You Would Think I Knew This Name

[howeird]

Paul Frees. On IMDB he has more than 260 credits, most of them voice-overs.

I have a poster for the upcoming War of the Worlds in my cube, and our resident Israeli and Chinese IT guys were asking me about the original movie and radio broadcast. So I looked them up. The 1953 movie cast list on IMDB shows Paul Frees as the radio reporter - the narrator and main character in this classic film.

Whenever I see an unfamiliar name in a pivotal role, I click on the person's link to see what ever became of that person. What became of Frees was, among other things:

The voice of Boris Badenov in the Rocky and Bullwinkle TV series
The narrator of the George of the Jungle TV series
Inspector Fenwick and Narrator #1 in The Dudley Do-Right Show
He was one of the writers for the Beany & Cecil TV show
And he wrote, directed and did voices for the 1960 film The Beatniks (the title has nothing to do with the movie's content) which made the MST3K list of "so bad they're good" B movies.

Frees passed away in Tiburon in 1986, 66 years old.