Pinto Colvig

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Pinto Colvig (1892 to 1967) was an American actor, cartoonist, animator and circus and vaudeville performer. He was born Vance DeBar Colvig in Jacksonville, Oregon. He got his nickname at the age of seven, because of his freckles and his pranks. He played clarinet in the band of the Al G. Barnes Circus and drew for newspapers. His act was playing the clarinet while pulling faces, with deliberately wrong notes.

Music and breakthrough

In the 1920s he moved to Hollywood, where he worked as an animator, writer and comedian in silent films and in sound cartoons. In 1930 he signed a contract with Walt Disney Productions, at first as a writer. He also made sound effects, such as Pluto's barking. From 1931 he voiced Goofy, who was then still called Dippy Dawg. He also voiced Practical Pig in Three Little Pigs and both Grumpy and Sleepy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. After a quarrel with Disney he worked elsewhere between 1939 and 1943. For Fleischer he voiced Bluto in the Popeye cartoons and Gabby in Gulliver's Travels. He was also a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz of 1939.

Influence

In 1946 he became Bozo the Clown for Capitol Records, a role he played for ten years, on television too. In that period he recorded the song Filbert the Frog, in which he used the glottal stop as a musical instrument. His last appearance, in 1967, was as Goofy for the Telephone Pavilion at Expo 67. In 1993 he was posthumously named a Disney Legend. Colvig shows how the voice itself can be an instrument in popular culture.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1948Bozo Under the Sea

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• The Dream Factory: Film Reel 7^NL Reader