Bill Scott (voice actor)

For other persons named William Scott, see William Scott (disambiguation).

William John "Bill" Scott (August 2, 1920 – November 29, 1985) was an American voice actor, writer and producer for animated cartoons, primarily associated with Jay Ward.

Scott was born August 2, 1920 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army's First Motion Picture Unit (reporting to Lt. Ronald Reagan), where he worked with such animators as Frank Thomas. After the war, he became what was then known as a "story man" at Warner Bros., working primarily on Bugs Bunny cartoons. He later worked at the cutting-edge studio United Productions of America where he was one of the writers who adapted Dr. Seuss's original story for the 1951 Academy Award-winning short Gerald McBoing-Boing, which later became a television show, as well as adapting the 1953 Academy Award-nominated short film of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart."

He began work as a voice actor as well when he joined Jay Ward as head writer and co-producer, and voice acted in such television series as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (most notably as Bullwinkle, as well as Dudley Do-Right, Peabody, etc.), George of the Jungle as George, Fractured Flickers, Hoppity Hooper, and for Disney he voiced Moosel on The Wuzzles, and was the original Gruffi Gummi in Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears (he was succeeded by Corey Burton after his death). He also wrote many, many commercials for General Mills and Quaker Oats, most notably those for Cap'n Crunch cereal.

The 1999 live-action film version of Dudley Do-Right was preceded by a newly made cartoon, "The Phox, the Box and the Lox," apparently based on a never-used script that Scott had written for the Fractured Fairy Tales segment of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

He died of a heart attack on November 29, 1985 in Tujunga, California.