ANNCR: National Public Radio presents FREBERG/STAMBERG: THE INTERVIEW!

(Intro from "Stan Freberg presents The United States of America, Vol. 1")

ANNCR: Timidity. Quiet understatement. These are just about the only tools you won't find in the comedy toolbox of the master American humorist, Stan Freberg. You may not know the name, but if you've grown up in this country anytime in the last 40 years, his work, either on records or commercials, has touched your life.

Stan Freberg is first and foremost a satirist. He takes dead aim on some of the values and foibles of our society. His first success was the 1951 hit record, "John and Marsha." It offered a less than flattering view of the "content vs. style" question, in the art of TV soap operas...

(Excerpt from "John and Marsha"):
MARSHA: John...
JOHN: Marsha...
MARSHA: John...
JOHN: Marsha...
MARSHA: John?...
JOHN: Umm, Marsha...

ANNCR: Well, you get the idea. And when it came to taking off the Mistletoe-colored glasses and seeing things for what they are, who else but Stan Freberg could identify the true spirit of Christmas?

(Excerpt from "Green Chri$tma$"):

CHORUS:   Deck the halls with advertising,
Fa la la la la la la la la.
'Tis the time for merchandising,
Fa la la la la la la la la.
Profit never needs a reason,
Fa la la la la la la la la.
Get the money, it's the season,
Fa la la la la la la la la.

ANNCR: Freberg's talents landed him what turned out to be the last stand of "big time" network radio comedy. A landmark recording followed in 1961 tackling nothing less than the history of the United States of America. At that time, Stan Freberg left the world of comic recordings, and took his cockeyed comedy into the empire of advertising.
For more than 30 years, the Freberg touch has enlivened that industry with some legendary spots, including "9 out of 10 doctors reccomend Chun King Chow Mein!," and the all-singing, all-dancing Great American Soups spectacular, starring Ann Miller.
Now Stan Freberg is returning to his first love, radio, with a brand-new hour of comedy vignettes that feature many of the talented figuress who first appeared in hi recordings, as well as an all-new, freshly-crafted repertory of hand-crafted sound effects, fashioned according to Freberg's legendary perfectionist standards.
To help launch this gala return to radio, Stan Freberg took time from a mixing session for the show, to talk with NPR's Susan Stamberg.

SUSAN: So, Stan Freberg's back to long-form radio. You call it "a new audio collage" that you have created for National Public Radio, "The New Stan Freberg Show." Would you care to create an ad right now for the new show?

STAN: (laughs) No, it's all I can do to create the show itself without having to worry about the marketing of this, but, I would say that this is the "long form radio," as you suggested. I think that this is an art form that sort of fell off the planet. After I went off the air in 1957, I inadvertently had the dubious honor of, uh, being the last network radio comedian in America, because I replaced Jack Benny, and then when that show went off after about 17 weeks*, there were no more comedy/variety programs eminating from New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. That was it, that was the end, I was the end of the line. I was the snail darter of radio comedians.

SUSAN: (laughs) God bless you, because you did a lot for it. Then it all moved, again with dubious distinction, to television, so you're right. You were the last of the breed.

STAN: Well, I continued to work in, uh, on records, which are really, as far as I'm concerned, little 3-minute radio programs.

SUSAN: We will talk about those, and maybe even play some excerpts later...

STAN: Oh, excellent, wonderful...

SUSAN: ...but I want to start with what to me is your finest moment in sound. This is an ad that you created for radio itself:

PAUL FREES: Radio? Why should I advertise on radio? There's nothing to look at, no pictures...

STAN FREBERG: Look, you can do things on radio you couldn't possibly do on tv.

FREES: That'll be the day.

FREBERG: All right, watch this...ahem, okay people, now when I give you the cue, I want the 700 foot mountain of whipped cream to roll into Lake Michigan, which has been drained and filled with hot chocolate. Then the Royal Canadian Air Force will fly overhead towing a 10-tom maraschino cherry, which will be dropped into the whipped cream to the cheering of 25,000 extras. All right - cut the mountain!
(Appropriate SFX)
Cue the Air Force!
(Appropriate SFX)
Cue the maraschino cherry!
(Appropriate SFX)
Okay, 25,000 Cheering Extras!(Appropriate SFX, which end abruptly)
Now, you want to try that on television?

FREES: Well...

FREBERG: You see, radio is a very special medium, because it stretches the imagination.

FREES: But doesn't television stretch the imagination?

FREBERG: Up to 27 inches, yes.
(Sonic SFX, with end tag by Freberg): Presented by the National Association of Broadcasters.

SUSAN: (Laughs) Vintage Stan Freberg! That great spot!

STAN: Thank you.

SUSAN: Performance satire is really what you're about, isn't it, Stan Freberg?

STAN: "Performance satire," yeah, but the performance of the satire starts with the writing, you know, like Shakespeare said, "The play is the the thing," and the words that come on the paper, you know, "let he who has not sat and stared at a white blank piece of paper, or a white screen on the word processor cast the first stone." This is really tough work, and there's hardly anybody doing it. The best use of satire in America today actually is being done by political cartoonists like Oliphant and Herblock, and Conrad in the L.A. Times, and Jim Borgman of the Cincinatti Enquirer. I'm a great buff and fan of political cartoonists, and there doesn't seem to be a place in radio or television, really, for a topical political satirist, or just forget "political," although we do touch a political base in this show. There just doesn't seem to be anybody doing this work. They did it, and have done it, on "Saturday Night Live," but that's really not "state of the art," you know, I hate to say that.

SUSAN: But there's also a difference, really, between the kind of satire "Saturday Night Live" does and the kind that you're involved in, because, I notice you don't have a nasty edge to you. Let's give people an example of this. Here's something from an album that you made, which was a compilation of a number of radio bits. It came out in 1961, and has just been reissued on CD, called "The United States of America":**
Narrator: As the seeds of turmoil flowered and grew, the hastily assembled American army craved a banner they could call their own. To a certain Philadelphia seamstress came General George Washington one day in the icy winter of 1777.

George Washington: Betsy? You in there, Betsy?

Betsy Ross: Who is it?

George Washington: It’s me, George.

Betsy: Oh, boy. Come on in!…Hey!

George: How’s that?

Betsy: You’re tracking snow all over my early American rug.

George: Oh, yeah. Sorry. Alright, let’s have a look at it

Betsy: Your flag?

George: No, no, my _jacket_!

Betsy: Yeah, but don't you want to see the flag?

George: The flag can wait! I've got a man outside from Esquire.

Betsy: All right...you want to slip it on?

George: Please.

Betsy: Okay, here we go...take a look in the mirror there.

George: Heh-heh...is that a darling blazer? Hm?

Betsy: Yeah...darling.

George: Is it me?

Betsy: It's you. Now how 'bout we check over the flag...

George: Wait a minute. You think the lace on the cuffs is too much? Huh?

Betsy: No, it's fine...

George: You really like it...

Betsy: I adore it. Now about the...

George: I wonder if I should have had the silk brocade instead of the lace...

Betsy: Lace, brocade...

George: Say, these antique military buttons worked out real nice...

Betsy: Well, I'm glad -

George:...or should I have taken the mother-of-pearl?

Betsy: We've been all _through_ this, George! You wouldn't want the mother-of-pearl. Once you had 'em on, you'd hate 'em.

George: Yeah, but on the other hand...

Betsy: (Exasperated) LOOK! I made you a spiffy little blazer there! You got the lace on the cuffs and the antique military buttons and the gold epilets, and the emblem on the pocket...

George: All right...

Betsy: Now WHY DON'T YOU LOOK AT THE FLAG, HUH???

George: All right, all right!

Betsy : Just a minute. Let me bite the thread off here.

George: Well, snap it up. Spread it out on your lap there and we’ll…heh, heh. You, uh, having a little fun at your country’s expense, here?

Betsy: How’s that?

George: Are you kidding with these colors? Red, white and blue?

Betsy: Well, those are the only remnants I had around the…

George: Wait a minute! Stars? I deliberately said polka-dots.

Betsy: Huh?

George: Stars with stripes? How does that work together, design-wise?

Betsy: Alright, you want to be the big man and put on the thimble, huh?

George: No, it’s just…

Betsy: Then how’s about you let me run the flag department and you run the army like a nice father of our country, okay?

George: I know, but-

("Everybody Wants To Be An Art Director")
1989 extended version

George:
Look at the colors you chose
The best you could do I suppose
A peppermint stripe with royal blue
The same as the British colors too
Now how will we tell whose side is who?
Look at the colors you chose
Why couldn't it have been puce
Lavender over chartreuse
Or possibly some exotic shade
A delicate orange, mauve, or jade
Instead of the choice that has been made
Why couldn't it have been possibly cinnamon?
Betsy:
Everybody wants to be an art director
Everybody wants to call the shots
George:
Yeah, well...
Betsy:
Everybody wants to be a flag dissector
Changing all my stars to polka dots
Everybody thinks that they're the final word
On what is strictly out and what is in
Howdja like a banner made of pea-green spots
On simulated leopard skin?
Or possibly a flag that features fleur-de-lis
On ochre corrugated tin!

George: I’d like it. How soon can you make one up?

Betsy: Come on, there’s your flag. Take it or leave it.

George: Alright. Say, what’s this little ticket here that just fell out, “Inspected by Number 28?”

Betsy: That’s me.

George: Oh, yeah.

Betsy: You want it on a hanger?

George: No, I’ll just run it up the flagpole, see if anybody salutes.

Betsy: Okay.

George: I guess it’s better than “Don’t Tread on Me.”

Betsy: Certainly. Besides, a hundred years from now, what the heck difference will it make?

George: I guess you’re right. (goes out the door) Come on, men!

(Music out)

SUSAN: I love that! He wanted polka dots! (laughs)

STAN: Yeah, but also, the idea that he really came by to check out the fit of his blazer, you know, first things first...

SUSAN: Right...

STAN: ...and then the flag.

SUSAN: But you know, the point there is, it's a kind of satire we were talking about, the sort of humor they do, for instance, on "Saturday Night Live," or other things that these days pass for humor, Andrew Dice Clay, some of the others. Yours has a very gentle edge to it.

STAN: Well, yeah, it's, it was not mean-spirited, let's say. And so much of "Saturday Night Live," a lot of it was mean-spirited, let's face it. A lot of the stand-up stuff I see today is really cruel stuff against women, against minorities, and I just don't understand Andrew Dice Clay. I don't understand how the man could actually, uh, get work and not be assassinated or something. It's just - in other words, why hit little people? I've always tried to go after the giants, you know, there's so many giants that you can make fun of and attack, and those are the people that really need to be satirized, and nobody can ever find something where I was guilty of the kind of thing that I'm saying that I abhor now.

SUSAN: Yeah. You, you very much, I think, see satire as a tool, a kind of gentle weapon...

STAN: It is...

SUSAN: ...to change or improve society. I saw some liner notes that you did for one of your albums, and you wrote, "A satirist is inherently a critic who seeks to improve society by pointing up its affecttaions and absurdities through the use of humor. The chief weapon is exaggeration."

STAN: Yeah.

SUSAN: Satire, you say, is healthy.

STAN: Yeah, it is. Oh, absolutely. See, one of the great things about humor itself and satire, and satire doesn't really work without the element of humor. I mean I don't want to go into an essay on the subject now, but the thing is, without the element of humor, satire is just preachment; a guy getting up in the park and yelling, you know. Humor has this great quality. It serves the same purpose in satire, especially, as the little steam valve on a pressure cooker. If the little steam valve was not there, the pressure cooker would blow up. And since we're living in such an over-pressurized society and these are, especially the things that have happened in Russia and Eastern Europe now, humor is a great stabilizing force.

SUSAN: Um-hmm. I want to talk about radio, my favorite medium and obviously yours...

STAN: Of course.

SUSAN: ...because I know you began your career as a radio actor, and what is the story about that uncle of yours who worked at CBS and used to filch something for you?

STAN: Yes, well, my uncle was a guard. This was during World War II in the beginning of the war, right after Pearl Harbor; everybody was terrified that the Japanese would send in, you know, a lot of espionage people to just quietly work from the inside and take over radio stations. So they had an all-night guard in the Master Control there at CBS, so that was him, and he was a very nervous guy. He was the last guy in the world - it'd be sort of like hiring Woody Allen as a security man, you know...

SUSAN: (Laughs.)

STAN: ...and, he had to make several rounds during the night. He had to make sure there were no Oriental people hiding in the shrubbery outside, and then he would come inside, bolt all the doors again, and then walk through the studios, trying all the doors, and as he passed the wastebaskets of "The Jack Benny Show," or something, why, he would reach in and dig out a script, and he brought these home to me, and it was like heaven, I mean, oh my God, you know, and I would go out in the garage and go through all these voices. I'd do the whole Jack Benny show. Fred Allen and Jack Benny were my two main idols, along with Norman Corwin, the dramatic genius...

SUSAN: Um-hmm...

STAN: ...and Fred Allen had a wonderful thing that he said. He said (mimicing Allen) "You can put all the sincerity of Hollywood into a flea's navel, and still have room left over for two caraway seeds and an agent's heart."

SUSAN: (Laughs!)

STAN: And then I would go (mimicing Benny), "Dennis! Just a moment! Phil! Mary!..." You know, I would do this for my rabbits and guinea pigs in the garage. I would perform this whole thing until my mother finally called me to dinner. There was no applause in my, from my audience in the garage, just the quiet munching of lettuce leaves.

SUSAN: (Still laughing)

STAN: But that was my first audience.

SUSAN: You were a little kid, but you got bitten, didn't you?

STAN: Yeah (laughing), I did! I got bitten, and then it was, what a thrill later on, of course, when I actually worked on the Jack Benny show, and later on when CBS said to me, "Well, we've decided that you're gonna replace Jack Benny." By that time I was on Capitol records and had made "St. George and the Dragonet" and "The Banana Boat Song" and a few things so that I was already an established comedian on records, and it was just the greatest time of my life. And one night I looked out and saw Groucho Marx sitting there in the third row, with his beret, smiling up at me. God, what a wonderful feeling!

SUSAN: Aw, gee, yeah. I think we'd better talk about "St. George and the Dragonet" now. Can you help us set it up? It was 1953, and it was a spoof on what was the leading black-and white -- in those days -- television show in the country.

STAN: Yes, Well, it occured to me that Webb had a very stylized, stilted way of talking...

SUSAN: This is Jack Webb...

STAN: ...always this flat, flat "Um-hm, um-hm, um-hm, okay Frank...", you know, and the music of course is this...so I though, "What would happen if we placed the 'Dragnet' format back in the middle ages, in the midieval times, and if we had, like, 'St. George and the Dragon' would now become' St. George and the Dragonet.' Fortunately, Webb had a great sense of humor. I went to him on the set and talked to him, and he said, "Look, I'm a fan, so I trust you. Whatever you want to do," and he said, "What are you going to do about the music?" And I said, "Well, I thought maybe we'd write something close to the 'Dragnet' theme." He said, "Well, what do you want to do that for? Why don't you use the actual 'Dragnet' theme? As a matter of fact, I'll loan you the whole orchestra, Walter Schumann conducting!" And that's what we did, Walter Schumann and the Dragnet orchestra that played it every week came into the studio and played along with Daws Butler and myself and June Foray on this, on "St. George and the Dragonet."***

(Music: DRAGNET Theme)

Narrator: The legend you are about to hear is true. Only the needle should be changed to protect the record.

(Music)

St. George: This is the countryside. My name is St. George, I'm a knight. Saturday, July 10th, 8:05 p.m. I was working out at the castle out on the night watch when a call came in from the chief: A dragon had been devouring maidens. Homicide. My job: Slay 'em.

(Music)(SFX: Door opens)

St. George: You call me, chief? 

Chief: Yeah, it's the dragon again, devouring maidens. The king's daughter may be next. 

St. George: Mmmhmm...You got a lead? 

Chief: Nah, nothing much to go on. Say did you take that 45 automatic into the lab to have them check on it? 

St. George: Yeah, you were right. 

Chief: I was right? 

St. George: Yeah, it was a gun.

(Music sting)

St. George: 8:22 p.m. I talked to one of the maidens who had almost been devoured.

(SFX: knock knock knock [door opens])

St. George: Could I talk to you, Ma'am? 

Maiden: Who are you? 

St. George: I'm St. George, ma'am. Homicide, ma'am. I want to ask you a few questions, ma'am. I understand you were almost devoured by the ma'am, is that right, dragon? 

Maiden: It was terrible, he breathed fire on me, he burned me already! 

St. George: How can I be sure of that, ma'am?

Maiden: Believe me, I got it straight from the dragon's mouth!

(Music)

St. George: 11:45 p.m. I rode over to the king's highway, I saw a man, I stopped to talk to him.
Pardon me sir, could I talk to you for just a minute sir? 

Knave: Sure I don't mind. 

St. George: What do you do for a living?

Knave: I'm a knave. 

St. George: Didn't I pick you up on a 903 last year for stealing tarts? 

Knave: Yeah, so what do you want make a federal case out of it? 

St. George: No sir. We heard there was a dragon operating in this neighborhood. We just wanted to know if you'd seen him. 

Knave: Sure, I seen him. 

St. George: Mmhmm, could you describe him for me? 

Knave: What's to describe, you see one dragon you've seen 'em all! 

St. George: Would you try and remember, sir, just for the record. We just want to get the facts sir. 

Knave: Well, he was, you know, he had orange polkadots... 

St. George: Yes sir... 

Knave: ...purple feet, breathing fire and smoke... 

St. George: mmmhmm... 

Knave: ...and one big bloodshot eye, right in the middle of his forehead, and uh, like that. 

St. George: Notice anything unusual about him? 

Knave: No, he's just a run of the mill dragon, you know. 

St. George: Mmhmm, yes sir, you can go now. 

Knave: Hey, by the way, how you gonna catch him? 

St. George: I thought you'd never ask. A dragon-net.

(Music sting)

St. George: 3:05 p.m. I was riding back in to the courtyard to make my report to the lab, then it happened.

(Music)

*Roar!* 

St. George: It was the dragon. 

Dragon: Hey, I'm da fire breathin' dragon, you must be St. George right?! 

St. George: Yes sir. 

Dragon: I see you got one of those new 45 caliber swords! 

St. George: That's about the size of it.

Dragon: Wuhaaahahayayahaaaagh, you slay me! 

St. George: That's what I wanted to talk to you about. 

Dragon: What do you mean? 

St. George: I'm taking you in on a 502, you figure it out. 

Dragon: What's the charge? 

St. George: Devouring maidens out of season.

Dragon: OUT OF SEASON! YOU'LL NEVER PIN THAT RAP ON ME, DO YOU HEAR ME, COP??? 

St. George: Yeah. I hear ya. I got you on a 412, too. 

Dragon: A "412"? WHAT'S A "412"?!?! 

St. George: Overacting. Let's go.

(Music)

Narrator: On September the 5th the dragon was tried and convicted. His fire was put out and his maiden devouring license revoked. Maiden devouring out of season is punishable by a term of not less than 50 or more than 300 years.

(Music: DRAGNET theme up and out.)

STAN: One of the curious things about this record, and I never would have thought that this was possible, by the time I got to Australia on a tour, this record was already like #1 in Australia, and so far they had never seen the "Dragnet" show. So, here was the thing where they took the humor, and accepted it on the basis of, uh, just a funny record without realizing what the target of the satire was...

SUSAN: Isn't that incredible?

STAN: Yeah, and you know, I got tired of explainging that it was a satire on an American show, so I gave up and (said), "Oh, it's just the first thing that popped into my head, you know." Then I come back with Frank Sinatra, about two years later, and by that time television was a big thing in Australia, and they were now getting the "Dragnet" show every week, and a reporter from the Melbourne Sun rushed up to me at the airport and said, "Mr. Freberg! Mr. Freberg! Some bloke has gone and built a whole television show around your record!"

SUSAN: (Laughs!) So you see, life imitated art imitated life! (Laughs!)

STAN: Yeah, that's right, so...but I would have always said, if I was teaching, you know, humor or comedy, satire, writing, whatever, I would have said, "No, no, it's very important that people understand the thing that you are parodying," see, but apparently not.

SUSAN: Let's talk about Stan Freberg, Ad Man, 'cause that's been a big part of your life as well. You have been called...

STAN: Well, that's what I did in between the time I said that the art form of the "long-form radio show" dropped off the planet...

SUSAN: ...right...

STAN: ...until right now.

SUSAN: You have been called a lot of things. You've been called "The Father of Modern Advertising," but you have also been called by the New York Times "the Che Guevara of advertising." Which of those two do you prefer?

STAN: Oh, gee, I don't know, I think...(laughs)

SUSAN: You know, this is a link to your work as a satirist. You went into this partly to pay the bills, and partly because you were an outraged consumer and you deeply belive in "truth in advertising."

STAN: Yeah, that's right. I _hated_, literally hated, and I still hate most of the advertising being foisted upon me and everybody else. It's such an insult to my intelligence, and everybody else's, and I thought for years, there must be an easier way to communicate with the consumer. And since I was the consumer that I knew best, I used myself as a role model. I thought that if I think this commercial is funny or entertaining or whatever, and people will not zap it away, then perhaps other people will also enjoy it, and that's the way it worked out.

SUSAN: Why don't you describe your Sunsweet Prune campaign?

STAN: Okay. Well, that's a classic example of the way I think advertising should be approached, and also, just coincidentally, it's the most successful campaign I ever did. Sales went up 400% after this one commercial that I did. People do not like prunes, you know, and it's not one of America's most beloved fruits, you know...

SUSAN: (Laughs)

STAN: ...and I pointed this out to the Sunsweet Growers and they all put their heads down on the conference table. So there's a man sitting there and he says, "I'll warn you in advance I'm not going to like your prune." And they wanted me to say, "I'm not going to like your prune very much," and I said, "No, I will not add 'very much' in there."
"I'm not going to like your prune."
I say, "And why is that?"
He says, "Because I don't like prunes. For one thing, they're wrinkled, and I hate wrinkled fruit."
"You do?"
"Yes. I can't stand wrinkled fruit. Then there's the matter of the pits. Disgusting. What do you do with a prune pit once it's in your mouth? No way of getting rid of a prune pit gracefully." So now I bring in this Sunsweet Pitted Prune. He puts it in his mouth and says, "No pits."
I say, "No pits."
He says, "How do they do that?"
I say, "They do it." So I say, "Well, what about it?"
He says, "Well, they're very sweet and moist."
I say, "Yeah. Have we managaed to change your mind with our brand-new pitted prune?"
He says, "Possibly. They're still rather badly wrinkled, you know."
Then this huge type thunders onto the screen: "TODAY THE PITS - TOMORROW THE WRINKLES - SUNSWEET MARCHES ON!"

SUSAN: (Laughs)

STAN: This was so anti-advertising; it was sort of "non-advertising," these people HATED it, they hated it at the Sunsweet Company.

SUSAN: But that's the whole point of this, tell the truth. Okay, yep, it's got wrinkles, yep, it's got pits. Address it!

STAN: The thing that really makes it work is its honesty. It, and I have referred to this in speeches I've given around the country to advertising people and other people at IBM and other companies, I say, "This is called 'More honesty than the client had in mind.'" And it's true. But that's what made it work. You cannot foist something off that's dishonest. They'll see through that, are you kidding? A six-year-old child can see through stuff that's dishonest on television.

SUSAN: But you know, I must point out to you, and don't be mad, that you have spent much of your professional lifesending up Madison Avenue, but you've also been part of the problem, haven't you?

STAN: Well, no, not particularly. I don't consider myself part of the main problem. I consider myself like a gadfly in the very peripheral edge of advertising, continually trying to remind people about what it's all about. I did not go to the Harvard Business School, you know, and the kind of stuff that I've suggested over the years that people do, is exactly opposite to what they teach at Harvard and other business schools across America. You know, I once got Henry Kaiser's foil into 43,000 new outlets, and, uh, before I did that, the man at Y&R told me, "This can't work because advertising cannot force distribution." That's one of the...he said, "Did you go to the school?"
I said, "What school?"
He said, "Did you go to Harvard? That Harvard Business School?"
I said, "No."
He said, "Well. You should know, then, that's one of the first things they teach, that advertising can't force distribution!"
Now, after I got Kaiser Foil into 43,000 new outlets, I say to this man from Y&R, who later became Chairman of the Board at Y&R...

SUSAN: This is Young & Rubican, by the way...

STAN: Young & Rubican, and they've had some very, you know, talented and creative people over the year(s), but this man was not one of them. He said to me, he kept saying, "Advertising can't force distribution." So when I pointed out the success of this campaign, I said, "I thought you said advertising can't force distribution." And he said to me, "It can't. Something must have gone wrong!"

SUSAN: (Laughs!!!)

STAN: Now that's all you need to know. So, anyhow...

SUSAN: Anyhow, Stan Freberg, thank you for devoting such a wonderful, rollicking professional life to this medium of ours, radio, and thanks for doing it yet again with this new program of yours, "The New Stan Freberg Show!" It's been a pleasure to talk with you.

STAN: Thank you, Susan, it's been great being here.

ANNCR: "Freberg/Stamberg: The Interview!" was produced by Andy Trudeau and Rolando Arietta, and featured NPR's Susan Stamberg in conversation with American humorist Stan Freberg. Thanks to Marybeth Kirchner and member station WETA-FM, Murray Horowitz, audi engineer Ed Green, and Evergreen Studios in Los Angeles. I'm Martin Goldsmith.
Support for this program is provided by this and other National Public Radio member stations, and by The NPR Cultural Program Fund. Contributors include The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Bell Atlantic Charitable Foundation.
Freberg's freshly-created radio program, "The New Stan Freberg Show!" can be heard on many of these NPR stations.
This is NPR, National Public Radio.

The nitpicking footnotes:
*-Actually, it was 15 weeks.

**-Not really, Susan. "SFPTUSA" was an original work for records, not a collection of stuff from the radio show.

***-For those who care, the cast of "St. George & The Dragonet" was Stan as St. George, June Foray as The Maiden, Hy Averback as the Dragonet Announcer (he also performed the same duty on the flip side, "Little Blue Riding Hood"), and Daws Butler as The Chief, The Knave and The Dragon.

©1991, National Public Radio.

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