Friday, January 23, 2009

Barbershop Bear

A few weeks ago, I came across a bunch of songs on iTunes by a group that I didn't even know existed before then: The Mellomen with Thurl Ravenscroft. Are you kidding me? How did I allow myself to waste so many years of my life not listening to or even knowing about these guys? If you think you don't like barbershop music, you're crazy and wrong. It's the coolest! Especially if it's 1942.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Thurl Ravenscroft, which is most likely all of you, he was the voice of Tony the Tiger who also sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" in the Chuck Jones holiday classic. And if you've been on the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland or Disney World, you may recognize him as the face and voice of the broken bust that sings "Grim Grinning Ghosts."

I wanted to post a drawing on here of a whole quartet of barbershop-singing animals (which, from what I understand, would have to include exactly four different singers), but weeks have passed, and I still haven't drawn them. I'm posting this abandoned sketch in the hope that it will breathe a bit of life back into my dead blog, and hopefully I'll draw and post more stuff soon. For now I just thought you should know that there's one more person on the planet who listens to The Mellomen during his daily commute... bringing the total of that group to "one."