Keith Scott (voice actor)

Career

At a young age, Scott was always enchanted by the mimics and impressionists on The Ed Sullivan Show. He began developing his ability to impersonate voices at The Forest High School, doing cartoon characters (the first of which being Mr. Jinks) and teacher's voices. In October 1972, just after leaving school, Scott was hired by William Hanna, the head of Hanna-Barbera, which had established a large animation studio in Sydney, Australia. He got the gig when he brought in some letters that he had received from Daws Butler (voice of Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, etc.) in December 1970. Scott worked at the H-B office as a xerographer. Hanna gave him a letter of recommendation when he was retrenched from the H-B office, and his name was such a credible one that it got Scott an instant agent, and his voice-over career began. In 1974, Scott began doing either impersonations or original character voices in many anonymous radio and television commercials, and was promoted at Sydney clubs as "the Voice of 1000 Commercials". He was also approved by Hanna-Barbera to do the voices of Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear and others for Australian commercials, and later live shows at Wonderland Sydney (then known as Australia's Wonderland) for 15 years.

Scott also made many appearances on television shows as a comic impressionist, including Hey Hey It's Saturday and The Midday Show. In 1984, he began working for Yoram Gross Film Studios, usually providing most or all of the male character voices for their various productions, including the Dot feature films, The Magic Riddle, Blinky Bill (he also sang the original version of the theme song for the first season), Tabaluga, Skippy: Adventures in Bushtown and Flipper & Lopaka. In 1986, he starred on the radio program How Green Was My Cactus, alongside his Yoram Gross co-star Robyn Moore, skewering the reputations of media and political figures.

Scott became internationally famous for his expert "matching" of cartoon characters. In July 1990, he was appointed an official licensed voice of Warner Bros' Looney Tunes characters for Australia, following the death of Mel Blanc in 1989, and since then he did Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety, Sylvester the Cat and the rest for countless animated television commercials, live shows and promotions for Warner Bros. Movie World, Westfield, KFC, etc. Scott had narrated a television promotion for The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie in 1983, and met Blanc in May 1985, taping some impersonations for the Triple M network and trading blows with their voice impressions; he did Elmer Fudd and Jack Benny, while Blanc did Bugs and Sy the Mexican.

Scott was a long-time friend of Bill Scott (no relation) and Jay Ward, whom Scott had met in 1973. In 1991, a couple of years after Ward died in 1989, his daughter Tiffany took over Jay Ward Productions and began revitalizing the The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends characters. At that time Scott had made a tape of all the imitations of Bullwinkle J. Moose, Boris Badenov, Dudley Do-Right and a lot of the supporting characters in March of that year. Tiffany got a copy of the tape from June Foray (voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel). Upon hearing the tape, she realized that Scott had studied it for years, so she and Ward's wife Ramona appointed him the official voices in 1992. Scott performed the voice of the narrator in George of the Jungle and George of the Jungle 2, and provided the voices for Bullwinkle, Boris, Fearless Leader, The Narrator and the RBTV Announcer in the 2000 motion picture The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (for which he had been specially flown to the United States several times). He is an expert on the history of Jay Ward Productions, authoring the book The Moose That Roared: The Story of Jay Ward, Bill Scott, a Flying Squirrel, and a Talking Moose, published by St. Martin's Press. Also in 2000, Scott was originally cast as the voices of Gordon The Big Engine and Diesel 10 in Thomas and the Magic Railroad, but was replaced early on with Joe Matheson and John Shrapnel, who were themselves ultimately replaced with Neil Crone in the final film; Scott had also narrated the Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends toy merchandise commercials from Bluebird Toys in Australia in 1998.

Scott has also spent years studying the work of early voice actors, trying to identify performers who originally went uncredited in cartoons, and authoring the 2022 book Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 1-2, published by BearManor Media.

Filmography

Film

Television

Shorts

Video games

Theme park attractions

Commercials

Radio

Discography

Live-action

Awards

Mo Awards

The Australian Entertainment Mo Awards (commonly known informally as the Mo Awards), were annual Australian entertainment industry awards. They recognise achievements in live entertainment in Australia from 1975 to 2016. Keith Scott won three awards in that time.

(wins only)

|-

| 1978

| Keith Scott

| Johnny O'Keefe Encouragement Award

|

|-

| 2010

| Keith Scott

| Comedy Act of the Year

|

|-

| 2011

| Keith Scott

| Comedy Act of the Year

|

|-

References

External links

• Official Home Page