Daws Butler Information

Biography

Daws Butler, born Charles Dawson Butler, was a peer/rival of Mel Blanc during the made-for-TV cartoons of the late 1950's onward. Butler's career in voice acting can be traced back to MGM where he was often the go-to man for cartoon artist/animator/director, Tex Avery. It was at MGM where Daws gave voice to a myriad of characters...no breakthrough roles, just characters. Several years later, though, Butler became the voice of Chilly Willy, a character from Walter Lantz's studio. In this series, Butler also voiced Chilly's nemesis, a dog who spoke in the southern drawl of Huckleberry Hound.

Butler was working on comedy records with another voice actor, Stan Freberg, throughout the 1950's. The two of them had been together since 1949 working on the puppet show, "Time For Beany". This series won several Emmy awards and was in production until 1954. Butler and Freberg released a string of comedy albums and singles...one of their releases "Saint George and the Dragonet" was a million seller. They also had a big hit with "Christmas Dragnet". Butler's natural speaking voice can be heard on those recordings as Freberg's boss. Their third most popular recording is "Green Christmas". Freberg plays a Scrooge-type executive on Madison Avenue while Butler plays Bob Cratchit, trying to get Scrooge to change his ways and stop over-commercializing Christmas.

By the end of the decade Daws would be the #1 voice talent on the newly formed Hanna-Barbera company. Daws and another voice actor, Don Messick, became a two-person combo on a string of late '50s/early '60s cartoons for Hanna-Barbera. Mel Blanc was still going strong in theatrical cartoons for Warner Brothers during this time period.

At Hanna-Barbera, Daws would become the voice of Reddy of "Ruff and Reddy" fame; Yogi Bear; Huckleberry Hound; Snagglepuss; Hokey Wolf; Dinky Dalton; Quickdraw McGraw; Baba Looie; Elroy Jetson; Cogwell Cog; Snooper and Blabber; Dixie Mouse; Mr Jinx; Wally Gator...plus a whole host of other characters that paraded on and off the screen during those cartoon programs. Daws also got the opportunity to voice a theatrical cartoon: Loopy De Loop, a french-speaking good wolf who everyone mistakes as an evil wolf. Butler was also a part of Jay Ward's animated cartoons...typically heard on "The Bullwinkle Show" in the Fractured Fairy Tales segment. Also, the TV commercial pitchman, Cap'n Crunch, is a voice Butler was responsible for from it's inception until Butler's death 2 decades later. Don Messick was often Butler's side-kick, voicing secondary characters, and narrating the cartoons.

In the 1980's Butler, like Mel Blanc, Don Messick, and others, rarely had any success with new characters. A lot of times the titans of voice acting were on hand to reprise their famous characters in new adventures...some speculate that producers and studio head's feared locking older voice actors into long-term deals because of their mortality rate...so often the case was, Butler and the others had to audition for roles that they themselves originated the voice for. One such occurrence happened when the 1984/1985 revival of The Jetsons was under-way and Butler had to audition for Elroy Jetson and Messick had to audition for the roles he originally played.

Daws Butler passed away in 1988.

Daws Butler

Biography

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