Hasta La Creative!

Stan Freberg, renowned advertising copywriter often referred to as “the father of the funny commercial” and one of Ad Age’s top 100 advertising people of the last century has died. He was 88.

The Grammy, Clio and Silver Lion award winner was born in 1926 in Pasadena, Calif., the only son of a Baptist minister. A self-described lonely child, he spent long hours listening to Fred Allen and Jack Benny on the radio and loved to perform comedy routines for his pet rabbits. After graduating from high school in 1944, he began supplying voices for Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons. He was also the voice of the beaver in Walt Disney’s “Lady & the Tramp” in 1955 and appeared in several movies, including “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.”

In 1950, Mr. Freberg emerged as a comedy recording artist with a Capitol record, “John & Marsha.” He went on to parody many of the cultural trends of the day with a satiric version of the song “On Top of Old Smokey” in 1951, a send-up of crooner Johnny Ray’s overwrought ballad “Cry” in 1952 and even a parody of the infamous U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy called “Point of Order.” Probably his most successful comic record was a satiric version of the police show “Dragnet.”

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