Daws Butler Workshop ’76: More Lessons from the Voice of Yogi Bear!

'I want you to understand the words. I want you to taste the words. I want you to love the words. Because the words are important. But they're only words. You leave them on the paper, and you take the thoughts and put them into your mind, and then you as an actor recreate them, as if the thoughts had suddenly occurred to you.'—Daws Butler

Now you can audit a real Daws Butler acting workshop!

This is a raw, unedited recording of Daws Butler prot├®g├® Joe Bevilacqua (a.k.a. Joe Bev) and fellow Daws students cold reading Butler's scripts and being taught by their mentor. It was recorded by the then seventeen-year-old Bevilacqua on Thursday, July 29, 1976, in Beverly Hills. The scripts heard in this workshop are published in the books Uncle Dunkle and Donnie and Scenes for Actors and Voices, both published by BearManor Media.

Daws Butler is considered one of greatest voice actors of the twentieth century. Known as the voice of Hanna-Barbera, he spent two decades with the animation production company and originated the voices of many well-known cartoon characters, including Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, Huckleberry Hound, and Cap'n Crunch.