly in demand. And it’s nice to see that she was getting a little bit of publicity back in the day when cartoon voice actors didn’t get a lot of credit.

Here are a couple of newspaper articles, both from 1957. Remember, this was before Rocky and His Friends, the show where she gained her most famous role (and weekly screen credit). First, a feature piece from the San Fernando Living page of the Van Nuys News, dated October 17th. The reference to “Trick or Treet” has me stumped; I thought it was referring to the Warners cartoon “Trick or Tweet,” but that didn’t come out until 1959 (see the comment section for the answer). The photo is a standard publicity shot; I wish had a better copy than a scan of a photocopy of a newspaper.

Valley Girl ‘Unseen Voice’ In Radio, Video Shows
By ARTHUR EDDY
To millions of television and radio fans, June Foray is a voice detached from a body, so to speak.
By way of explanation, it means that Miss Foray is the girl that just about everybody hears but seldom sees.
Most of her work is off-camera, as, to a large extent, her career is concentrated upon recording voices for radio and television commercials, radio programs and cartoons.
Lives in Reseda
Miss Foray, who gets her mail in Reseda, is probably Hollywood’s most outstanding specialist in imitating all sorts of voices and sounds, ranging from a baby to a witch. And this rather unconventional profession earns her an income which could arouse envy of many a big-business tycoon.
In terms of size, Miss Foray is rather a small package of charming humanity. She is about five feet tall and weighs in the neighborhood of 97 pounds, even after her daily luncheon at the Vine St Brown Derby. But she’s packed solidly with talent.
Child Star
After making her professional debut as a child in radio in her home town, Springfield, Mass., Miss Foray eventually penetrated to Hollywood. Her Hollywood debut occurred with “Lady Make Believe” radio program which she produced and starred in.
For five years Capitol records employed her talents as she recorded voices for more than 100 albums, including those slanted at children. With the popular Stan Freberg, she did all the female voices on the best-selling record “St. George and the Dragonette” and other items in the same entertainment area. More recently she has regularly appeared on Freberg’s radio show via CBS.
In the cartoon field, she has impersonated characters in the “Woody Woodpecker,” “Bugs Bunny” and other series. For the fabulous Walt Disney, Miss Foray has recorded voices for “Disneyland,” “Mickey Mouse Club Theatre,” “Trick or Treet,” “Cinderella,” “Peter Pan” and other projects.
Soap to Jello
It’s almost impossible to tune in your radio or television set without hearing the Foray voice extoll the virtues of such products as Helene Curtis, Schlitz, Mars Bars, Dial Soap, Boron, Snowdrift, Budweiser Beer, Randini, Pet Milk, Jello, Pillsbury, Hormel Frankfurts, Western Airlines.
June and her husband, Hobart Donovan, the writer, are lavish hosts in their Reseda home and are planning a new domicile (they recently bought a lot) in Woodland Hills which will afford them greater entertainment potentialities.
Cat and Dog
Their household includes Henry, a rather independent Thomas cat, and Katrinka, a Dachshund, who is strictly a lady.
Miss Foray occasionally finds time to indulge in her new hobbies, which are painting in oils, photography and gardening.
Incidentally, Husband Hobart excells in the culinary as well as the literary arts, especially in collaboration with barbecue facilities.

The United Press also thought the mystery voice-behind-the-show was a good angle for an April 7th story about Shirley Temple’s TV show. Perhaps the biggest revelation is June played the voice of a can of Bud, which would be as far against type as possible.

June Foray Generally Is Unseen
By RON BURTON
United Press Staff Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD (UP)—You can call June Foray “mousey” and get away with it. In fact, she’ll probably be flattered.
Miss Foray has “played” numerous roles in her theatrical career. They include animals such as mice, chickens, dogs, owls, cats, rabbits, cows, skunks, crows, pigeons, mules, pigs, monkeys and parrots—to name a few. She’s also played houses, chairs, cars, trains, lamps and, for TV commercials, a candy bar, a piece of soap and even a can of beer.
And at some times she has voiced characters such as Cinderella and Pinocchio.
Miss Foray is many voices to many people. Her voice has been dubbed in for so many animals and inanimate creatures hat she can't recall how many there have been. There have been hundreds of cartoons in which her voice has been heard, more than 1,000 radio plays and TV shows and about 300 record albums.
“I guess it’s my fate, generally speaking, to be heard but not seen,” she said. “However, I have appeared as a human on some TV shows — Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton and Johnny Carson. It’s very satisfying for the ego to be seen, but for sheer joy, dubbing voices is to me the greatest.”
Different Mice
She thinks she’s done about 200 mice dubbings. The latest mouse — her character preference, by the way, in animal vocalizing—will be heard April 18 in the “Shirley Temple Story book” TV series. The film by Screen Gems is “Land of Green Ginger,” and Miss Foray analyzed the character before deciding to play it.
“I can’t do a male mouse the same as I’d play a female,” she said. “And the suave city mouse—the guy who eats Roquefort—he’s nothing like his poor old unsophisticated country cousin. Then, of course, there are field mice, timid mice, bold mice, altruistic mice and selfish mice and old mice and young mice—each one calls for a different voice treatment.
“My latest mouse is a ‘feisty,’ forceful type of mouse. I know it’s hard to project forcefulness in a thin, squeaky voice, but it can be done. One trick is to emphasize key words like ‘Go!’ if you want to do it effectively.”
Miss Foray has never studied the habits of mice even she does like to play them.
“Gosh, I might have to look at some of them, and they terrify me,” she explained.

Isn’t that great? Free tips from one of the greats. And there probably isn’t a voice actress who fans today adore more than June Foray.

Daws, Don, Doug and Dummies

Animator Mike Kazaleh has given up a rare piece of personal property for Jerry Beck to post over at Cartoon Brew. It’s a promotional record featuring H-B regular voice artists Daws Butler, Don Messick and Doug Young, along with the First Lady of Cartoon Voice Actors, June Foray.

Even the label’s cool. The caricatures were done by T. Hee, noted for his work at UPA and, before that, Disney, but who also spent time in the mid ‘30s at Warner Bros.

I can do no better than to link to the disc on Jerry’s site. Click here.

Well, yes, I can. Let me link to the background behind this. The disc is a sequel to another disc for ad-agency-ears-only called ‘All That Jazz—Blooper’s Soap.’ It’s a satire of how interfering clients, agencies and the people afraid losing their business can completely screw up even the simplest commercial. Anyone who was worked in commercial copywriting or production probably must have experienced that kind of thing at least once.

The script to the original disc can be found by clicking here.

Thanks Mike and Jerry for a chance to hear these fine cartoon voices in a recording likely few people reading have heard before.

Yogi’s Real First Christmas

You’ve got to admit, Yogi’s First Christmas is a great title for a cartoon. But the people at Hanna-Barbera were awfully forgetful. And who could blame them?

Yogi’s First Christmas first aired in 1980, two years after Yogi and Boo Boo witnessed the arrival of Jolly Old St. Nick in the forgettable Casper’s First Christmas, which we discussed earlier on the blog. But while that was Casper’s first Christmas—and you’d figure since he could speak perfect English, he would have lived through more than one Yuletide as a real boy—it certainly wasn’t Yogi’s. If you consider other media, that is.

In 1961, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera joined the kiddie Christmas record parade by co-penning two songs that were released on 78 and 45 by Golden Records in New York. While the sleeve for the record says “Song by Paul Parnes” the tunes are among a number copyrighted that year by Hanna, Barbera and Sylvia Parnes. I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about either Parnes—other than you’ll never mistake them for the Gershwins— but I can tell you who is portraying Yogi and Boo Boo. It’s none other than New York voice actor Frank Milano. The real Yogi (Daws Butler) and Boo Boo (Don Messick) were under contract to Colpix Records in Los Angeles, so Golden had to be content with members of its stable doing what they could to sound like Daws and Don. I’m afraid Mr. Milano wasn’t too successful, but he gives it a good try.

The songs on this 78 are copyrighted as “Have a Hap-Hap-Happy Xmas” and “Give a Goodie for Christmas.” Have a listen to them (as much as you can) below:

HAVE A HAP-HAP-HAPPY CHRISTMAS


GIVE A GOODIE FOR CHRISTMAS


It seems the best part of these Little Golden Records is the artwork on the cover. And that brings us to Yogi’s second Christmas appearance, also in 1961, and also thanks to the folks at Golden. And there’s a Sylvia involved in this one, too.

A couple of years ago, Barbie Miller at the Golden Gems blog posted some great scans from the children’s book Yogi Bear, A Christmas Visit. The artwork is by Sylvia and Burnett Mattinson and the story by Stuart Quentin Hyatt. There was a Burnett Mattinson who played with the American Institute Symphony in the mid-20s and drummed in the Horace Heidt band in the ‘40s. He was found dead, under suspicious circumstances, in his Sherman Oaks, California home in 1970. Whether it’s the same chap, I don’t know, but homicide isn’t very much in the spirit of children’s books or Christmas, is it? So, instead, check out the illustrations in the Yogi book. And if you’re into this sort of thing, Barbie’s fine blog (now, unfortunately, on hiatus) is RIGHT HERE. She’s got work by the Master of ‘60s Children’s Illustration, Mel Crawford, and work by Mary Blair, Tom Oreb, Tom McKimson, Vernon Grant, Hawley Pratt and a bunch of other names you may recognise.
















The following year, Golden Books came out with Yogi Bear Helps Santa, drawn by Lee Branscome, who worked for Hanna-Barbera on The Jetsons and Jonny Quest. You can find it on Barbie’s site HERE.

Finally, something of Yogi’s that has nothing to do with Christmas. But think of it as a Christmas bonus.

The blog has briefly touched on the creation of Hanna-Barbera Records. Among the kid product the label released in 1965 was Yogi Bear telling two stories to Boo Boo—‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’

The oddest thing is even though Daws Butler and Don Messick were employed by Hanna-Barbera, the record features two other cartoon voice actors in the principal roles. Yogi is portrayed by Allan Melvin, best-known at H-B for his starring role as Magilla Gorilla. Boo Boo is played by someone who spent very little time at Hanna-Barbera prior to 1980—June Foray. She’s doing a ‘slow’ voice here, somewhat reminiscent of her portrayal of Bridey Hammerschlaugen on the Stan Freberg radio show. The Yogi Bear Song is heard twice; I’m only posting it once. I’m not an expert on the H-B record label, so I don’t know who is singing the Yogi song, though some possibilities may be found on this web site.

The Red Riding Hood Song is, like, keen to the scene, man.

YOGI BEAR SONG


JACK AND THE BEANSTALK STORY


JACK AND THE BEANSTALK SONG


LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD STORY


LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD SONG


The beanstalk story seemed to occupy Bill and Joe’s minds in the mid-60s. A live action/animation Jack special starring Gene Kelly and the voice of Ted Cassidy as the giant at the top of the stalk aired on February 26, 1967. It won an Emmy and seems to have paved the way for similar television combinations, like the Huckleberry Finn series (with Ted Cassidy) the following year.

We’ve got more goodies for the holidays coming up. This definitely won’t be Yogi’s Last Christmas.

Happy Birthday, June Foray

How can the whole world not love June Foray? She’s brought countless moments of instant delight and enjoyment to several generations through her work in theatrical cartoons and on radio and television.

Well, someone didn’t like June Foray. Or, at least, they didn’t want her. For there was a role that got away 50 years ago.

Joe Barbera did all the voice casting and directing at Hanna-Barbera in the early years and he picked June to play Betty in The Flintstones. Her voice can be heard in the under-two-minute demo of the show that Barbera and John Mitchell of Screen Gems used to shop the show to New York ad agencies and networks. But, as we all know, she didn’t land the role.

June was asked about it in a 2000 interview for the Archive of American Television.

Oh, that broke my heart. I did a pilot because I had been working for Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera when they were out at MGM. And they said “we’re doing a”—it was called ‘The Flagstones’ at that time—and they said “you’re going to be the character [Betty] and so, it was Daws Butler and I who did the pilot.
And then my agent called and said “They’re not going to use you and they’re auditioning other people.” And I said “Gee, why don’t they at least [let her try a different voice]”—because when I went in there, Joe Barbera says “Oh, just be, na[tural], just do any voice,” you know. And I thought I did a good job. And they wouldn’t let me audition anymore. And so, a few months later, Joe called my agent and said “We feel so very bad about June. We’d like to hire her for something else.” And I said “You tell him to take a long walk off a short pier.” And I didn’t work for Bill and Joe for a long time until I did—well, I did ‘A Man Called Flintstone’—until I did ‘The Smurfs.’

Thus, June joined a list of people who tried out the “short pier” line—or perhaps another one with a little more colour in it—on Joe Barbera. I suspect June’s replacement as Betty, Bea Benaderet, did the same after suddenly finding Gerry Johnson doing the role.

Despite June’s recollection, she did appear on three Flintstones episodes—‘Foxy Grandma’ and ‘Dress Rehearsal’ in the third season, and ‘Bedrock Hillbillies’ in the fourth. She did mention she maintained cordial relations with Joe and Bill during the years before she worked with them again on The Smurfs. Her first work at Hanna-Barbera was on the 1958 Yogi Bear cartoon “Bear on a Picnic,” a rare time that a female actor was hired in the first season of the Huckleberry Hound Show (Daws Butler and Don Messick generally did women’s roles in falsetto).



Why was she unceremoniously dumped as Betty? And by whom? No one knows or is saying.

However, birthdays are meant to be happy occasions, and not dwell on the negative. So I would suggest you set aside some time today to pull out some Jay Ward cartoons and enjoy June’s fun acting. Or you can listen to Tim Dolcé’s interview with June he recorded last year on his Behind the Lines podcast. You can find it HERE. Cue to the 4:15 mark for the interview.

June has given us so many great performances, she deserves every accolade given to her by her fans and peers.

Happy birthday, June.