Possibly the worst Jack Benny impression EVER!

[Brad from Georgia]

Here's a cartoon, "The Stupidstitious Cat," that has perhaps the worst Jack Benny impression you will ever hear. It's the first "Buzzy the Crow" cartoon and is a one-shot for the Benny-esque cat.

Buzzy's voice clearly is meant to evoke Rochester: "My, oh my!" "Hold on, Boss!" and the like. The Benny-esque cat speaks in rhyme, but has some of Benny's verbal tics: "Well! I guess I get my wish!" "Yipes!" and so on. But it just...misses. So very, very badly.

The voice artist for Buzzy is Jackson Beck, who was doing Bluto in the Popeye cartoons about the same era. I don't know who did the cat, but it's a blessing he only did him once.

[Mister Kitzel]

It is safe to say the characters were loosely based on Jack and Rochester. Very loosely.

[shimp scrampi]

The odd thing about that cat, is that to my ear, the voice actually matches the timbre and physical qualities of Jack's voice from around that time quite well. It is just the phrasing and intonation, etc. that are so awful. Usually Jack impressions get that the other way around. Maybe that is what makes it so especially terrible!

[Maxwell]

I think shimp got it right. Plus in the tradition of Famous Studios, it was a pretty bad cartoon. (And to think that Paramount dumped Max Fleischer to produce cartoons of that quality.)

[Yhtapmys]

You know, I never considered it to be an impression of Jack at all. It just doesn't sound like him at all.

Mind you, I thought Jack Lescoulie's in Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur wasn't great either.

Yhtapmys

[Brad from Georgia]

I'm sure it's SUPPOSED to be Benny--"Yipes! Getting out on the wrong side of the bed! From THAT you could...drop dead!" And the timbre and general sound of the voice is actually, as shimp says, close. It's just the rhythm and the emphasis that misses. The cartoon was made in 1947, when the Benny show was riding high on radio, and I'm sure that once the "Buzzy" voice was decided as being a take-off on Eddie Anderson, someone said, "And the cat could be Jack Benny!"

Just checked on the Big Cartoon Database, where the opinion is that yes, the cat's supposed to speak in an imitation of Jack's voice.

[CBSTelevisionCity]

My entire life I've thought that was Dave Willock doing that caveman Jack Benny voice!

[Yhtapmys]

My entire life I've thought that was Dave Willock doing that caveman Jack Benny voice!

It sounds quite a bit like him, doesn't it? The voice is a bit flatter than Dave. Various animations sources credit Lescoulie, so I won't argue with them.

An old TV print is available here:
http://tesla.liketelevision.com/liketel ... e=cartoons

There are most costly ingredients in duck!!

Yhtapmys