Pinto

You probably think of Pinto Colvig as the voice of Goofy, but he was so much more than that.

Without further ado or sidebar trivia about Colvig and Verna Felton both voicing for Disney, here’s a profile of Pinto from the August 25, 1946 edition of Radio Life magazine. The very low-res photos came with the text.

The Dog’s Best Friend
Is Noise-Maker Pinto Colvig, Who Portrays Most Of the Dogs You Hear on Radio Programs, Besides Almost Anything Else That Producers Dream Up
By B.J. Hammer
AS you walk up Highland Avenue in Hollywood toward the Hollywood Bowl some evening you might pass by a house that seems to have a ferocious dog fight going on in the front room! Or the shriek of a werewolf, followed by horrifying screams, might issue from behind the front door! Don't call the police—you are just passing Pinto Colvig's house, and Pinto is probably auditioning over the phone for a radio producer.
Even in a town where unusual occupations are the rule, rather than the exception, Pinto's career is out of this world. He is a noisemaker de luxe for radio, films and records. You've heard him as Jack Benny's Maxwell, the hound in "Hound of the Baskervilles," a lion on the "Joan Davis Show," as Walt Disney's "Pluto," "Goofy," "Grumpy" (the dwarf in "Snow White"), and the "Practical Pig" in "The Three Little Pigs." For a "Command Performance" broadcast he even gave a practically perfect imitation of the Bronx subway train!
How in the world does a guy get started on a life of noise-making? Pinto smiled when we asked him—seems like everybody asks that. "I had my first taste of show business when I was about eight years old," he began, "and Verna Felton's responsible for that."
"You mean our Verna Felton?" we asked.
Nostalgia
"Yes sir," exclaimed Pinto. "When I was a homely kid in the little tiny town of Jacksonville, Oregon, the biggest event of the year was the annual appearance of the Allen Stock Company featuring 'The Verna Felton Players.' Verna was about eight years old, too, and the prettiest little girl you ever saw. She was the star of the company and all their plays were especially written around her. Well, I was as stage-struck and as star-struck as they come. I'd hang around the company, getting in everybody's way, trying to get in with them. Finally, to get rid of me, they actually gave me a part! Two lines. I had to run across the stage, holding on to a live cat, calling back to the wings, 'Duck it! Duck it!' and start to throw the cat down a well. At this moment, heroic Verna was to match up to me, tear the poor cat from my murderous grasp, while I exited, chastised.

"During the actual performance, spellbound at being before an audience and on the same stage with my ideal, I refused to let go of the poor cat, determined to draw the scene out as long as I could. Verna finally got it out of my grasp, but not before we'd tug -o'- warred over it so hard we nearly pulled it to pieces!"
Many years later, at a Jack Benny rehearsal, one of the members of the cast started to introduce Pinto to a majestic looking fellow member, "You know Verna Felton ... " they began. "It was the first time I had seen Verna since she was eight years old," smiled Pinto. "I grabbed her by the hand and shouted, 'Do I know Verna Felton? Why, she's responsible for my being in show business!' Of course, I totally forgot that Verna didn't have the slightest idea who I was. When I reminded her of the Jacksonville Opry House and the cat in the well, she remembered perfectly. 'Oh, yes,' she said, 'that was in "the Power of Wealth"' ".
Though supplying weird noises has just about crowded Pinto's other talents out of the picture, he's found time to become known as co- writer of that deathless song, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"; he's been a story -man and cartoonist at Disney's and most recently he's been featured on several Capitol record albums of children's stories with Margaret O'Brien. Last but not least, he's the loudest and corniest clarinet player in the country.
Circus Lover
Pinto left the University of Oregon just before graduation when the call of show business became too strong, and he joined up with the Al G. Barnes circus band. He still drops everything when the circus returns. This past season he played in the band while the show was in Los Angeles. Pinto's wife, Margaret, threatens to leave town next circus season. "When the circus is here, Pinto's never home," she sighed.

In spite of all this, Pinto leads a normal family life. He's the father of five talented and handsome boys, Vance DeBar, Mason William, Byington Ford, Bourke Lingae and Courtney X. "Sound like a string of Pullman cars, don't they?" he laughed. Vance is known in radio as a gagman for Tom Breneman [sic], writer and actor. "Gosh," said Pinto, "lately they're starting to refer to me as 'Vance Colvig's father'!" His son Bourke is a teacher at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and a fine classical musician and composer.
Pinto still claims that he hasn't made up his mind whether to be a musician, a cartoonist or an actor. His ambition is to get a part where he delivers lines like a real human being instead of an elephant, a mad dog, or what-have-you. "But when the phone rings," he sighed, "I know that it'll be somebody saying, 'Pinto, you do a penguin, don't you?'"
"Have you ever done anything serious in radio?" we wondered.
"Oh, yes," smiled Pinto. "On the 'Big Town' program I played a sad dog! It was a tear-jerker about a little boy giving his dog to the service about the time that the war first started, and we were afraid that the audience would laugh in the middle of this very serious, dramatic scene, when I started whining and barking. So Ken Niles had me come out before the show started and I barked and whined and growled till the audience had all the laughs out of their systems. My first serious dramatic effort!" sighed Pinto in mock sadness. "That's why I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Verna Felton. She, at least, gave me real lines to say!"