Bill Thompson (voice actor)

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Bill Thompson (July 8, 1913 – July 15, 1971) was an American radio actor and voice actor whose career stretched from the 1930s until his death.

Born in Terre Haute, Indiana from vaudevillian parents, Bill Thompson began his career in Chicago radio, where his early appearances included a regular stint on Don McNeill's morning variety series The Breakfast Club in 1934 and a stint as a choir member on the musical variety series "The Sinclair Weiner Minstrels" around 1937. While on the former series, Thompson originated a meek, mush-mouthed character occasionally referred to in publicity as "Mr. Wimple." Thompson soon achieved his greatest fame when he joined the cast of the radio comedy Fibber McGee and Molly around 1936, and would re-use the Wimple voice beginning in 1941.

On Fibber McGee and Molly, Thompson essayed a variety of roles, including a boisterous conman with a W. C. Fields voice, originally named Widdicomb Blotto but soon re-christened Horatio K. Boomer, and Nick Depopoulous, the Greek restaurant owner. His two most famous roles on the series, however, were as The Old Timer and Wallace Wimple. The Old Timer, introduced in 1937 was a garrulous old gent who would drop in and listen to McGee's rambling stories and jokes. He inexplicably referred to McGee as "Johnny," and his catch phrase was "That's pretty good, Johnny, but that ain't the way I heerd it!" (This catch phrase would surface in Warner Bros. cartoon shorts, notably in Tortoise Wins by a Hare in which Bugs Bunny disguises himself as a bearded old man and repeats portions of that catch-phrase as he tries to trick the tortoise into telling him "how he beat that rabbit!")

Wallace Wimple, an expansion of Thompsons Breakfast Club role, would prove to be his most enduring character, however. Wimple was a timid bird-watcher, appropriately nick-named "Wimp" by McGee, who lived in constant terror of his "big old horrid wife," ironically named "Sweetie Face," who was often mentioned but never heard. (The term "wimp" for an unmanly character was in common usage already, as with the cartoon character J. Wellington Wimpy). The character, whose greeting was a mild "Hello, folks," became very popular, and inspired animation director Tex Avery to build a dog character around the voice. This character, eventually named Droopy Dog, was also voiced by Thompson in most of his appearances. Thompson also played the title role, an Adolf Hitler take-off, in Avery's Academy Award nominated short The Blitz Wolf (1942).

Around 1943, however, Thompson's thriving career was interrupted when he joined the US Navy during World War II, and all of his radio characters were temporarily dropped. He returned to Fibber McGee full-time in 1946, however, and also became a semi-regular on Edgar Bergen's radio series as lecturer "Professor" Thompson, and continued to work on radio until the late 1950s, notably in several episodes of CBS Radio Workshop. Upon his return to civilian life, Thompson's animation voice-over career also began to build steam. At MGM, he returned as Droopy and also played Droopy's recurring bulldog nemesies Spike, alternately known as Butch, and many other shorts characters.

For Walt Disney, he was heard in many shorts and features, often in either dialect parts or a variation of his Wimple/Droopy voice. His animated feature film credits included the parts of the White Rabbit and the Dodo in Alice in Wonderland and Mr. Smee (and the other pirates) in Peter Pan (reprising his roles in radio adaptations for Lux Radio Theater). His best showcase may well have been in Lady and the Tramp (1956), where he was heard in no less than five dialect parts, as Jock the friendly Scottish terrier, Bull the Cockney bulldog, Dachsie the German dachshund, Joe the Italian cook, and the Irish policeman in the park. In shorts, he was heard as Ranger J. Audobon Woodlore in several Donald Duck and Humphrey the Bear entries and as Professor Owl in two music related shorts, including the Academy Award winning Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom (directed by Ward Kimball), amongst many others. He reprised both of these roles in Disney's various television series, and was the first actor to voice the comic book character Scrooge McDuck (the theatrical featurette Scrooge McDuck and Money (1967).

In 1957, Thompson joined the Los Angeles branch of Union Oil as an executive, working in community relations and occasionnaly reprising his radio characters. He remained sporadically active in animation, however, going on to play King Hubert in Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1959), and as Touché Turtle for Hanna-Barbera's Touché Turtle and Dum Dum (plus a guest role in an early episode of The Flintstones). His final role was as Uncle Waldo in The Aristocats (1970), released shortly before his death from a heart attack. Thompson was 58.