Thurl Ravenscroft

Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft (; February 6, 1914May 22, 2005) was an American actor and bass singer best known for providing the voice of Tony the Tiger in Kellogg's Frosted Flakes commercials from the 1950s until his death and for singing "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" in the 1966 Christmas television special How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.

Ravenscroft did voice-over work and singing for Disney in various films and Disneyland attractions (which were later featured at Walt Disney World), the best known including The Haunted Mansion, Country Bear Jamboree, Mark Twain Riverboat, Pirates of the Caribbean, Disneyland Railroad, and Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room.

His voice-acting career began in 1939 and lasted until his death in 2005 at age 91.

Early life and career Ravenscroft left his native Norfolk, Nebraska, in 1933 for California, where he studied at Otis Art Institute. In 1939, he joined a singing group formed by tenor Bill Days called The Sportsmen: Days, Johnny Rarig, Max Smith, and Ravenscroft. They served as backing singers to vocalist Marie Greene on the Okeh record label (credited as "Marie Greene and Her Merry Men"). The quartet also contributed to a Disney feature, Pinocchio (1940), singing "Honest John". This was deleted from the film, but can still be heard in the supplements on the 2009 DVD.

The group, billed as The Four Merry Men, appeared in three-minute musical films, produced in 1941 by the Featurettes company, for coin-operated jukeboxes.Scott MacGillivray and Ted Okuda, The Soundies Book, iUniverse, 2007, p. 380. That same year the Four Merry Men left Featurettes for the more successful Soundies company, and made more jukebox musicals; they were now billing themselves as "The Four Sportsmen".MacGillivray and Okuda, p. 95. They were also very popular on radio and in live nightclub appearances.

In 1942, Thurl Ravenscroft left the Sportsmen quartet to serve in the armed forces. He served as a navigator contracted to the U.S. Air Transport Command, spending five years flying courier missions across the north and south Atlantic. Among the notables carried on board his flights were Winston Churchill and Bob Hope. As he told an interviewer: "I flew Winston Churchill to a conference in Algiers and flew Bob Hope to the troops a couple of times. So it was fun."

When he returned from the service, he found that his place in The Sportsmen had been taken by bass singer Gurney Bell, and Bell was unwilling to relinquish the job to Ravenscroft. Undaunted, Ravenscroft formed his own quartet, The Mellomen,Thurl Ravenscroft to Mark Voger, Asbury Park Press, Nov. 12, 2002, p. 153. which contributed to other Disney films, such as Alice in Wonderland and Lady and the Tramp. The group appeared on camera in a few episodes of the Disney anthology television series; in one instance recording a canine chorus for Lady and the Tramp and in another as a barbershop quartet that reminds Walt Disney of the name of the young newspaper reporter Gallagher. Ravenscroft sang bass on Rosemary Clooney's "This Ole House", which went to No. 1 in both the United States and Britain in 1954, as well as Stuart Hamblen's original version of that same song. He sang on the soundtrack for Ken Clark as "Stewpot" in South Pacific, one of the top-selling albums of the 1950s. He also backed The DeCastro Sisters on their 1955 top 20 hit, "Boom Boom Boomerang." He sang "King of the River," as the character Mike Fink, on a Golden Record released in 1956. Singing with the Johnny Mann Singers, his distinctive bass can also be heard as part of the chorus on 28 of their albums that were released during the 1960s and 1970s. He was also the bass singer on Bobby Vee's 1960 Liberty hit record "Devil or Angel". Andy Williams' recording of "The 12 Days of Christmas" features him as well. His work with Spike Jones included singing "(I Was a) Teenage Brain Surgeon" for the 1959 album Spike Jones in Stereo.

He sang the opening songs for the two Disney serials used on The Mickey Mouse Club, Boys of the Western Sea and The Hardy Boys: Mystery of the Applegate Treasure.

He sang the "Twitterpatter Song" and "Thumper's Song" on the Disneyland record Peter Cottontail and other Funny Bunnies.

On the Disneyland record All About Dragons, he both provided the narration and sang the songs "The Reluctant Dragon" and "The Loch Ness Monster".Disneyland Record "All About Dragons", DQ-1301.

His voice was heard during the Pirates of the Caribbean ride as well as The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland as Uncle Theodore, the lead vocalist of the singing busts in the cemetery near the end of the ride. He also played the Narrator in The Story and Song From the Haunted Mansion. Ravenscroft is also heard in the Enchanted Tiki Room as the voice of Fritz the Animatronics parrot, as well as the tree-like Tangaroa tiki god in the pre-show outside the attraction. He was also the voice of the Disneyland Railroad in the 1990s. Further roles include that of The First Mate on The Mark Twain Riverboat, a spokesalien for Tokyo Disneyland's Pan Galactic Pizza Port restaurant, and the American bison head named Buff at The Country Bear Jamboree.

Later career One of Ravenscroft's best-known works is as the vocalist for the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch". He was accidentally uncredited, leading the song to be misattributed to Boris Karloff and Tennessee Ernie Ford. The song, now credited to Ravenscroft, peaked on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart at number 32 for the week ending January 2, 2021.

Ravenscroft sang "No Dogs Allowed" in the Peanuts animated motion picture Snoopy Come Home.

For more than 50 years, he was the uncredited voice of Tony the Tiger for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. His booming bass gave the cereal's tiger mascot a voice with the catchphrase "They're g-r-r-r-eat!!!!".

Various record companies, such as Abbott, Coral, Brunswick, and "X" (a division of RCA) also released singles by Ravenscroft, often in duets with little-known female vocalists, in an attempt to turn the bass-voiced veteran into a pop singer. These efforts were commercially unsuccessful, if often quite interesting. He was also teamed up with the Andrews Sisters (on the Dot Records album The Andrews Sisters Present) on the cover of Johnny Cymbal's "Mr. Bass Man". The Mellomen released some doo-wop records under the name Big John & the Buzzards, a name apparently given to them by the rock-and-roll-hating Mitch Miller.

A devoted Christian, he appeared on many religious television shows such as The Hour of Power. In 1970, he recorded an album called Great Hymns in Story and Song, which featured him singing 10 hymns, each prefaced with the stories of how each hymn came to be, with the background vocals and instrumentals arranged and conducted by Ralph Carmichael.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Ravenscroft was narrator for the annual Pageant of the Masters art show at the Laguna Beach, California, Festival of the Arts.

Personal life Ravenscroft married June Seamans in 1946 and they had two children. June died in 1999.

Later life and death Ravenscroft died at his home on May 22, 2005, from prostate cancer, at the age of 91. He was buried at the Memorial Gardens at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California.

In the June 6, 2005, issue of the advertising industry journal Advertising Age, Kellogg's ran an advertisement commemorating Ravenscroft, the headline reading: "Behind every great character is an even greater man."

Filmography

Film Year Title Role Notes 1940 Pinocchio Monstro Isle of Destiny Sportsman Quartet Member Little Blabbermouse Bad Tobacco Face Voice Prehistoric Porky Bass Lizard 1941 Dumbo Singer of "Look Out For Mr. Stork" and "Pink Elephants on Parade" The Nifty Nineties Singer 1942 Wacky Blackout Carrier Pigeon singing Saludos Amigos Singer of the main title theme 1944 Springtime for Pluto Singing Caterpillar Short, Voice 1948 Melody Time Singer Voice So Dear to My Heart Bull / Robert Bruce 1951 Alice in Wonderland Card Painter Rooty Toot Toot Jonathan Bailey a.k.a. "Honest John the Crook" 1952 Jack and the Beanstalk Singing voices of two villagers 1953 Peter Pan Singer / Pirates Voice Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom Singer 1954 Rose Marie Medicine Man 1955 Daddy Long Legs Daydream Sequence Song Short, Voice Lady and the Tramp Al the Alligator / Singing Pound Dogs Voice 1956 Design for Dreaming (singer) Hardy Boys Theme Song 1958 Paul Bunyan Paul Bunyan Short, Voice 1959 Sleeping Beauty Singer 1961 One Hundred and One Dalmatians Captain the Horse Voice 1962 Gay Purr-ee Hench Cat 1963 The Sword in the Stone Sir Bart 1964 Mary Poppins Banker / Pig Hey There, It's Yogi Bear Black-haired Policeman 1965 The Man from Button Willow Singer / Reverend / Saloon Man 1966Winnie the Pooh and the Honey TreeEeyore (singing voice) / Singer How the Grinch Stole Christmas Singer of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" 1967 The Jungle Book Colonel Hathi's crew The War Wagon Backup singer on main theme 1968 Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day Singer / Black Honeypot 1969 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Singing Voice performed "South American Getaway" The Trouble with Girls Bass Singer with the Bible Singers Quartet (The Mellomen) 1970 Horton Hears a Who! Wickersham Brother The Phantom Tollbooth Lethargians The Aristocats Billy Bass Voice A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information. 1971 The Cat in the Hat Thing One Voice Bedknobs and Broomsticks Singing voice of Russian vendor / Various cartoon animal voices 1972 Snoopy Come Home Singer of "No Dogs Allowed" Voice The Lorax Singer 1977 The Hobbit Goblins/Chorus Halloween Is Grinch Night Singer / Monsters Donny & Marie Darth Vader / Narrator Star Wars Segment The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh Eeyore (singing voice) / Singer / Black Honeypot Archive Footage 1978 The Small One Potter Voice 1979 Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July The Genie of the Ice Scepter 1987 The Brave Little Toaster Kirby 1990 Disney Sing Along Songs: Disneyland Fun – It's a Small World Singer of "Grim Grinning Ghosts" 1996 Superior Duck The Narrator Voice 1997 The Brave Little Toaster 2 the Rescue Kirby Voice, final film role 1998 The Brave Little Toaster 3: Goes to Mars

Television Year Title Role Notes 1995 The Baby Huey Show General Does-Little Voice; ep. "Target...Huey!"

Theme parks Year Title Role Notes 1955 Mark Twain Riverboat Bosun Voice 1963– The Enchanted Tiki Room Fritz the Parrot, Tangaroa 1967– Pirates of the Caribbean Pirates/Chorus, Singing Dog 1967–1987 Adventures Thru Inner Space Chorus 1969– The Haunted Mansion Uncle Theodore 1971– Country Bear JamboreeBuff the BuffaloVoice 1984– Country Bear Christmas Special 1986 Country Bear Vacation Hoedown 1989–2023 Splash Mountain Brer Frog 1988–2002 Disneyland Railroad Announcer

Commercials Year Title Role late 1970s–early 1980s Toys R Us Geoffrey the Giraffe 1953–2005 Kellogg's Frosted Flakes Tony the Tiger

Partial solo discography

Mad, Baby, Mad – 1955 (Fabor) I Ain't Afraid – 1956 (Bally) You Wanna Talk About Texas – 1956 Wing Ding Ding – 1956 Big Paul Bunyan – 1962 (Globe) Gold Dubloons and Pieces of Eight – 1962 (The Hardy Boys: Mystery of the Applegate Treasure) The Headless Horseman – 1965 (Disney) Great Hymns In Story And Song – 1970 (Light) Rubber Duckie and Other Songs From Sesame Street – 1970 Nathaniel the Grublet (In Direwood) – 1979 (Birdwing) Psalms and Selahs – 2002

Thurl Ravenscroft

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