In the pre-VHS and pre-Internet days, if you liked a song, you went to a store and bought it. Simple.
Except not every song made it to vinyl (or shellac). This seemed to be especially true of music used in cartoons. An example, above (and in soundtrack mp3 form below) is "Food Around the Corner," an ultra-catchy number sung by a hillbilly flea. The flea was played by one of the more obscure names in the world of novelty vocals, Sara Berner. Most who care about such things know who June Foray is. Sara? Not so much. One problem was contractual: aside from Mel Blanc, almost NOBODY got a voice credit for a Warner Bros. cartoon. She was not credited whether she was a flea or a buzzad (she was Mama Buzzard in some cartoons in which she groused at her dopey bashful son, who said little beyond "Oh, nope nope nope...") Sara supplied all the female voices for the Warner Bros. classic "Hollywood Steps Out," including Greta Garbo, Ann Sheridan and Dorothy Lamour.
You can hear Sara Berner on a few singles known to Demento-types, but usually she's the co-star. She's with Dave Barry on "Out Of This World With Flying Saucers" and with Paul Frees on the Spike Jones classic "Too Young." She did get to solo for a Spike Jones parody of Patti Page's "Tennessee Waltz." Mostly she's on the soundtrack of some cult-favorite cartoons, from the Warner Bros. "An Itch In Time" to Tex Avery's "The Hick Chick" and a variety of items for MGM and Walter Lantz, sometimes voicing Andy Panda and Jerry the mouse. She was on the Roy Rogers radio show doing voices, and fans could actually see her once in a while on Jack Benny's TV show. She very briefly had her own radio show, "Sara's Private Eye File." Fans point to her brief role as a neighbor in the Alfred Hitchcock classic "Rear Window." Hitch also used her to voice a phone operator in "North By Northwest."
Born in Albany, New York (January 12, 1912), she blossomed as a radio actress and voiceover specialist in the in the 40's. Ethnic comedy was still big at the time, and radio included such dialect specialists as Bert Gordon ("The Mad Russian") and Harry Einstein ("Parkyakarkus") and of course, Freeman and Gosden as Amos and Andy. Fred Allen's "Alley" included "Mrs. Nussbaum" while Jack Benny sometimes featured "Mr. Kitzel," who spoke in a wimpy Jewish accent. Fred Allen also gave the world "Senator Claghorn" (imitated by Mel Blanc in cartoons as Foghorn Leghorn) but actually ran afoul of the PC patrol with "Ajax Cassidy" as played by Peter Donald. This was a bit of an irony, as Fred Allen himself was Irish (real last name, Sullivan). Virginia MacPherson, a UP syndicated writer, profiled Sara for being able to do 13 different voices...including the Italian "Mrs. Mataratza" for Jimmy Durante, "Helen Wilson" for the Amos and Andy Show, "Chiquita" opposite Gene Autry, and even Eddie Cantor's wife Ida. "Sara can switch her tonsil tones from Greek to Polish to French without a quiver," enthused UP, but Sara admitted she had gotten into trouble for all the ethnicity, and "my dialects being in bad taste." She defended herself for being on the Amos and Andy show: "They laugh with Negroes, not at them. And that's the secret with dialects. You have to do them sympathetically. Otherwise they can cause trouble."
She was briefly famous enough for Ralph Edwards to surprise her on "This is Your Life" (1952). Quoth Ralph: “This is a story of courage and comedy, and the tears behind that comedy. How many of you really know Sara Berner — the ‘Laugh, Clown, Laugh’ girl — the girl who dreamed of stardom but settled for supporting roles?” Spike Jones turned up. Jack Benny literally phoned it in. Sara, who played phone operator Mabel Flapsaddle on Jack's show, was replaced in 1954 by Shirley Mitchell. Just what Jack's beef with Sara was, nobody seems to know, but she had worse problems...separation from her husband Milton Rosner, who was also her agent. Things got progressively worse, till she made headlines for phoning a police station and asking for protection. She said Rosner wanted to kill her. The police came over...and ended up arresting Sara instead. Apparently they found too many bottles strewn around her place, and Sara was too manic in her ravings about her ex, and her 7 year-old daughter seemed to be neglected. She didn't turn up in court, and ended up hospitalized. She was released a short time later, but she had difficulty resuming any kind of career. She died December 19, 1969. It took a while to settle her estate...and sell off anything she owned. The details were advertised in the local paper: "Sunday Nov 14, 1971, 2pm, rain or shine...the priceless personal possessions of Sara Berner, Deceased Star of Screen, Radio and Television...REFRESHMENTS WILL BE AVAILABLE...."
In the 60's, while Sara was unable to get much work, a whole new bunch of cartoon voices were thrilling TV audiences, and if they wanted souvenirs on vinyl, they could get them. There were singles offering songs sung by Yogi Bear, or Rocky and Bullwinkle, and even long play albums on major labels. Colpix had made-for-vinyl items like "The Treasure of Sarah's Mattress" featuring Quick Draw McGraw, Baba Looey and friends. Some albums even collected the few novelty items that Mel Blanc recorded as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. But...even now, the only way you can hear "Food Around the Corner" is from the original soundtrack complete with sound effects. And not on vinyl or CD, just here, on mp3:
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