Lunch with June Foray

After the Warner Brothers studio closed, Chuck and June continued working together in films like Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, The White Seal, The Cricket in Times Square and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. "I did everything Chuck did . . . We loved each other as good friends. He was a wonderful person and I guess he respected me, what I did, because I never auditioned for him. He just called me, because he knew I could do it. I miss him."

Of course, it was in 1959 that June began working with Jay Ward in the "Rocky and Bullwinkle" series as the voices of Rocky, Natasha and others -- including the Brooklyn princess, June's own invention and one of Jay's favorite voices. June said that originally, Jay wanted "Rocky and Bullwinkle" to be the first primetime adult cartoon show, which would have predated "The Flintstones" by a year. "It could have been, but the networks didn't do it. But [Jay] was very strict. He wouldn't allow the networks to tell him what to be or what to say. When we first started with ABC, they would have a representative from the network in the control room. And he'd say, 'you can't say that,' and Jay would say, 'do you want it tomorrow or next week? I can have it tomorrow.' And [the network rep] would say, 'forget about it.' They never came back."

If you watch "Rocky and Bullwinkle," you can feel the friendship and good humor shared by the cast at recording sessions. I always wondered how they maintained that. "We'd come in, tell jokes, and finally Jay'd say, ok, let's take it, let's record. The sessions were about two hours. We did five segments each night – five Rocky and Bullwinkles, or five Fractured Fairytales, or five Dudley Do-Rights. Most of the time was just joking around, and recording was just incidental."