Thurl Ravenscroft

Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft (; February 6, 1914May 22, 2005) was an American voice actor and bass singer known as the booming voice behind Kellogg's Frosted Flakes animated spokesman Tony the Tiger for more than five decades. He was also the uncredited vocalist for the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" from the classic Christmas television special, Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
Ravenscroft did some voice-over work and singing for Disney in both the films and the attractions at Disneyland (which were later featured at Walt Disney World). The best known of these attractions are Haunted Mansion as a singing bust, Country Bear Jamboree, Mark Twain Riverboat, Pirates of the Caribbean, Disneyland Railroad, and Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room as "Fritz". His voice acting career began in 1940 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. He achieved early success as part of a singing group called The Mellomen. The Mellomen can be heard on many popular recordings of the Big Band Era, including backup for Bing Crosby, Frankie Laine, Spike Jones, Jo Stafford, and Rosemary Clooney. Their earliest contribution to a Disney film was for Pinocchio (1940), to which they contributed the song "Honest John". This was deleted from the film, but can still be heard in the supplements on the 2009 DVD. Ravenscroft did also voice Monstro the Whale in Pinocchio. The Mellomen did also contribute 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 Gallegher.
Ravenscroft is also heard with the quartet on some of the Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes with Mel Blanc at Warner Bros. as well as on radio "driving Jack Benny crazy" on The Jack Benny Program.
During World War II, Ravenscroft served as a civilian 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.""He’s Grrrrreat! The Thurl Ravenscroft Interview," Hogan's Alley #12, 2005
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. 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. 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.
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.365 Days of Magic blog 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. 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 and of the American bison head named Buff at The Country Bear Jamboree.
==Later career==
One of Ravenscroft's best-known uncredited works is as the vocalist for the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." His name was accidentally omitted from the credits, leading many to believe (erroneously) that the cartoon's narrator, Boris Karloff, sang the song, while others cited Tennessee Ernie Ford as the song's signature voice.
Ravenscroft also sang "No Dogs Allowed" in the Peanuts animated motion picture Snoopy, Come Home and I Was a Teenaged Brain Surgeon for Spike Jones.
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.
His lifelong dream, which he shared in an interview in 1999 with Peter Anthony Holder, was to record the entire Bible on tape, but James Earl Jones "beat him out". However, being 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.
==Later life and death==
Ravenscroft married June Seamans in 1946 and they had two children. June died in 1999 from unknown causes. Ravenscroft semi-retired and did not work at any other studio, but continued to voice Tony the Tiger through 2004 (with limo transportation by Kellogg's) and also submitted to an interview that year by the Disney "Extinct Attractions Club" website. He died in his home on May 22, 2005 from prostate cancer. 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 ad commemorating Ravenscroft, the headline reading: "Behind every great character is an even greater man." After his death, Lee Marshall replaced him as the voice of Tony the Tiger in the Kellogg's commercials, but some commercials still recycle clips of Ravenscroft.
==Filmography==
Year 	Title 	Role 	Notes
1940 	Pinocchio 	Monstro the Whale 	
1940 	Isle of Destiny 	Sportsman Quartet Member 	
1941 	Dumbo 	Singer of "Look Out For Mr. Stork" and "Pink Elephants on Parade"	Voice
1941 	The Nifty Nineties 	Singer 	
1943 	Saludos Amigos 	Singer of the main title theme 	
1948 	Melody Time 	Singer 	
1950 	Tom and Jerry: Pinocchio 	Monstro the Whale 	
1951 	Alice in Wonderland 	Card Painter 	Voice
1951 	Tom and Jerry: Alice in Wonderland 	Card Painter 	Voice
1951 	Tom and Jerry: Dumbo 	Singer of "Look Out For Mr. Stork" and "Pink Elephants on Parade"	Voice
1952 	Tom and Jerry: Peter Pan 	Singer / Pirates 	Voice
1952 	Tom and Jerry: Saludos Amigos 	Singer of the main title theme 	
1952 	Jack and the Beanstalk 	Singing voices of two villagers 	
1952 	Tom and Jerry: Melody Time 	Singer 	
1953 	Peter Pan 	Singer / Pirates 	Voice
1953 	Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom 	Singer 	
1954 	Rose Marie 	Medicine Man 	
1955 	Daddy Long Legs 	Daydream Sequence Song 	Short, Voice
1955 	Lady and the Tramp 	Al the Alligator / Singing Pound Dogs 	Voice
1955 	Tom and Jerry: Lady and the Tramp 	Al the Alligator / Singing Pound Dogs 	Voice
1956 	Hardy Boys 	Theme Song 	Voice
1958 	Paul Bunyan 	Paul Bunyan 	Short, Voice
1959 	Sleeping Beauty 	Singer 	
1961 	One Hundred and One Dalmatians 	Captain the Horse 	Voice
1961 	Yogi Bear's Adventures of 101 Dalmatians 	Captain the Horse 	Voice
1962 	Gay Purr-ee 	Hench Cat 	
1963 	The Sword in the Stone 	Sir Bart 	Voice
1963 	Yogi Bear's Adventures of The Sword in the Stone 	Sir Bart 	Voice
1964 	Mary Poppins 	Banker / Pig / Animal Sounds 	Voice
1965 	The Man from Button Willow 	Singer / Reverend / Saloon Man 	Voice
1966 	How the Grinch Stole Christmas 	Singer of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" 	
1967 	The Jungle Book 	Colonel Hathi's crew 	
1967 	The War Wagon 	Backup singer on main theme 	
1968/1977	Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day/The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh	Singer/Black Honeypot 	
1969 	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 	Singing Voice 	
1969 	The Trouble with Girls 	Bass Singer 	with the Bible Singers Quartet (The Mellomen)
1970 	Horton Hears a Who! 	Wickersham Brother 	
1970 	The Phantom Tollbooth 	Lethargians 	
1970 	The Aristocats 	Billy Bass - Russian Cat 	Voice
1971 	The Cat in the Hat 	Thing One 	
1971 	Bedknobs and Broomsticks 	Singing voice of Russian vendor / Various cartoon animal voices 	
1972 	Snoopy, Come Home 	Singer of "No Dogs Allowed" 	
1972 	The Lorax 	Singer 	
1977 	The Hobbit 	Goblins/Chorus 	
1977 	Halloween Is Grinch Night 	Singer / Monsters 	
1977 	Donny & Marie 	Darth Vader / Narrator 	Star Wars Segment
1978 	The Small One 	Potter 	
1980 	The Return of the King 	Goblins/Chorus 	Voice, Uncredited
1987 	The Brave Little Toaster 	Kirby 	Voice
1990 	Disney Sing Along Songs: Disneyland Fun – It's a Small World 	Singer of "Grim Grinning Ghosts" 	
1994 	Tom and Jerry: The Brave Little Toaster 	Kirby 	Voice
1996 	Superior Duck 	The Narrator 	
1997 	The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue 	Kirby 	Voice
1998 	The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars 	Kirby 	Voice
1998 	Tom and Jerry: The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars 	Kirby 	Voice
1999 	Tom and Jerry: The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue 	Kirby 	Voice
2004 	Seven Little Monsters: The Movie 	Seven's Father 	Voice; Final film before his death on May 22nd, 2005
 	 	 	Voice; Final film before his death on May 22nd, 2005
 	 	 	Voice; Final film before his death on May 22nd, 2005
 	 	 	Voice; Final film before his death on May 22nd, 2005
===Commercials===
Year 	Title 	Role
late 1970s-early 1980s	Toys R Us 	Geoffrey the Giraffe
Year 	Title 	Role
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)
*Nathaniel the Grublet (In Direwood) – 1979 (Birdwing)
*Psalms and Selahs – 2002
==References==
==External links==
* All Things Thurl (an authorized fan site, to which Ravenscroft contributed; includes discography)
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* THURL'S GRRRRRRR-EAT! A Conversation With Thurl Ravenscroft
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