About Don Messick
Donald Earle Messick (September 7, 1926 – October 24, 1997) was an American voice actor, known for his performances in Hanna-Barbera cartoons. His best-remembered voice roles include Scooby-Doo; Bamm-Bamm Rubble and Hoppy in The Flintstones; Astro in The Jetsons; Muttley in Wacky Races and Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines; Boo-Boo Bear and Ranger Smith in The Yogi Bear Show; Sebastian the Cat in Josie and the Pussycats; Gears, Ratchet, and Scavenger in The Transformers; Papa Smurf and Azrael in The Smurfs; Hamton J. Pig in Tiny Toon Adventures; and Dr. Benton Quest in Jonny Quest. == Early life == Messick was born on September 7, 1926, in Buffalo, New York, the son of Binford Earl Messick, a house painter, and Lena Birch (née Hughes). He had one brother, F. Thomas Messick. He was raised in the Bolton Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, where he received his early training as a performer at the Ramsay Street School of Acting. == Career == === Early work === At first, Messick wanted to be a ventriloquist and even supported himself as one for a time in the late 1940s and early 1950s. At the age of 15, Messick performed in front of the program manager and chief announcer at radio station WBOC in Salisbury, Maryland, and was given his own weekly show, for which Messick performed all of the character voices and sound effects. Messick moved back to Baltimore a year later, after graduating high school, and approached radio station WCAO about getting his one-man show on the air. As Messick worked to reduce the Baltimore accent identified by the manager of WCAO as an impediment to his radio career, Messick's father was killed, along with two other men, in an accident at the Nanticoke School.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.