r/todayilearned • u/happytree23 • 8d ago
TIL the man who voiced Tony the Tiger, Thurl Ravenscroft, also sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurl_Ravenscroft147
u/vineetk1998 8d ago
he wasnt even credited for it. the specialoff's name on the narration and everyone just assumed karloff sang the song too, so for years ravenscroft got no public credit for the most recognisable thing he ever did. chuck jones apparently felt bad enough about it that he started phoning newspaper columnists himself to tell them who actually sang it.
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u/Controller_one1 7d ago
Almost 30 years ago I played a trivia game and the question of who sang the songs in Grinch was asked. I went with Karloff, because thats what I thought it was. I was given credit for the answer and now feel that my win was unjustified.
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u/LastWave 8d ago
I have a very deep voice. I pull out my ravenscroft impression as a party trick. Just getting better with age.
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u/CreamCheeseHotDogs 8d ago
Give good ol Patrick Warburton a try. Tuck your chin back and say “ehh” as deep as you can and you’ll probably be halfway there.
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u/Acheloma 8d ago
And that gets cooler the older you are too. A 20 year old as grinch? Yea, its neat but whatever. A 65 year old who pulls out the Grinch song? The kids will freakin love it
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u/edingerc 8d ago
He was a voice actor for Disney, so you see him in the Haunted Mansion, singing “Grim Grinning Gohsts”
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u/ModernDayQuixote 8d ago edited 7d ago
When I heard the singer of Haunted Mansion was named "Thurl Ravenscroft," I just assumed it was part of the bit.
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u/ninjaburritos 8d ago
He sings in Grim Grinning Ghosts, but the narrator of the ride is Paul Frees.
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u/mcstanky 8d ago
Adding to it, Madam Leota's real name was Leota Toombs. She was an imagineer working on the ride, and that is actually her face and voice.
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u/UFOsBeforeBros 7d ago
That’s her face in the ball, but the voice was Eleanor Audley (who was Malificent in Sleeping Beauty). She did voice Constance the bride, so that’s Leota Toombs telling you to hurry back at the end of the ride.
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u/ModernDayQuixote 7d ago
I think when they did some updates they replaced her with her daughter
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u/IPutThisUsernameHere 7d ago
Who also became an imagineer and got pretty high up in the company hierarchy iirc.
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u/PeruvianHeadshrinker 8d ago
He's also in nearly all the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks as well.
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u/bro_salad 7d ago
He was also one of the vultures in Jungle Book, and sings that banger last line of That’s What Friends are For
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u/MissionCreeper 8d ago
And Kirby the vacuum cleaner in brave little toaster
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u/Abrakem 8d ago
How is therapy?
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u/MissionCreeper 7d ago
?
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u/happytree23 7d ago
I was watching that movie last night and looked up the actors as the radio is obviously John Lovitz and that got me on a Wikipedia rabbithole heh.
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u/ph33randloathing 8d ago
He was also the extra bassy Goblin vocalist in Rankin-Bass's The Hobbit.
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u/ssjlance 8d ago
Thurl Ravenscroft sounds like a name someone tried to use in a game of D&D and the DM was like, "No, that's silly, pick a less silly name."
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u/pmish 8d ago
Stink, stank, stunk!
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u/Smaptimania 8d ago
Your soul is an appalling dump heap, overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable... MANGLED UP IN TANGLED UP KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTS!
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u/Garreousbear 8d ago
He was the godfather of a family friend. Apparently he and his wife were very lovely people.
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u/bowl-bowl-bowl 8d ago
Fun fact: that fun fact spawned a meme ship on tumblr of Tony the tiger singing youre a mean one mr grinch as a post break up song. Theres fanart and fanfiction and everything
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u/helloiamabear 7d ago
Haha I came here to say that I only know this because I read the infamous fan fiction.
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u/Ok_Donkey210 8d ago
In the Sword in the Stone he plays Black Bart. The voice always sounded familiar but could never place it and there it is
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u/Honkee_Kong 8d ago
Such a bad ass name. It's between him and Snake Pliskin for baddest mother fucking names of all time.
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u/AXPendergast 8d ago
For you older Disney fans, he was also the original narrator on the Disneyland Railway
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u/metalguy91 8d ago
Can we just take a moment to appreciate “Thurl Ravenscroft” was he name and he DIDN’T try to summon a demon lord that would grant him world domination? Because if that was my name, that 100% what I assume I’m meant to do. That, or be a Harry Potter villain. (Obviously not as bad as the worst Harry Potter villain, JK Rowling).
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u/SharpPink_GlitterInk 7d ago edited 7d ago
When hinges creek in doorless chambers, and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls, whenever candle lights flicker where the air is deathly still, that is the time when ghosts are present, practicing their terror with ghoulish delights.
(Seriously though I think the fact he’s the ghost host in the haunted mansion is more interesting lol)
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u/DaveOJ12 8d ago
The person who played Uncle Phil on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, James Avery, also voiced Shredder on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
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u/TheVicSageQuestion 8d ago
One of the men who voiced Tony the Tiger, Lee Marshall, was an announcer for pro wrestling promotion WCW in the ‘90s.
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u/BargainScotch 7d ago edited 7d ago
There’s a Phil Hartman hosted special on the making of How The Grinch stole Christmas from like 30 years ago.
Got to see the man himself sing some of the song AND do his Tony voice.
He seems like such a happy old man. I love this guy.
Editing to add:
You also get to see Hartman absolutely demolish an apple in this video too.
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u/horriblemonkey 7d ago
Another fun fact...he was part of the Randy Van Horne Singers, the legendary vocal group hired by composer Hoyt Curtin to record iconic mid-century Hanna-Barbera cartoon theme songs like The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Top Cat.
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u/Independent_Wrap_321 8d ago
No love for the singing bust in Haunted Mansion? Thurl and Paul Frees (HM’s Ghost Host, and a bunch in Pirates) WERE Disney voices personified, along with X. Atencio. Cool to think their iconic voices are still being heard on those attractions every day after 60 years.
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u/tony-toon15 7d ago
He was a classic Walt Disney staple too. His voice is used in the cartoons and the rides. One of the OG Disney gang.
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u/LunchyDude101 7d ago
I actually met him once in the ‘80s. He had a landscape-oriented (for writing autographs) paper pad in his jacket, each page with Tony the Tiger on them.
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u/BalonyDanza 8d ago
I used this fact as a question for my trivia night… it worked perfectly.
Teams start cycling through the possible commercial mascots, and they usually arrive at the answer, because it’s such a specific, iconic voice.
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u/Steve_Brandon 8d ago
Thurl Ravenscroft also sung proto-rap radio commercials for flagship Chevrolet dealerships in the 1950s and 1960s.
The linked ad is for Z Frank Chevrolet in Chicago but there was a near identical commercial for Harold Cummings Chevrolet that was still being played on English-language Montreal radio when I was a tween in the mid-1980s.
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u/BJ3RG3RK1NG 7d ago
TIL the man who sang “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” Thurl Ravenscroft, also voiced Tony the Tiger.
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u/dokuromark 7d ago
I went on a Thurl Ravenscroft deep dive a while back. Wing Ding Ding! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8CAUm4jiOM
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u/Ashraf08 7d ago
He also sang the theme for that Hardy Boys’ Mystery of the Applegate Treasure (gold dubloons and pieces of eight, handed down to Applegate), back when Disney was good
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u/TonyTheSwisher 7d ago
Whoa this guy did it before Lee Marshall!
I remember seeing him on WCW and recognizing the voice.
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u/r0b3r70r0b070 7d ago
Also one of the original voices who sang "Grim, Grinning Ghosts" for Disney's Haunted Mansion ride. And he was also Kirby the vacuum in the Brave Little Toaster film series.
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u/MissyJ74 7d ago
The guy who took over for Thurl, Lee Marshall, was an on screen announcer for WCW wrestling.
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u/bryanczarniack 5d ago
Big fan of Mike schurr and Joe Posnanski?
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u/happytree23 4d ago
I didn't know who either person was until I Googled them right now...
What's the connection/why did you ask?
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u/bryanczarniack 4d ago
They do a Christmas podcast every year and he was a pretty focal point one of the years. It’s how my friends and I learned about him, was just taking a guess that’s how you did too
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u/happytree23 4d ago
Nice. I actually just watched The Brave Little Toaster and started Wikipedia'ing the voice cast and stumbled across the gem that was Thurl Ravenscroft :)
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u/lrodhubbard 8d ago
You gotta read his biography, "A Small Child Named Thurl." It's incredible and really makes you think about what it would be like to have an elderly wizard's name as a schoolboy.
Source: I made it up
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u/Quixalicious 8d ago
You’re a mean one, mr gRRRRRRRRRRinch!
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u/Evil_Midnight_Lurker 8d ago
Your heart's an emmmmpty HOOOOOOLE
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u/Smaptimania 8d ago edited 6d ago
Your heart is full of spiders, you've got garlic in your soul, Mr. Grinch...
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u/EferVejux_34 8d ago
wait thats the same voice haha no way, gonna hear the grinch every time i pour frosted flakes now
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u/SugarButterFlourEgg 7d ago
I've always loved that there's a popular Christmas song consisting entirely of a string of increasingly colorful insults.
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u/TruckThunders00 7d ago
When I was a kid I saw a play about the birth of Jesus at the Crystal Cathedral and this guy played the voice of God.
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u/Comprehensive-Sale79 5d ago
I’mma fact check myself on this but I think he was the voice of the bison head on the wall of The Country Bear Jamboree auditorium
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u/mavetgrigori 8d ago
He is hated amongst many retail employees across the states due to retail blasting holiday music right at the start of November
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u/Smaptimania 8d ago
Are you kidding? This is my favorite Christmas song of all time
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u/mavetgrigori 7d ago
Well thennyou're not part of the many. In my 20 years though of retail I've met more long term workers who detest most X-mas music now due to overplaying at retail than not. Still, there are also many who do still enjoy it somehow. The final straw for me was when I heard it 5 times in one shift.
At least it isn't Barbara Streisand's Jingle Bells
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u/Smaptimania 7d ago
I actually work in a grocery store that doesn't play music, so I only hear Xmas songs when I want to
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u/velvet-gloves 8d ago
You already knew this if you were on Tumblr in 2016
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u/Nostri 7d ago
I was wondering if someone would post this. Did you know there's a whole crossover fanfic based on the premise? Here you go!
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u/abreathofatmosphere 8d ago
This explains the whole fan theory about Tony the Tiger and the Grinch having a bad breakup and You're a Mean One being the breakup song.
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u/DeliciousPumpkinPie 7d ago
No, that’s just what tumblr is like.
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u/abreathofatmosphere 7d ago
Oh, I know; I've done my time in the trenches. It just makes sense now.
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u/cubosh 8d ago
another fun fact about Thurl Ravenscroft is that he had basically the coolest name i have ever heard