SANTA ANA, Calif. – (KRT) – Thurl Ravenscroft of Fullerton, Calif., whose voice was known worldwide through his work in movies, TV and at Disneyland, died Sunday from prostate cancer. He was 91.
Tony the Tiger?
That was Ravenscroft.
Disneyland? Too many voices to mention, but Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion and the Enchanted Tiki Room were all graced by Ravenscroft’s pliable, unique voice.
Movies? How about “Cinderella,” “Dumbo” and “Lady and the Tramp”?
“Disneyland wouldn’t have been, and wouldn’t be, the same without him,” said former park President Jack Lindquist. “It’s all part of the experience. You can’t go home with a ride, but you can go home with a memory, and part of that is the audio – the sound part of it. His voice was one of the things that made it all come alive.”
Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft was born Feb. 6, 1914, in Norfolk, Neb. He moved to California in 1933 to study interior design at the Otis College of Art and Design. While in school he was encouraged to go into show business and auditioned at Paramount studios to be a singer.
By the mid-1930s, he was appearing regularly on radio, first on a program titled “Goose Creek Parson.” In the late 1930s, he appeared on the “The Kraft Music Hall” with Bing Crosby, singing backup in a group called the Paul Taylor Choristers. That group eventually became the Sportsmen Quartette.
After military service during World War II, he returned to Hollywood, later becoming involved in the Mellomen singing group, and began a career in radio, movies, television and commercials. The group could sing anything from rock `n’ roll to bebop to barbershop, and it performed with a list of stars including Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.
In 1952, Ravenscroft achieved a measure of immortality, thanks to a TV commercial.
“I’m the only man in the world that has made a career with one word: Grrrrreeeeat!” Ravenscroft roared in a 1996 interview with The Orange County Register. “When Kellogg’s brought up the idea of the tiger, they sent me a caricature of Tony to see if I could create something for them. After messing around for some time I came up with the `Great!’ roar, and that’s how it’s been since then.”
Ravenscroft’s involvement with Disneyland goes back to opening day in 1955, when he was the announcer for many of the ceremonies and events. His voice has been heard on numerous Disneyland attractions and rides, including Adventure Through Inner Space (1967-1986). He was the original narrator on Submarine Voyage.
In 1966, Dr. Seuss and Chuck Jones teamed up to do “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” for CBS. Ravenscroft recalled the Grinch fondly, saying, “That was my chance to prove I could really sing.” The success of the Grinch led to other projects with Dr. Seuss, including “Horton Hears a Who” and “The Cat in the Hat.”
His singing career continued into the 1970s. As a member of the Johnny Mann Singers, he sang on 28 albums, appeared on television for three seasons and performed for President Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev at the White House.
One of Ravenscroft’s biggest local claims to fame undeniably was his narration of Laguna Beach’s Pageant of the Masters, a job that began in 1973 and lasted for two decades. He told the Register upon his retirement that it was his favorite gig of all time.
“I’ve learned more about art doing the Pageant than I ever did in art school,” he said.
Pageant scriptwriter Dan Duling remembered working with Ravenscroft as “a wonderful collaboration.
“He was a gentleman who was beloved, and is still beloved, at the pageant,” Duling said. “He was considered the grandpa of the pageant. Everyone backstage adored him.”
Ravenscroft possessed, said Duling, “one of the great basso voices, so distinctive. For me, it was like writing music for an instrument that has a few tones that are absolutely unmistakable. It was so distinctive that you had to play to its strengths. He could bring a kind of deep, resonant reverence to something that deserved proper respect. Also, in his folksy manner, he could be the grandpa that everybody loved,” Duling said.
Another fan with memories is Werner Weiss, Web master of www.yesterland.com, an Internet site that highlights popular Disneyland attractions, including many that no longer exist.
“(Ravenscroft) is one of the busts in the Haunted Mansion,” Weiss said. “He’s uncredited, as so many cast members at the park are, but it’s his face and voice. It’s unusual. You actually SEE him in that attraction, a man whose voice you’re heard a thousand times.”
June, Ravenscroft’s wife of 53 years, died in 1999 at age 80. He is survived by two children, Ron and Nancy, and four grandchildren. Services are pending.
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I often wax poetic about my love life, the women that have been in my life, my inability to be very intimate, but at the same time be very passionate.
My close friends tell me I am very intimate, very handsome, thing too much, all that stuff but I think, for me, until I look inside and believe it myself, I won’t find that true connection.
I think taking care of oneself, both physically, emotionally is a strong sign of the place that person is in. Eating for comfort, staying up too late playing games, getting behind in work are all signs that my soul is still searching and is overly anxious.
I’ve done the therapy route and it helped somethings, like my anxiety at some level (I actually had fingernails before Matt and Roslynn’s wedding) but then I stopped the meds and went back to picking them.
So now I am trying to be more responsible to myself. No, I am not saying I can “just do it,” but I am going to see how much I can do if I really care about myself and work hard at it.
That means drinking my water daily, doing my stretches, practicing my TKD even though I am missing lessons, making healthy decisions.
Eating is the hardest one – I am so damn addicted to convenience food. I don’t want to cook a healthy meal every day and do the shopping. Sigh. I’ve tried 100 times to replace this with that and I always end up in the same boat.
However, this 60lbs must go before I hit 40. I’m not sure how I am going to accomplish it, but I think remaining aware of my actions and why I am doing things is a good place to start.
When Sophie ships, a month after my 40th birthday next year, I plan to be in a much better space and we’ll see what I am posting on at that time.
Matt and I went back to the park today to catch what we missed on Thursday. I mainly wanted to see Jungle Boat, the 50th show, check out the Tinkerbell Twist and see if any of my pictures were used in the mosaics around the park.
Mosaics
We went to the kiosk and sure enough I had been used about 8 times in mosaics, mainly in the large Steamboat Willie Mosaic and way up under the drapery at the top. But I have one photo in the Haunted Mansion mosaic which is appropriate for me and one in the 20,000 leagues Mosaic, but Matt and I forgot to check that one! Will have to catch it next time!
Golden Ears Part II
I took my ears back over to Frontier land that I had purchased on Thursday and along with my receipt got my name embroidered on the back. That was nice of them……
Tinkerbell Twist!
I read about the new drink, Tinkerbell Twist over on Mouse Planet so I had to give this a whirl. I decided against the souvenir cup as it was just a label slapped onto the normal bottle. Matt bought one of the $7.50 blinky Tinkerbell straws for his wife.
The drink is a mix of sour apple and sour watermellon and lemme tell ya, it made my eyes water but oh so yummy! It was like drinking a sweet tart rofl. We have video of the experience which I will post later.
We found the drink by Matterhorn over by the old boat attraction.
50th Celebration Show
The new show, temporarily replacing the Lincoln exhibit is very nice. Much of the video I had seen before, but it was nicely narrated by Steve Martin and I learned a couple of new things as well.
I think Matt and I enjoyed the lobby more, however, with the model of the original park. The railroad was N-Scale and the model was huge, so my backyard G-Scale Disneyland is going to prove interesting.
Seeing the collection of old tickets, coupons and artwork was a real joy and treasure.
I took some photos of the parade and noticed Ursula’s audio was working but none of her movements as the float went by. I swear she was animated even while the float moved.
The last e-ticket ride – in the Security SUV
So neither Matt nor I really remembered where we parked. An hour later, 4 levels of the tram side checked thrice, I flagged a security guy down who was super nice and we drove around and around hitting my alarm until we found it – on the far side of the exit. How we could be that far off is beyond me. I’ve only parked there 100+ times, you’d think I’d learn by now…
Spoilers Below – You have been warned!
Jungle Boat
The Jungle Boat Cruise is totally fun. They added some explosions in the river along with drifting bits of the camp from the gorilla raid. Also the “rapids” after the “backside of water” has been changed to a river of charging piranha! That was very cool. Everything seemed cleaner and spiffed up.
We asked and were allowed to wait one boat so we could ride the Golden Congo Queen – Very nice!
Ok some people will think I am insane after seeing this, but I am really having fun expressing myself in goofy ways while at the same time learning some video editing tricks!
So, I made this DVD for my brother’s birthday as a way to show him I love him and am willing to make a total ass outta myself just to make him laugh, haha. So with that, here is the internet famous Matt’s Birthday Extravaganza!
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On the weekend of October 19, 2002, the Portland Macintosh Users Group (PMUG) held their 35th annual MacCamp at Silver Falls State Park.
I was lucky enough to be able to take part in a new experiment, co-teaching an all weekend class on iMovie with Terry Shellenberger. This was the first time an entire cabin had been dedicated to one subject.
Terry taught how to shoot and edit movies, not how to use iMovie. He gave the students sequences to shoot, which unknowingly at the time, were designed to be interchangeable through the editing process. As each student’s mind started to whirl about what kind of movie they wanted to make out of the video they shot, along with the stock video Terry included on CD-ROMs, they began to ask “How do I duplicate a clip in iMovie?” or “How do I put new video over this sound?”
This allowed Terry and I to answer some questions generically to the class at large, and many more on a one-on-one basis. This in turn allowed each student to work at their own pace. We had ten people editing their movies at 2:30am on Sunday morning! I do believe the gaming cabin had long since retired.
We had a great group of students – Everyone was eager to learn, people helped each other out on their projects, there was a very high level of energy and synergy in the cabin during the entire weekend. Unlike my other two MacCamps, we had a meeting on Friday night to get to know all of the students, get a rough idea as to their level of comfort with iMovie and to spark their creative juices.
I believe the class was a resounding success. I took some footage of the MacCamp students (not just the iMovie cabin) and made a little music video for your enjoyment.
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I have some truly wonderful friends in my life. In August, Scott and Jeanie flew me down to visit them. On Sunday we went to Disneyland and had an absolutely wonderful time. I love their kids, appreciate their friendship more than they know and made this movie to rememeber the good times we have as people doing our best from day to day.
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Having lived in California all of my life, I had never experienced snowing at home. You can imagine my glee when we recevied our first light flurries and then more snow later that evening!
Below are two movies I made, the first being the from the flurries in the afternoon, the second of the resultant snow buildup that evening!
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Some spoilers in here, so don’t read if you don’t want to know…
Fun, crowded, everyone booed Eisner haha, was great, met cool new friends while waiting 5 hours for the fireworks (we got the best seat in front of the castle).
The new fireworks show, Remember! is amazing, lasers, lights, tinker flies all around, they shoot cannon fire off matterhorn in a pirates scene, there is a haunted mansion scene, indiana jones with fire coming off the castle, images on the castle, it changes 1000s of colors, fireworks shoot around the entire Plaza, totally awesome.
The Parade of Dreams is one of the best I have seen. The floats are fantastic and the animatronics on Ursula are hard to believe. Much crowd cheering to be had.
Details
So we got at the park at 6:15 but Mickey and Friends didn’t open till 7. So we ended up in the Plaza outside of the park at 7:15. There were already 1000s ahead of us in over 27 lines (I think) Rumors are that the park was closed at 9:30 for having 75,000 guests inside already. Some people had been there since 3am. Some people waited in line for 5 hours after the park opened to get pins. Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.
When the gates opened at 8:30, we moved into a very packed main street. Then we moved around the Plaza (hub) to the left at 9am which was also a zoo. Disney had given the media the entire central hub with scaffolds and cameras and booms and light towers so nobody could use that space to see the 10am kickoff event.
We went left, which apparently was a good idea. It rained a little off an on while we waited the hour, which brought out the umbrellas, meaning you could see zero, but the rain stopped before the event began. Then the ropes were moved again and the crowd rushed forward. I really didn’t have any choice in the matter and ended up a couple of people ahead of Matt. Remember, we had not sat once since 7am.
So the event starts around 10:15 or so and well it was alright I guess. Leann Rhymes sung remember, Christina Aguillera whored up “When you wish upon a star” and Art Linkletter hosted the event. There were video screens which none of us could see – Nice touch I thought.
Bob Iger (sp?) did a speech somewhere in the mix (I have it all on video, I’m too tired to recall exactly atm) and when Linkletter announced Eisner, everyone booed. It was glorious. Good riddance to ya, Mike. Other people recounted saying “hi!” to Eisner at the gates and having him give a “so what” kind of wave, and I guess he gave another speech at Main Street station for the 10,000+ people who could not get past main street and they booed him too!
It was really sad that Roy was not there.
So anyway Julie Andrews finished off the event and started the party. She was the real gem and with the characters helping they dropped the curtain on the castle and revealed the new 50th banner.
The castle is really beautiful. Spires are now crowned and the crowns are full of jewels, which light up at night. It is wonderful tribute to Walt.
After messing around in the park, including taking photos of the murals made up of 1000s of photos, hidden 50th mickeys and an hour in the hot dog line we went by the front of the castle and people were already sitting so, yes at 4:30pm we sat down, smack dab in center of the castle view on the inside ring of the hub and had perfect seats. The Remember! show was awesome.
Not did we just have perfect viewing, but later we started talking to others who had sat around us and I had an awesome time meeting Doug, Christi and shoot I forgot everyone else’s names, haha. I suck. They have a hub club and it was really great getting to know them. On top of being Disney geeks they are also Mac geeks! Talk about my happiest place on Earth! Meeting them really made the day special.
While we were waiting we had perfect seats for the Dreams parade which is much, much better at night. You really want to see this parade, it is beautiful. I didn’t get any shots, sorry.
I look forward to seeing my new friends online and despite the hiccups had a wonderful, wonderful day in Walt’s place.
Oh how could I forget! I met Maynard, the ever popular cast member and even had my pic taken with him! He is a totally great person!
P.S. Doug is lucky he got to go home with his jacket. heh
P.P.S. I forgot to add a “I’m not worthy” bow to Christi for thinking Simba was animatronic when she correctly insisted it was puppeteered.
