Keith Scott (voice Actor)

Keith Scott (born 29 October 1953) is an Australian voice actor, comedian, impressionist and animation historian.

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 in 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. 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 TV commercials, and was promoted at Sydney clubs as "the Voice of 1000 Commercials".

He also made many appearances on TV shows as a comic impressionist, including ''Hey Hey It's Saturday'' and '' The Midday Show'', and has provided voices for various Australian animations, including Yoram Gross's ''Dot'' feature films, '' Blinky Bill'' (he also sang the original version of the theme song for the first season), ''Tabaluga'', '' Skippy: Adventures in Bushtown'' and '' Flipper and Lopaka''. In the case of Yoram Gross' productions, Scott began working for Gross in 1984 and usually provided all of the male character voices. Across Australia he can be heard on 50 radio stations, skewering the reputations of media and political types in '' How Green Was My Cactus''."Keith Scott-"The Walking Identity Crisis""
Retrieved 2 July 2020.

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 and the rest for countless animated TV commercials, live shows and promotions for Warner Bros. Movie World, Westfield, KFC, etc. Scott had narrated a TV 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. He was also approved by Hanna-Barbera to do the voices of Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear and others.

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 voice of Diesel 10 in ''Thomas and the Magic Railroad'', but was ultimately replaced by Neil Crone after test audiences said that Scott made the character sound too frightening for young children. However, his voice can still be heard in early UK and US trailers of the 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
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Keith (Australia)
1953 births
Living people
20th-century Australian comedians
20th-century Australian male actors
21st-century Australian comedians
21st-century Australian male actors
Australian impressionists (entertainers)
Australian male video game actors
Australian male voice actors
Blinky Bill
Historians of animation