Rocky’S Back And So Is Voice Behind Him

When June Foray greets you at her suburban Woodland Hills home, your first impression is that she could be somebody’s sweet, white-haired granny.

Until, that is, you hear: “Hokey smokes, Bullwinkle!”

The voice is unmistakable. Yes, beneath that granny exterior is Rocky the Flying Squirrel, pal to the gangly, bumbling moose.

While Jay Ward’s enduringly popular cartoon “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle” went off the air in 1964, Foray, a voice-over legend, has never stopped working.

Now she’s back as the voice of the flying squirrel in Universal’s new film version of “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.”

The blend of live action and animation stars Jason Alexander as Boris Badenov, Rene Russo as Natasha Fatale and Robert DeNiro, who also produced the film, as Fearless Leader.

Foray calls the original series, which ran from 1959 to 1964, “one of the most sophisticated, mordantly witty series that’s ever been on the air. And it wasn’t mean-spirited in any way.”

She was thrilled to reprise Rocky in a big-budget feature.

“I think that, if they had called somebody else, I think the whole world would have been disappointed,” Foray says, with all due modesty. “It wouldn’t be Rocky.”

The original show’s co-creator, Bill Scott, who was the voice of Bullwinkle, died in 1985. Comedian Keith Scott (no relation) took over for the film.

Foray and the younger Scott first performed together during a recording session in 1992, for a Universal Studios Theme Park street show. It was the first recording of the voices since 1964.

“It sent shivers up and down my spine,” says Tiffany Ward, daughter of the series’ late co-creator Jay Ward, who has also turned her dad’s “George of the Jungle” and “Dudley Do-Right” into big-screen features.

At the beginning of the movie, Rocky and Bullwinkle are in retirement, puttering around their house and “not even getting residuals.”

But Foray hasn’t been puttering around home all this time, waiting for “Rocky and Bullwinkle” to come around again.

Her career has included voicing characters like Cindy-Lou Who in the original TV cartoon version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” Lena Hyena in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” and, more recently, Grandma Fa in Disney’s “Mulan.” She even provided the voice for Mattel’s Chatty Cathy doll, then parodied herself as an evil “Talking Tina” doll in an episode of “The Twilight Zone.”

On Friday, Foray - who will only admit to being “over 50,” though she’s been listed as 81 - receives her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, only the second cartoon voice performer to receive such an honor. The other is the late Mel Blanc.

A longtime friend, “Laugh-In” announcer Gary Owens, will be one of the speakers at the ceremony, along with Steve Allen, legendary animator Chuck Jones and comedy icon Stan Freberg.

“Beyond versatility, she’s just a great actor,” says Freberg. “People think, `Oh, well, she does voices.’ Forget voices. That’s just a tool of the actor. The basic thing that June is, is a great actor.”