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Actor

1916-11-16 · Toledo, Ohio, USA · Male

50 series in the catalog

Charles Dawson Butler (November 16, 1916 – May 18, 1988) was an American voice actor. He worked mostly for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon production company and the Walter Lantz cartoon studio. He originated the voices of many Hanna-Barbera characters, including Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Spike the Bulldog, Snagglepuss, Quick Draw McGraw and Baba Looey, Augie Doggie, Loopy De Loop, Wally Gator, Snooper and Blabber, Dixie and Mr. Jinks, Hokey Wolf, Lippy the Lion, Elroy Jetson, Lambsy, Peter Potamus, The Funky Phantom, and Hair Bear. While at Walter Lantz, he did the voices of: Chilly Willy, Smedley, Maxie the Polar Bear, Gooney, and Sam in the Maggie and Sam series.

Early life and career

Butler was born on November 16, 1916, in Toledo, Ohio, the only child of Charles Allen Butler (1890–1972) and Ruth Butler (1899–1960). The family later moved from Ohio to Oak Park, Illinois, where Butler became interested in impersonating people.

In 1935, Butler began performing as an impressionist, entering multiple amateur contests and winning most of them—not with the intention of showing his talent, but as a personal challenge to overcome his shyness. He subsequently won professional engagements at vaudeville theaters.

He then teamed up with fellow performers Jack Lavin and Willard Ovitz, forming the comedy trio The Three Short Waves. They played in theaters, on radio, and in nightclubs, with positive reviews from regional critics and audiences. They dissolved the act in 1941 when Butler joined the United States Navy as America entered World War II. He subsequently met his wife-to-be Myrtis at a wartime function near Washington, D.C.

His first voice work for an animated character was in the animated short Short Snorts on Sports (1948), produced by Screen Gems. At the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, Tex Avery hired Butler to provide the voice of a British wolf on Little Rural Riding Hood (1949) and also to narrate several of his cartoons.

Throughout the late 1940s and mid-1950s, Butler had roles in many Avery-directed cartoons: the Fox in Out-Foxed, the narrator/cat in The Cuckoo Clock, the Cobbler in The Peachy Cobbler, Mr. Theeves and Spike (one line) in Droopy's Double Trouble, Mysto the Magician in Magical Maestro, John the Cab and John the B-29 Bomber in One Cab's Family and Little Johnny Jet, and Charlie in The Legend of Rockabye Point.

Beginning with The Three Little Pups, Butler provided the voice for a nameless wolf that spoke in a Southern accent and whistled all the time (the tune was Henry C. Work's "Kingdom Coming"). The character also appeared in Sheep Wrecked, Billy Boy, and many other cartoons. At MGM, Avery wanted Butler to take on the voice of Droopy, at a time when Bill Thompson was unavailable due to radio engagements. Butler did a few lines, then recommended Don Messick, another actor and Butler's lifelong friend, who was better at imitating Thompson. Messick voiced Droopy in several shorts.

In 1949, Butler landed a role in a televised puppet show created by former Warner Bros. Cartoons animation director Bob Clampett called Time for Beany. He was teamed with Stan Freberg, with whom he did all the puppets' voices: Butler voiced Beany Boy and Captain Huffenpuff, and Freberg voiced Cecil and Dishonest John. An entire stable of recurring characters were also seen. The show's writers were Charles Shows and Lloyd Turner, whose dependably funny dialog was still always at the mercy of Butler's and Freberg's ad libs. Time for Beany ran from 1949 to 1954, and won several Emmy Awards.

In 1952, Butler starred in the live-action short Nice Try, Virgil.

He briefly turned his attention to writing and voicing television commercials. In the 1950s, Freberg asked him to help him write comedy skits for his Capitol Records albums. Their first collaboration, "St. George and the Dragonet" (based on Dragnet), was the first comedy record to sell over a million copies. Freberg was more of a satirist who did song parodies, but the bulk of his dialogue routines were co-written by and co-starred Butler.

Butler teamed again with Freberg and actress June Foray in a CBS radio series, The Stan Freberg Show, which ran from July to October 1957 as a summer replacement for Jack Benny's program. Freberg's box set, Tip of the Freberg (Rhino Entertainment, 1999), chronicles every aspect of Freberg's career except the cartoon voice-over work, and showcases his career with Butler. In Mr. Magoo, the UPA theatrical animated short series for Columbia Pictures, Butler played Magoo's nephew Waldo (also voiced by Jerry Hausner at various times). In Freberg's "Green Chri$tma$" in 1958, a scathing indictment of the over-commercialization of the holiday, Butler soberly hoped instead that we'd remember "whose birthday we're celebrating".

Butler provided the voices of many nameless Walter Lantz Productions' characters for theatrical shorts later seen on the Woody Woodpecker program. His characters included the penguin Chilly Willy and his best friend Smedley, a Southern-accented dog (the same voice used for Tex Avery's laid-back wolf character and for Hanna-Barbera's Huckleberry Hound).

In 1957, when MGM had closed their animation unit, producers William Hanna and Joseph Barbera quickly formed their own company, and Butler and Don Messick were on hand to provide voices. The first, The Ruff and Reddy Show, with Butler voicing Reddy, set the formula for the rest of the series of cartoons that the two helmed until the mid-1960s. He played the title roles in The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Quick Draw McGraw Show, and The Yogi Bear Show, and portrayed a variety of other characters.

Characters

Some of the characters voiced by Butler from 1948 to 1988 included:

Butler voiced most of these characters for decades, in both TV shows and in some commercials. The breakfast cereal mascot Cap'n Crunch became an icon of sorts on Saturday morning TV through many commercials produced by Jay Ward. Butler played Cap'n from the 1960s to the 1980s. He based the voice on that of character actor Charles Butterworth. In 1961, while Mel Blanc was recovering from a road accident, Daws Butler substituted for him to voice Barney Rubble in five episodes of The Flintstones (The Hit Songwriter, Droop-Along Flintstone, Fred Flintstone Woos Again, The Rock Quarry Story, The Little White Lie). Butler had previously voiced the characters of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble in the 90 second pilot for the series (when it was called The Flagstones).

In 1964, Butler was featured as Huckleberry Hound on a 45 rpm record, "Bingo, Ringo", a comedic story combining The Beatles' drummer Ringo Starr and Lorne Greene's hit record "Ringo".

In Wacky Races, Butler provided the voices for a number of the racers, Rock Slag, Big Gruesome, the Red Max, Sgt. Blast, Peter Perfect, and Rufus Ruffcut. He voiced a penguin and a turtle in the movie Mary Poppins, his only known work for Disney. Along with Stan Freberg, Paul Frees and June Foray, Butler also provided voices for children's records featuring recreations of several successful Disney cartoons and films.

Inspirations

Yogi Bear began as an impression of Art Carney in the role of Ed Norton in The Honeymooners.

Snagglepuss began as an impression of Bert Lahr as The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. When Snagglepuss began appearing in commercials for Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies in 1961, Lahr threatened to sue Butler for "stealing" his voice. As part of the settlement, the disclaimer "Snagglepuss voice by Daws Butler" was required to appear on each commercial.

Huckleberry Hound was inspired by a North Carolina neighbor of Butler's wife's family.

Later life

In the 1970s, Butler was the voice of "Hair Bear" on Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch! and a few characters in minor cartoons such as C.B. Bears. On Laff-a-Lympics, he was virtually the entire "Yogi Yahooey" team. He also played the title character in The Funky Phantom, and Louie and Pug on The Pink Panther Show. In…