Yesterday was the birthday of the one and only Daws Butler. As I've done in years past, I'm devoting this week to nothing but Daws. Call it a barrage of Butler if you'd like! Starting us off is this article on Daws that appeared in the March 14th, 1975 edition of the Richmond Times Dispatch. It covers his visit to the recently opened Hanna-Barbera area at Kings Dominion, as well as how and why he creates his characters.
Yogi Inspects New Cage
By Lora Mackie
Yogi Bear walked into his new yellow cave at Kings Dominion, inspected the stalagmites, and said in his deep Art Carney voice, "Hey, hey, hey, this isn't bad, but where's the carpeting?"
Actually, the voice was that of Daws Butler, who has become almost synonymous with the animated Yogi. For more than 14 years, he has been the voice for several other Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters as well.
Butler and Bill Hanna, one of Yogi's creators, were at the theme park yesterday to help promote a new Hanna-Barbera section.
Hanna admitted that Butler's voice, the only and original Yogi, cannot be replaced. "No one has been able to imitate Yogi yet," he said, explaining that they have auditioned several people for emergency stand-in parts for the famous 5-foot-6-inch bear.
Actually, the voice was that of Daws Butler, who has become almost synonymous with the animated Yogi. For more than 14 years, he has been the voice for several other Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters as well.
Butler and Bill Hanna, one of Yogi's creators, were at the theme park yesterday to help promote a new Hanna-Barbera section.
Hanna admitted that Butler's voice, the only and original Yogi, cannot be replaced. "No one has been able to imitate Yogi yet," he said, explaining that they have auditioned several people for emergency stand-in parts for the famous 5-foot-6-inch bear.
Hanna also said, "Daws can change his voice so easily."
With that, Huck Hound came into the picture, threatening, "I'm going to say something cerebral," in his Southern hound dog dialect.
A minute later, Butler became Mr. Jinks, the cat, and said, "I hate those meeces to pieces," referring, of course, to Dixie and Pixie. "These guys are getting rather bold," Mr. Jinks continued, "These meece are gonna take over the world."
Butler has done more than 30 famous character voices, which are not all Hanna-Barbera characters. Some of them include: The Sun, in the raisin cereal commercial, Augie Doggie, Baba Looey, Snagglepuss, Blabber Mouse, Quick Draw McGraw, Wally Gator, and Cap'n Crunch, one of his favorites.
Butler, 58, began his career when he was 18. "I learned everything by observation and from other actors." He explained that he was an only child and was "shy and withdrawn" and hated giving oral reports at school."
As a type of "self-therapy," he entered himself in an amateur contest, finding that, "once I was in front of an audience, I was at ease."
"I guess I had more talent than I thought because the next thing I knew, we hired an agent in Chicago and I was on my way," into show business.
Butler is one of the first to do animated voices. He has enjoyed doing Huck and Yogi and is responsible for developing their personalities. He treats each character with a different "mental image" because, "each one has his own personality."
"I put so much love and thinking into each of my characters," he said. "I'm thinking like Yogi when I do him."
Butler describes the famous brown bear with the green felt tie and matching hat as "a big man on campus type."
He thinks Mr. Jinks is a lot of fun because "he has a lot of variations since he is always trying to trick those mice. He is crafty."
Contrary to popular belief, Butler is not the voice of Boo Boo, Yogi's little sidekick, although he does have some of the same characteristics.
Butler attributes some of his creativity to his training as a writer. "It helps me color the words, and that's where the humor comes in."
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc., has a writing team that writes dialogue for the animated characters, but Butler does "quite a bit of adlibbing and interpolation. That's what gives their personalities a roundness, he said. Butler demonstrated how a handful of characters would say the same line. Quick Draw, the western horse, did it in a Western accent, but his Mexican friend, Baba Looey, gave the line a Spanish dialect.
Butler gets "wrapped up" in his characters. He has found that when making the cartoons, "the energy you put in the character also helps inspire the animator." He said, "When you put energy in your voice, you and the animator become one." Sometimes he walks into the studio and lets out a loud "hey, hey, hey" in Yogi's voice and finds that the animator makes the bear raise his eyebrows a little higher or puts a little extra bounce in his gait.
For Butler, his work and hobby are the same, so in his spare time, he entertains at children's hospitals with Yogi and Huck puppets, and he teaches a workshop in his home in Los Angeles.
He teaches about 15 persons, of varying ages, who want to profit from his experience in show business. They usually have had previous experience in commercials, on stage, or on television, and he coaches them in the areas of "cold reading" and polishing their acts.
He is also working on a new character, Uncle Duncle, who he says, is similar to himself. Uncle Duncle is a slow-speaking, thoughtful man who gives advice to his nephew. Butler hopes the pair will soon be on radio.
What has been the key to Butler's success in show business? "Basically," he said, "it's the heart and mind."