There was no mistaking the sound of Scatman Crothers’ (1910-1986) distinctive voice, as low and throaty as it could be sweet and sharp. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, he started his show business career at age 15, playing drums and guitar at age 15 in mob-ridden speakeasy clubs in the 1920s and ‘30s (among the patrons was Al Capone).
Soon, he formed his own band, and life on the road was rigorous and often dangerous, as they were not always welcome in the towns where they entertained on stage. Frequently, Scatman had to scrape up enough money for his musicians to eat, cooking in his rented room instead of eating in a restaurant.
Helen Crothers, his wife of 49 years and co-author (with James Haskins) of Scatman: An Authorized Biography settled in Los Angeles with her husband, but funds were always tight, despite a demanding touring schedule that eventually led him to the Apollo in New York. He broke into films in the early fifties. One of his first was Meet Me at the Fair, a Dan Dailey musical in which he was at the top of the supporting cast credits.
Among Scatman’s highest profile projects were Sanford and Son, The Shining, and Twilight Zone: The Movie (in the “Kick the Can” remake), and a recurring role on Chico and the Man. He recorded several discs for Capitol. His many compositions include “Dearest One”. For the budget label Tops, he recorded the LP, I Wanna Rock ‘n Roll, a copy of which was in the collection of a young Steve Martin.
In 1952, Crothers appeared in a musical theatrical short called The Return of Gilbert and Sullivan. He teamed with dancer Marie Bryant for a jazz version of “When the Foeman Bares His Steel” from The Pirates of Penzance.
Hanna-Barbera, the first U.S. animation studio to cast an African American for a starring voice role in prime time (Sammy Davis, Jr. as the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, or What’s a Nice Kid Doing in a Place Like This?), selected Scatman Crothers as the first African-American male ensemble lead voice role as Meadowlark Lemon in Hanna-Barbera’s The Harlem Globetrotters (1971), and for the first solo role in 1974 with Hong Kong Phooey. Crothers scored an impressive H-B debut in 1966, when he voiced the Chesire Cat for the record album version of the Alice TV special. He recorded two versions, one for the LP and another for the single release, which uses the Marty Paich arrangements heard in the TV special. Both he and Davis are likely to be the first African-American actors to portray the Cheshire Cat in any filmed adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.
The Alice album initiated a long-running association with Hanna and Barbera, who cast him in the cartoon series mentioned above, hits like Smurfs, Scooby-Doo, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera umbrella series, and curious projects like Joke Book and Rock Odyssey.
Coincidentally, one of Crothers’ best friends was Jack Nicholson, with whom he appeared in four films (The Shining, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The King of Marvin Gardens, and The Fortune). When Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were working at the MGM Animation Studio, Nicholson was a young aspiring actor who wheeled in the coffee break cart. Surely Bill, Joe, and Scatman had great stories to share.
When ill health made it impossible for Louis Armstrong to voice the leader of the jazz cats for Disney’s The Aristocats (1970), Scatman Crothers stepped in, and the character was dubbed “Scat Cat.” During the vinyl era, it was not possible for Disneyland Records to release an Aristocats soundtrack album in the U.S. (the CD soundtrack came decades later, more about this in another Animation Spin). Instead, two studio versions were produced, one with Phil Harris singing “Ev’rybody Wants to Be a Cat” for LPs, and another featuring Crothers on a Buena Vista single. Nine years later, he voiced a similar role in the Don Bluth featurette, Banjo and the Woodpile Cat.
Growing up in the sixties, I became a lifelong fan of Scatman Crothers and his take on the Cheshire Cat. Two of my favorite records to this day are Hanna-Barbera’s The New Alice in Wonderland studio cast album and Disneyland’s Camarata/Darlene Gillespie version of Alice. The H-B and Disney animated Alice films were hard to access during this period (and it would be years before I owned the RCA record with another Top Cheshire Cat, Sterling Holloway). Scatman was my top-of-mind Cheshire Cat, and it was fantastic to see him earn wider recognition as his voice acting and onscreen career blossomed in the seventies and eighties.
One of my most gratifying experiences at Disney was a role in the original, pre-construction theming of the Walt Disney World hotel, Disney’s Port Orleans Resort on the French Quarter side. (It is detailed in this article.)
With my wife Suzanne’s help, as she grew up in New Orleans, I provided names (nomenclature) and backstories for various locations throughout the resort, including an Aristocats storyline. One of the concepts was Scat Cat’s Club, an affectionate nod to a wonderful character.
Scat Cat’s Club in Port Orleans
In 2024, Disney Cruise Line launched the ship Disney Treasure. Among its amenities is Scat Cat’s Lounge, with an even more elaborate Aristocats design. Cool!
“Scat Cats Lounge” on the Disney Treasure
“What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?”
Much as I love Sammy Davis Jr.’s version, Scatman’s performance of the song for the HBR cast album is a special part of my life, and perhaps to many of you as well.
[NOTE: Christopher Lehman will expertly detail the Ralph Bakshi animated feature that included Crothers in the cast – Monday, here on Cartoon Research.]
GREG EHRBAR is an author, presenter, and recent guest host on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). His latest book is Hanna-Barbera: The Recorded History. Greg creates content for such studios as Disney, Warner, and Universal, hosts the POP Culture Classics and the Funtastic World of Hanna & Barbera podcasts, and teaches at universities nationwide. Visit 
I thoroughly enjoy Scatman Crothers and his many voice over bits and pieces. However, I am certain that in “the wild man of Wildsville“, a little known comedian who called himself Lord Buckley did the voice. You can look up Lord Buckley‘s work online and I’m sure there are very rare audio pieces of that. Unfortunately, his album does not exist in any physical format that I know of. I used to hear Lord Buckley on the radio almost every holiday season when they aired his “Christmas Carol“ interpretation in hip lingo!
Scatman Crothers actually made his film debut in the 1951 musical revue “Yes Sir, Mr. Bones”. A young boy wanders into a home for retired minstrel show performers who recreate the old-time showboat experience for him. Scatman (his surname is misspelled “Carothers” in the credits) does a comedy routine with veteran vaudeville entertainer F. E. Miller; fans of Van Beuren cartoons will remember Miller as half of the comedy team Miller and Lyles, who lent their voices to the 1932 Tom and Jerry cartoon “Plane Dumb”. In the show’s final skit, a courtroom scene, Scatman dons a judicial robe and wig and sings a jazzy number recounting the exploits of “Memphis Bill”, the defendant in the trial. But he doesn’t scat!
I’d like some clarification about the Beany and Cecil cartoon “Wildman of Wildsville”. Some sources credit beatnik comedian Lord Buckley as the voice of Go Man Van Gogh, with Scatman Crothers replacing him in subsequent appearances of the character; other sources aver that it was the other way around (unlikely, as Buckley died in 1960). The Internet Movie Database confusingly credits both men for that cartoon, but not for any other. I’m not aware of any appearances by Go Man Van Gogh in any episodes other than “Wildman of Wildsville”. Does anyone have any solid information that can verify the animation debut of Scatman Crothers?
Kevin and Paul — thanks for the comments, as a portrait of an artist with such a legacy as Scatman Crothers should be as accurate as possible based on the resources at hand. It is easy to mistake Tim Buckley for Scatman in The Wildman of Wildsville. Unless, for some strange reason, Scatman did some fill-in pick-ups, it seems to be Buckley, who was Italian-Irish.
That means, again, based on as much research as I have been able to gather (and there is always more to learn), Sammy Davis, Jr. and Scatman Crothers seem to be the first in their respective first animation performances as African Americans. I hope the rewrite clarifies it accurately.
I agree that Scatman’s legacy is impressive enough that it doesn’t need gilding. However, I’m afraid you’ve confused beatnik comedian Lord Buckley with the Irish-Italian-American folk singer Tim Buckley (no relation), who was only fifteen in 1962 and therefore wouldn’t have been in the Beany and Cecil show. Lord Buckley’s first name was Richard, and his background was British.
No gilding here, just well-deserved recognition. The opposite is too easy to find elsewhere.
Whatever Buckley it was, it’s the one in Beany and Cecil.
In the reshuffling of voice talent that occurred between the original soundtrack of the “Alice in Wonderland” TV special and “The New Alice in Wonderland” record album, some remarkable alterations took place. While an album lifted directly from the soundtrack would have been effective and satisfying, there are ways in which the rerecording that was done for the album strikes fresh chords and redefines the characters. Scatman Crothers is a good case in point.
Instead of simply “filling in,” Crothers makes the character of the Cheshire Cat his own in a manner reminiscent of Robin Williams’ later take on the Genie for Aladdin. He intersperses the song with witty commentary, and delivers the lines, both the spoken and sung lines, in his unique style. His “jive talk” amused and intrigued me as a child in the second grade. This wasn’t a manner of speaking and vocalizing that I’d heard anywhere else. Perhaps the most important feature of Scatman’s characterization is that he doesn’t “talk down” to youngsters but presents like a singer in an adult nightclub. He never defines or explains his gags, just lets them fall on comprehending or non-comprehending ears, for kids either to figure out on their own or have it explained by savvy grownups. Overall, the HBR records were skewed toward a level of sophistication rarely achieved by their chief competitor Disneyland Records, and Scatman’s Cheshire Cat interpretation is a prime example.
Having voiced one cat, it probably seemed inevitable that he would voice another, and his Scat Cat voice for the Aristocats seems to build upon his Cheshire Cat impersonation. The scene where Scat Cat is toying with Roquefort the mouse, voiced by Sterling Holloway, is a tour-de-force of vocal tension. Also, the rapport between Scatman and Phil Harris makes their collaborative work a rich listening experience.
By the time “Hong Kong Phooey” came around, I was well familiar with Scatman’s voice and delivery style, and he was definitely one of the elements that made the cartoon work, especially with similar plots and even the same animation being recycled over and over.
It isn’t every pop artist who can build a career in cartoon voices, but Scatman definitely had the ability to create endearing, long-lasting impressions of the characters he vocalized.
More animation work he did – something like the starring role in Bakshi’s Coonskin. I don’t know if you would’ve called him the star. Narrator, anyway.
Please Read the note at the end of the article.
Yeah. I noticed that after I hit post. Sorry about that. Must’ve been excitement to have anything to add about the great Scatman.
Oh, that’s okay, just wanted you to know that it is going to be well-covered. And how often am I guilty of pressing “enter” too fast and suddenly buying aluminum siding! 🙂
Scatman was such a cool dude. I love that voice!
For the Aristocats soundtrack, did Crothers and Harris actually record together? Wondering because I understand Harris and Louis Prima were recorded separately (as many voices were) for their back-and-forth scatting in Jungle Book.
Almost always, Disney features and most other features recorded the primary cast separately. Mary Costa was recorded several times over several years, as changes were made. Perhaps some of the radio-experienced voice actors recorded together, but it was and is still not common in features. Bill Crystal and John Goodman insisted on recording together for Monsters, Inc.
Hanna-Barbera was primarily a TV animation company, so when they recorded their TV cartoons, records, and features, they were almost always done with everyone in the room. The voice actors I have had on the HB podcast have repeatedly confirmed this process. Even Charlotte’s Web and Heidi’s Song were done all at once.
The most common exceptions with HB were celebrities like Tony Curtis, Lorne Greene and Sammy Davis, Jr. Charles Nelson Reilly did most of the Frankenstone episodes with the whole cast except when he was directing a play. So it goes like that.
So it is very unlikely that Scatman, Phil Harris, Sterling Holloway, or Eva Gabor did their Aristocats dialogue together.
Phil Harris and Scatman Crothers on the NBC-TV salute to The Wonderful World of Disney, 1978
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VBW7i4cHy0
Scatman and Mel Blanc did rare work together, like the 1966 Alice record starring Janet Waldo as Alice..and on 1981’s TROLLKINS! Happy birthday Scatman..I am sure that if Larry Storch wasn’t around., WB-7 Arts would have had Scatman as Cool Cat..like, cuttin;’ out now!
I believe Scatman voiced The Wildman for some spots for Benny and Cecil like some bumpers. The first DVD releases had some recordings of that I think of him as the Wildman and including some outtakes during the credits for the DVD. I also believed he also did a dog imitating Go Man Van Go in the final cartoon, “DJ the DJ”.
Such a distinct, warm voice. Scatman leaves quite the legacy and provided memories for generations. So much here about him that I never knew. A wonderful tribute to a wonderful artist! Thank you, Greg!
So much about Scatman’s work I didn’t know. I grew up in the 70s hearing his voice, and reading these tidbits makes the memories all the more enjoyable.
I caught Scatman on an old Sanford & Son episode (or something similar) and he jammed like crazy on a really cool jazz/RNB tune. I only knew of his acting and cartoon voices…had no idea he was also a fun time musician!