Jimmy Weldon, a 1940s-era disc jockey and later kids TV host and voice actor whose ability to mimic a Donald Duck-like quacking voice led to his signature portrayal of a classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon duckling named Yakky Doodle, died July 6 in Paso Robles, California. He was 99.
Weldon, a Texas native born Ivy Laverne Shinn, was a World War II vet who had participated in the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp when, after his military service, he sought work in radio, landing a job at a Chickasha, Oklahoma, station. It was there he began using the Donal Duck impression he’d been honing for years, turning the routine into a character named Webster Webfoot.
The character caught on with listeners and within a few years led to Dallas kids TV show called The Webster Webfoot Show, featuring Weldon operating a baseball-capped duck puppet.
After a move to Hollywood in the early 1950s, Weldon, along with Webster, was hired by producer Ralph Edwards to host a short-lived kids version of the game show Truth or Consequences, followed by a succession of other similar gigs throughout the decade.
Weldon’s Webster voice made him a natural for a new duck character envisioned by the Hanna-Barbera animation studio, and in 1961 Yakky Doodle debuted on the studio’s third half-hour series The Yogi Bear Show, joining other characters including Yogi, Boo Boo and Snagglepuss. Yakky, a cute but feisty yellow duckling with bright green wing feathers, shared his segments with pal Chopper the bulldog (voiced by Vance Colvig in a gruff Fred Flintstone style), the canine forever protecting little Yakky from the ravenous Fibber Fox (Daws Butler, impersonating neurotic comic Shelley Berman) or Alfy Gator (Butler again, this time doing Alfred Hitchcock).
While Yakky would be Weldon’s most popular creation, he’d go on to voice characters on other Hanna-Babera series for several decades, including in the series Challenge of the Superfriends, Fred Flintstone and Friends, and Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo.
Weldon also made single-episode acting appearances on series including The Waltons, Diff’rent Strokes, B.J. and the Bear and The Rockford Files, among others.