As someone who worked in both radio (including a stint on the Gary Burbank Show, a “theater of the mind” comedy show featuring dozen of wacky characters) and advertising, I would be remiss if I didn’t pay tribute to the late, great Stan Freberg, who passed away earlier this month. IMDb lists him as “Composer, singer, actor, author, comedian and advertising executive.” That doesn’t really do justice to his talents. He was a voice in Looney Tunes… he created great satirical sketch comedy for radio… he was Weird Al before there was a Weird Al… he was the godfather of the funny commercial for both radio and TV, including this radio ad that shows how powerful the medium can be:

Here’s one of his more popular radio sketches:

A couple of nice tributes are here and here.

And you can listen to more of Stan’s work here.

They don’t make ’em like Stan anymore, but they should, because the world would be a funnier place.

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Stan Freberg 1926-2015