All I have to do is walk into any crowd in the United States, I'll bet you, and say, 'G-rr-r-r-e-a-a-at!' and everyone would turn around and say, 'Tony!'
It was hard to know if anything, any one particular thing, increased my career or not.
I've been a very fortunate man and have had many wonderful jobs and experiences in my life.
It always ended up that they said, 'Tony, are Frosted Flakes good?' And he would laugh and say, 'Good? Why, they're great.' And I said, 'Well, we've gotta do something with the word 'great' to make It explode. It has to really knock the packages off the shelves.'
I'm the only man in the world that has made a career with one word: 'Grrrrreeeat!'
I made Tony a person. For me, Tony was real. I made him become a human being, and that affected the animation and everything.
Whenever anyone finds out that I'm Tony, 'Oh, do it! Do it!' What they mean is they want me to say, 'Put a tiger on your team with Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes. They're great!' That's what everybody wants to hear.
When Kellogg's brought up the idea of the tiger, they sent me a caricature of Tony to see if I could create something for them. After messing around for some time I came up with the 'Great!' roar, and that's how it's been since then.
To me, that's when music was music. Every studio had a full symphonic orchestra and a whole bunch of singers they used on every picture. Every radio show had singers on it, and NBC and CBS had their own staff orchestras. Music was everything. And it was good music; it wasn't based on three chords.
Jack Benny was a very warm person and a very appreciative person.
I did the commercials for Gillette during the World Series and at one point I had 27 different beer contracts.
Tony is just a good, wholesome character.
The good lord gave me a very unusual voice, and gave me the opportunity to learn how to use it.
I love to keep doing the voice, and I'll do it as long as I'm able and as long as Tony sells cereal.
