Stan Freberg, a man of myriad talents who was often called “the father of funny advertising,” died Tuesday in Santa Monica. He was 88.
Freberg was born in Pasadena and grew up in Los Angeles; he turned down scholarships to Stanford University and the University of Redlands in order to pursue a career in radio. He became a successful comedian and a voice actor in cartoons—his was the voice of the beaver in Disney’s Lady and the Tramp—but it’s as rule-breaking advertising copywriter that I choose to remember him.
According to the New York Times obituary, Freberg went into advertising “because he considered most commercials moronic.” In 1957, after the CBS Radio Network canceled “The Stan Freberg Show” after just 15 weeks, Freberg formed his own ad-production company, which he called Freberg Ltd. (but not very). His motto, according to the Los Angeles Times obituary, was Ars gratia pecuniae: “Art for money’s sake.” He “set the standard for humor in advertising,” according to a tribute in Advertising Age: his work included campaigns for Chun King, Jeno’s Pizza, Sunsweet prunes (one of his prune ads starred Ray Bradbury, the science-fiction writer), Contadina tomato paste (“Who puts eight great tomatoes in that little bitty can? You know who. You know who. You know who”), and Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Freberg’s copy wasn’t just funny; it was subversive. He “used humor to declare war on postwar advertising,” writes the New York Times’s Douglas Martin: “Mr. Freberg even committed, eagerly, the ad industry’s greatest heresy: lampooning the deficiencies of a paying client’s own products.”
When he couldn’t get a paying client to underwrite his heresies, he went indie. His 1958 comedy single, “Green Chri$tma$” hardly seems dated today, nearly half a century later:
Deck the halls with advertising!
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!
’Tis the time for merchandising!
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!
Profit never needs a reason!
Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la!
Get the money, it’s the season!
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!
Listen to the whole “Green Chri$tma$” recording.
A few more Freberg links:
“Who Listens to Radio?” (1965)
“Elderly Man River” (1957)
“Take an Indian to Lunch” (1961)
“St. George and the Dragonet” (1953 parody of “Dragnet”)
A tribute from NPR that includes a sketch Freberg did with Harry Shearer (This Is Spinal Tap, “Le Show”).
Around 1969 he announced that was starting an ad agency to be called "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Freberg (a division of Thyme, Inc.)" Philip Daugherty's Advertising column in the NY Times Business section was a consistently entertaining read in those days, though I wasn't in or even close to the ad business.
Posted by: rootlesscosmo | April 09, 2015 at 12:40 PM