Stan Freberg

Hip and irreverent, Stan Freberg was the last network radio comic, a trailblazing satirist whose work greatly expanded the vocabulary of the comedy form. While most postwar comedians used radio and records merely as a springboard for more lucrative film and television gigs, Freberg pushed the envelope in both mediums, creating high-concept musical comedies and sound collages which revolutionized the audio format while setting the stage for the hallucinatory sonic visions of the Firesign Theater and the National Lampoon troupe.



Born in Pasadena, California in 1926, Freberg broke into performing with work in children's puppet shows; while still in his teens, he hopped a bus to Los Angeles and won an audition at the famed Warner Bros. cartoon studios. In short time he was working (albeit uncredited) alongside voice-over genius Mel Blanc on characters like the Goofy Gophers and Pete Puma. Additionally, he contributed to Bob Clampett's puppet series Time for Beany, the precursor to the animated favorite Beany and Cecil.

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