Of A Certain Age

I was once on the phone with someone from work who I had never met, and never saw. We were discussing the layout for a sales presentation, and it occurred to me that woman I was talking to had to be significantly younger than me. I forget her name but I finally just interjected into the conversation that I think she and I grew up watching different movies. She didn't drop the phone because it was probably attached to her head, another sure sign of a generational divide, but she did get a good laugh out of it. I've since used the comment several times since when I thought it was appropriate.

Of course the opposite can be true. I can be dealing with someone who did see the same movies, watch the same TV shows, and probably saw their family TV carried out the front door because it had to "go to the shop." Worse than hearing your dog died.

I'm not quite as old as Robert McFadden, the NYT reporter who I'm told still shows up at a desk at 80, and who won a Pulitzer in 1996 for being the best rewrite man in the business, but we certainly are a Venn diagram with a good deal of intersecting years.

I'm sure today's obituary on June Foray, a actress who could be credited being the voice behind numerous cartoon characters, notable Rocky the squirrel, was an advance obituary transplanted from the morgue. June Foray was 99, and in general, when someone gets promoted from the morgue to one more life in front of us, the byline is usually Robert McFadden's. The nonagenarians are usually his.

I will boast a bit that I do a credible Bullwinkle the Moose voice imitation, so it would have been a joy to "talk" to Ms. Foray pretending to be characters from the cartoon 'Rocky and his Friends' and later 'The Bullwinkle Show.' I never knew Rocky was done by a woman, but when I hear his voice in my head it makes sense. He does have a bit of a high pitch, as if his nuts are being squished.

Mr. McFadden's obituary is a six column valentine to June Foray and her part in bringing cartoon voices to prime time television. The six columns take up two-thirds of the page and are complemented by four photos, which look great in color when viewed online. I'm sure Jeff Roth, the custodian down in the Times morgue, had fun digging out those photos. Now he has to refile them, something he admits in the documentary film 'Obit' that he is way behind on.

As an online bonus, and something that enhances journalism, is a link to some episodes. There are people at work today who are goofing off on the computer, or at home, who are not yet in the yard gardening as planned.

Watching and listening to some of the YouTube videos that you just can't stop playing following the online links,  you listen to June and Bill Scott talk of where the voices came from. Rocky was meant to be an all-American boy. And he certainly sounds like one of the Hardy brothers, perhaps not yet having crashed through puberty.

Bill Scott or June explains that Red Skelton thought the Bullwinkle lispy sound came from something he did. And Red Skelton was probably right, because Bullwinkle does sound a bit like Red Skelton doing his Gertrude and Heathcliff seagull bit. I never thought of that until now.

Read the caption under the photo of June Foray and three others, Walter Schuman, Dave Butler and Stan Freberg recording a version of , 'St. George and the Dragonet.' It is not Dragon. It is Dragonet. And if you listen to it on iTunes and download as I just did, you will quickly realize the bit is a spoof of the show 'Dragnet,' something else that you have to be of a certain age to remember.

It is noted that 'Rocky' ran on ABC, then NBC from 1959 to 1964. There are years in there I was in high school and some of the first questions we asked each other on Monday morning was did you see 'Rocky and Bullwinkle last night? I remember the show running at 7 P.M. on Sundays.

Mr. McFadden was likely out of college then, but the guess he was just as tuned in as the rest of us adolescents. Rocky and Bullwinkle was a cartoon for all ages.

There was a segment of 'Rocky and Friends' that featured two characters, Sherman and Peabody. They operate the 'Way Back Machine.'

They are assisted in the 21st century by Mr. McFadden and that guy stuck in the cellar pulling stories and photos.

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