Stan Freberg, satirist of radio, TV commercial, and comedy album fame, died of natural causes including pneumonia on Tuesday in Santa Monica, California at the age of 88.
"Freberg's path to the nation's funny bone was unconventional: Unlike stand-up comics who recorded comedy albums of their nightclub acts in front of live audiences, Freberg went straight into the studio at Capitol Records in Hollywood and, bolstered by actors, musicians and sound effects, created what he called 'audio moments,'"
wrote the Los Angeles Times.
In 1953, Freberg netted a No. 1 hit with "St. George And The Dragonet," a parody of NBC's crime drama "Dragnet." Later on, he would record the hit yuletide song "Nuttin' For Christmas," and win a Grammy Award for "The Best of the Stan Freberg Shows."
His singing brand of parodic humor would later inspire the likes of "Weird Al" Yankovic, who
mourned Freberg's passing on Twitter, calling him "one of my absolute all-time heroes."
He began his career on radio in 1943, where he did impersonations on Cliffie Stone’s radio program.
He would soon work as a voice actor for Warner Bros' cartoons, working with the legendary Mel Blanc on Junyer Bear, Beaky Buzzard, and one of the Goofy Gophers, Tosh.
In the 1960s, Freberg began a long and storied career in advertising, where he would earn 20 Clio Awards for hawking everything from prunes to chow mein. The New York Times once called Freberg the "Che Guevara of advertising," a riff on his own self-branding as a "guerilla satirist,"
CNN reported.
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