June Foray (1917-2017)

She was the grand dame of cartoon voices, and was still working up to her passing yesterday, just a few weeks shy of her 100th birthday. Today, we mourn and celebrate the career of June Foray, both here and in Saturday Morning Archives (naturally).

It's easy to recite some of June's best known voices. Rocky, the flying squirrel, a role she played well into this decade, with an appearance in a GEICO commercial a few years back. Granny, who owned both Tweety & Sylvester, and was later rebooted as the Looney Tunes' answer, if ya will, to Angela Lansbury's Jessica Fletcher (Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries), and the original voice of Witch Hazel, who often sparred with Bugs Bunny (Hazel, for some reason, was rebooted as Lezah, and recast for the Looney Tunes Show, even though Foray reprised Granny on the same show). She voiced all the female characters in Jay Ward's various productions, and was Cindy Lou Who in How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966). Finding some of her work in front of the camera will be a project. I do have something over at the Archives of an appearance on Johnny Carson's CBS series in the 50's, and I'll bring that over another time.

For now, we're bringing out a GEICO ad from 2014, in which June would voice Rocky one last time....

Rest in peace.