Actor and singer Thurl Ravenscroft was born on this day in 1914 (he died in 2005.) What, you never heard of him?
How 'bout this guy?
Yes, that's Ravenscroft's voice coming out of Tony's mouth. As for his vocals being "augmented", well, watch, and especially listen to, him in 1980s interview:
I sense not all that augmentation was needed.
One notable credit was oddly missing in that interview (perhaps because for years it went, again oddly, uncredited), so I'll include it here. First, some background:
You see, when Chuck Jones (right) set out to turn a book by Dr. Suess (left) into a TV Christmas special, he wasn't content merely to have top-notch animation. He wanted it to be musically top-notch too, and so to that end hired Thurl to sing this now iconic song:
Sounds like he's describing an ICE agent.
