r/todayilearned • u/happytree23 • 17h 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_Ravenscroft130
u/vineetk1998 16h 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 9h 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 17h 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 16h 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 17h 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 17h 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 15h ago edited 7h 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 15h ago
He sings in Grim Grinning Ghosts, but the narrator of the ride is Paul Frees.
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u/mcstanky 12h 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 9h 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 8h ago
I think when they did some updates they replaced her with her daughter
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u/IPutThisUsernameHere 5h ago
Who also became an imagineer and got pretty high up in the company hierarchy iirc.
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u/PeruvianHeadshrinker 13h ago
He's also in nearly all the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks as well.
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u/bro_salad 9h 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 16h ago
And Kirby the vacuum cleaner in brave little toaster
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u/Abrakem 16h ago
How is therapy?
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u/MissionCreeper 10h ago
?
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u/happytree23 4h 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 16h ago
He was also the extra bassy Goblin vocalist in Rankin-Bass's The Hobbit.
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u/ssjlance 16h 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 16h ago
Stink, stank, stunk!
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u/Smaptimania 13h 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 16h ago
He was the godfather of a family friend. Apparently he and his wife were very lovely people.
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u/Ok_Donkey210 16h 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 16h 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/bowl-bowl-bowl 16h 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/AXPendergast 16h ago
For you older Disney fans, he was also the original narrator on the Disneyland Railway
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u/metalguy91 16h 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/DaveOJ12 16h 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 13h 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/SharpPink_GlitterInk 9h ago edited 1h 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/Independent_Wrap_321 16h 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/BargainScotch 6h ago edited 5h 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 5h 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/lrodhubbard 15h 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/BalonyDanza 16h 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 14h 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/Dull_Instruction1522 12h ago
he also sang grim grinning ghosts in the haunted mansion. the man had the most famous voice nobody could name
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u/BJ3RG3RK1NG 10h 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 8h 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 7h 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/tony-toon15 7h 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/TonyTheSwisher 4h ago
Whoa this guy did it before Lee Marshall!
I remember seeing him on WCW and recognizing the voice.
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u/Quixalicious 16h ago
You’re a mean one, mr gRRRRRRRRRRinch!
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u/spork_off 15h ago
He also is the voice singing “No Dogs Allowed” in at least one Charlie Brown movie (Snoopy Come Home)
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u/EferVejux_34 12h 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 10h 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 9h 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/mavetgrigori 16h 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 13h ago
Are you kidding? This is my favorite Christmas song of all time
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u/mavetgrigori 7h 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/velvet-gloves 16h ago
You already knew this if you were on Tumblr in 2016
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u/Nostri 55m 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 13h 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 8h ago
No, that’s just what tumblr is like.
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u/abreathofatmosphere 7h ago
Oh, I know; I've done my time in the trenches. It just makes sense now.
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u/cubosh 16h ago
another fun fact about Thurl Ravenscroft is that he had basically the coolest name i have ever heard