Norma Macmillan
Many female voice artists have found fame due to their association with popular animated characters. Mae Questel, June Foray, Nancy Cartwright, and Jean Vander Pyl lent definitive voices to cartoon characters, but one of the lesser-known talents was Norma Macmillan. Considering the range and renown of the characters she portrayed (both male and female), this Canadian-born actress deserves a shining star in animation history.
Macmillan was born in 1921 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and began her career as a stage actress in local theater. She married Thor Angrim and moved to Toronto with him in 1954, where her career as a voice artist began.
Macmillan’s voiceover efforts started with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1954, performing children’s voices on radio shows. Later that year, she and her husband moved to New York City. Her first animation voicework was for Terrytoons producer Gene Deitch. She voiced the bratty Penelope in the Terrytoons short Old Mother Clobber (1958) and was later the original voice of young Tim in the first of six Luno the White Stallion cartoons. Other voice work included Goodie Gremlin, a character intended to be a new “star” for Paramount.
Macmillan then went into television commercial work until Seymour Knietel of Paramount Studios contacted her, looking for a suitable voice for Casper the Friendly Ghost. As Macmillan recalls:
“They were looking for someone to match up the Casper voice. Now, my understanding was that there was, first of all a boy that did Casper [Alan Shay] and then another lady [Gwen Davies] in the very earliest Caspers. I sounded so much like them that I did the next twenty-six with Bradley Bolke [for] The New Casper Cartoon Show.”
Her “tryout” was the 1959 Casper short Down to Mirth. Macmillan was uncredited in the cartoon, but Knietel never forgot her.
The actor spent 1962-63 as the voice of Koko the Clown’s girlfriend, Kokettte, in the Max Fleischer-Hal Seeger revival of the Out of the Inkwell series. After exactly 100 episodes, the series ended, and Seymour Kneitel beckoned once again. Macmillan returned to Paramount/Famous, where she portrayed Casper in The New Casper Cartoon Show beginning in 1963. Macmillan always claimed that Casper was her favorite acting role. Her 26-episode stint as the kindly spirit was the gateway to a productive voiceover career in the 1960s. and 1970s
Norma took over the vocals for Art Clokey’s surrealistic Gumby series from Dallas McKinnon in the late 1960s before McKinnon returned to finish the series in 1968. She also provided vocals for incidental characters such as Goo. Her second collaboration with Clokey began in 1965 as the voice of Davey Hansen in the iconic TV series Davey and Goliath.
The original voice of Davey, Dick Beals, left the show after a dispute over money, opening the door for Macmillan. Davey and Goliath highlighted Macmillan’s longstanding ability to provide young male voices on radio and television. She is especially convincing when portraying Davey’s moral dilemmas featured in each episode. As she recalled:
“Bradley (Bolke) and I divided all the voices. Bradley did all the voices from middle C and below and I did all high ones.”
Casper, Gumby, and Davey were already impressive credits, but an even more beloved role awaited. While continuing to do TV commercial work in 1964, she was hired by Total Television Productions executive Treadwell “Tread” Covington when he assembled a voice cast for a new animated series, The Underdog Show. Macmillan played the part of news reporter Sweet Polly Purebred, Underdog’s perpetually endangered girlfriend. She was part of a powerhouse voice cast that included Alan Swift and Wally Cox.
Her role included singing Polly’s now-famous plea for rescue:
“Oh where, oh where has my Underdog gone? Oh where, oh where could he be?”
Macmillan played the part of Polly Purebred for the entirety of the series, which ended in 1967. She then turned her career in television to several live-action dramas and comedies, but her part in bringing beloved animated characters to life is her lasting legacy. After hundreds of televion appearances in commecials and guest appaerances in TV shows, Macmillan later returned to Vancouver, where she passed away in 2001, age 79.
Martin Goodman is a veteran writer specializing in stories about animation. He has written for AWN and Animation Scoop – and lives in Anderson, Indiana.
First of all, could we please get her name right? Norma’s surname is variously seen as McMillian, McMillan, MacMillan, and MacMillen. I’ve also seen it spelled with a small M, Macmillan. Which is correct?
Also, Sweet Polly Purebred never sang “Oh where, oh where could he be?” That line is from the original German oom-pah song. Polly’s second line was always “Oh where, oh where has he gone?”
If Sweet Polly was “perpetually endangered”, it was only because of her willingness to put herself in dangerous situations for the sake of getting a story. She was Underdog’s Lois Lane, a tough, independent career woman who could pilot her own plane and would stop at nothing to bring bad guys like Simon Bar Sinister and Riff Raff to justice. Sweet Polly was her own boss: I don’t recall her ever having to answer to any editor, producer, or network executive. As female role models go, one could do a lot worse.
Norma’s Canadian accent is apparent in the closing theme of the Casper show when she sings “Sorry we are that we must go,” rhyming “sorry” with “story”.
Norma’s two children followed her into show business: her son Stefan Arngrim played Barry in “Land of the Giants”, and her daughter Alison was Nellie Oleson in “Little House on the Prairie”.
She died in Vancouver. Her Canadian Press obit spells her name Macmillan. As a former CP stringer, I go with that.
Macmillan, I’m pretty sure, was the original voice of the sprite (or whatever it is) that was the spokes-cartoon for Libby’s Alpha-Getti (“It’s fun to eat!”) but I’d have to hear the TV spots again to be sure.
There appears to be no consistent source for spelling this woman’s name. IMDB and Wikipedia give one spelling, the book “The Magic Behind the Voices” gives another, and as Don Youp notes, it appears that perhaps Macmillan is correct.
I do own up to one typo in this matter in the article.
I also take responsibility for misquoting the “rescue plea”.
I think we can agree that Sweet Polly was constantly in trouble and danger, but how these situations occurred was irrelevant to an article about the voice artist, so none of that was included
Thanks for reading!
Davey and Goliath, in 1965,preceding Gumby’s resurgence in 1967, was a previous,not followup to Norma..also, Shes taking about dividing roles with Brad Bolke for Casper..since you just mentioned it after a Davey and Goliath piece.But another legend,Hal Smith (Jiminy Cricket,Elmer Fudd,many +HB), played deep male roles,Goliath the dog,in D&G>
A bit of trivia I remember – Norma was featured on the JFK comedy album “The First Family” as the child voice of Caroline Kennedy. Among other well known voice actors, Bradley Bolke and Bob McFadden were also part of the cast.
I think one reason Norma isn’t better known is because Polly Purebred is her only famous ORIGINAL voice. Casper and Gumby both had several actors behind them.
Norma Mac Millan also voiced Li’l Rok in the “Mighty Mightor” cartoons for Hanna-Barbera (her only voicing role for H-B?).
She also played a young witch in an episode of the Smurfs.
Norma also voiced a couple of animated segments for “Sesame Street” in the mid-70’s around the time her daughter was in “Little House on the Prairie”.
Here’s a weird one I remember re-airing in the ’90’s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kotLRKkwZh4