How June Foray ended up voicing two different cartoon characters named Witch Hazel

You probably remember the Looney Tunes version better.

"How would you like to work with Bugs Bunny?" June Foray’s agent asked her in 1954. "Oh my god! Bugs Bunny! I mean, everybody loves him all over the world," Foray recalled saying in an interview with Emmy TV Legends.

"Well, you have a date," her agent said.

When Foray met Bugs Bunny director Chuck Jones, she didn't know exactly what kind of character he had in mind for her to play. It turned out that he wanted to cast Foray for a very specific reason. He wanted her to reimagine a character named Witch Hazel that she had voiced in Disney's Donald Duck cartoons.

"I thought: How can he do that, did he buy the rights from Disney?" Foray said. "How could I play another Witch Hazel?"

It turned out that Disney didn't have the rights to Witch Hazel because medicinal products that used a flower called witch hazel as a primary ingredient had already used the name "Witch Hazel" for various branded items. Disney's version of the character was modeled after a nurse named Hazel employed by Disney who everybody loved, while Jones' character was simply a pun on the plant that many believe powerfully wards off infections.

"Disney couldn't copyright it," Foray said.

To resolve her own internal conflict over the duplication, she created a twist in cartoon history that still confuses some kids who loved both versions of Witch Hazel, the one in Bugs Bunny cartoons and the one in Disney cartoons.

Foray apparently had not noticed that Bugs Bunny had already introduced a version of Witch Hazel voiced by Bea Benaderet in the 1954 short "Bewitched Bunny." Foray became the second voice for the second Witch Hazel with "Broom-Stick Bunny."

To differentiate her Disney Witch Hazel from her Bugs Bunny Witch Hazel, Foray said she gave the Disney character a British accent and the Bugs character an American accent.

"When I did the Witch Hazel for Chuck, I made her very humorous," Foray said. "She wasn't evil at all."

Of the two, Foray said the Bugs Bunny character is the one fans remember best. "People remember that Witch Hazel a little more," Foray said.

The Looney Tunes version of Witch Hazel casts spells to keep herself very ugly, and her wild hair was a funny focal point for fans.

"The hairpins flying," Foray laughed, describing the comedy of the character.

In "Broom-Stick Bunny," Witch Hazel accidentally transforms into a beauty instead of the hag she wants to be, and in this dolled-up form, Foray was surprised to see a reflection of herself on the screen.

Warner Bros. / HBO MaxWitch Hazel turns beautiful - and into June Foray - in ''Broom-Stick Bunny''

"She became beautiful in the end, and she looked very much the way I did, and the way I wore my hair," Foray said. "And I asked Chuck about that, and he said, 'Yes, I modeled her after you when she became beautiful.' So that was very flattering."

After "Broom-Stick Bunny," Foray said she and Jones became "fast friends" and stayed that way over a lifetime of roles. He cast her more than a dozen times in cherished animated classics, including in How the Grinch Stole Christmas! as Cindy Lou Who.

"He's a terrific guy," Foray said, explaining how Jones played a special role in this golden era of animation. "I love Chuck."

"I think Chuck is the intellectual of the animation producers," Foray said, recalling he could recite Socrates at the drop of a hat. "Very witty man."

Of this new version of Witch Hazel that brought the pair of life-long friends together, Foray said, "She's a delightful character."

Do you remember being confused by different characters named Witch Hazel when you were a kid?

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24 Comments

Runeshaper 13 months ago
It's GREAT that Foray and Jones became friends and kept that friendship over the years (-:
RachelPatt 13 months ago
June foray is the best she plays with Hazel and course, granny and
prissy on Looney Tunes and see also plays far is rocky, the flying squirrel and Natasha fatale on Rocky and Bullwinkle show I like it it’s so great it’s so good I am so happy to myself. Hey, can you do the tuning with me Dayview?
top_cat_james_1 13 months ago
There was also a Witch Hazel character in the "Little Lulu" comic book series.
Andybandit 13 months ago
JF was a great voice for the different cartoon characters.
idkwut2use 42 months ago
Love both!
And she did so much voicework!
Renakatywark 44 months ago
An 9 out of 13... 👸🏼🐕‍🦺🏡🌎🌈💗📖🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏👋👍
dmzabooo 47 months ago
Witch Hazel always has a spot in my top 10 women’s character cartoons
MAGronemeyer 47 months ago
"Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the ugliest one of all?"
MarkSpeck 47 months ago
Never knew about the other Witch Hazel. Guess I need to bone up on my Disney cartoons.
BrittReid 47 months ago
She was also the voice of "Talky Tina".
jaelinsmith40652 48 months ago
June Foray voiced alot of characters back in my childhood in the 2000's until her death in 2017 as I like her if she and Alan young was gonna play the 2017 - 2021 Disney's Ducktales because they worked back in the 80's. Until his death in 2016.
ncadams27 jaelinsmith40652 48 months ago
June Foray was also the voice of Rocky the flying squirrel of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame.
justjeff ncadams27 48 months ago
Don't forget she was also Natasha Fatale, Nell Fewick, Fearless Leader's mother and a myriad of other characters for Jay Ward Productions including Ursula on George of the Jungle... plus she did a ton of voice work on other WB cartoons.

Check out the credits listed on her Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Foray#:~:text=She%20played%20multiple%20characters%20on,also%20starred%20on%20Fractured%20Flickers.

Sure wish she had made to 100 and beyond (she was 99 when she passed)...
dmagoon ncadams27 48 months ago
At least once, Nelson Muntz (voiced by a woman (not June Foray)) sounded much like Rocky the Flying Squirrel.
Pacificsun ncadams27 48 months ago
Incredibly talented. But in the day, voice actors got very little press. A sad shame.
ncadams27 47 months ago
Why doesn't ME TV bring that most excellent show back?
Pax justjeff 29 months ago
If I do recall correctly, she also did work for MGM and Hanna-Barbera as well.
ncadams27 48 months ago
I wasn’t confused by different characters named Witch Hazel. Kids don’t think about these things, they just want to watch something funny. It didn’t matter if there were different versions of Elmer Fudd of if Porky the Pig was a kid in some cartoons and an adult in others. Or Shemp replaced Curly. Or Popeye’s nemesis was Bluto then Brutus. Or Mickey Mouse had a dog named Pluto and a friend named Goofy who was also a dog. Made no difference to me - I just wanted to be entertained. I never analyzed these things as a kid. AlthoughI used to wonder why three adult sons were still living at home with there father on Bonanza.
Pax ncadams27 29 months ago
Bluto and Brutus were actually two different people, and they are also brothers.
Pax ncadams27 29 months ago
Well, as for your Bonanza thing, let us look at things from a sensible historical perspective.

1. The Ponderosa Ranch was a huge one, so, naturally, one man could not do all the work that would be required to run such a large amount of land.
2. Back when there were real life ranches of the old Wild West, including the ones that are still private and family owned to this day, it was far easier to get members of your own family to help run, operate, and, eventually, own a ranch than it would be to get hired help that was questionable.
3. Back in those days, in some areas, there were ranches that were in places where few people had existed, so people that had ranches often were forced to rely upon family members to run ranches anyway.
4. Many ranches that were starting out in those times could not afford the exorbitant prices of hiring strangers to help herd cattle, as well as other animals, and tend to crops, on ranches, so family members were used to do those things instead.
5. Hiring family members to do the work on a ranch was much more cost effective than hiring random strangers that had questionable ethics, morals, and values, as well as dealing with greedy people, as families tend to fix their own problems in house much easier than dealing with strangers.
6. More often than not, another reason why such a ranch would be good for a family to stay on the ranch together was that it was hard to find civilization out in the middle of nowhere.
7. Ranches like The Ponderosa Ranch often helped to make small towns exist, just as fur trapping posts and military forts often did similar tasks as well.
8. Yet another reason for families to stay together on a ranch is that, not only would the ranch land be worth a lot of money, but that there also were other things that eventually be found on ranches that would also be valuable as well, ranging from natural cave systems to the traces of long gone ancient civilizations, to even more obvious things like natural springs, natural hot springs, various ores, various gemstones, oil, coal, natural gas, silica, and other valuable materials, thus it was a good idea to stay on valuable areas of land, as it could make a LOT of money for a family.

Hopefully, my comment to you made some sense.
ncadams27 Pax 29 months ago
I agree with everything you say, but I think four grown men would not all want to live in the same relatively small house.
LittleMissNoName 48 months ago
Cool story. Knowing she voiced Granny and Witch Hazel, was surprised to find out she was attractive in real life.
daDoctah LittleMissNoName 48 months ago
She did a cameo in the live-action Boris and Natasha movie (with Jason Alexander and Sally Kellerman as the title characters) in which she asks Natasha for an autograph, using her "Pottsylvanian" accent.
MarkSpeck daDoctah 47 months ago
She and Bill Scott reprised their Rocky and Bullwinkle characters for a comedy bit on Joe Piscopo's album "New Jersey" (a very funny album, BTW, also featuring Joe doing a medley of rock songs Sinatra-style and also "The Honeymooners Rap" with Joe as Ralph and Eddie Murphy as Norton).

June appeared on the Howard Stern Show, doing Rocky to Howard's Bullwinkle, for a raunchy skit that also involved another guest, Dick Butkus. Describing it wouldn't do it justice. You'd have to hear it to believe it.
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