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Mel Blanc

 
Who2 Biography: Mel Blanc, Voice Actor

  • Born: 30 May 1908
  • Birthplace: San Francisco, California
  • Died: 10 July 1989
  • Best Known As: The voice of Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes cartoons

Name at birth: Melvin Jerome Blank

The most famous voice talent in cartoon history, Mel Blanc was the Looney Tunes star who voiced Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and dozens of others. Blanc grew up in Portland, Oregon, where he worked in radio from the late 1920s to the mid-1930s, when he headed to Hollywood. He landed voice work with Walter Lantz and Walt Disney, but it was his long (and eventually exclusive) relationship with Warner Brothers' Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes that brought Blanc fame. He worked for Warner Brothers cartoons from 1937 to 1969 and helped shape the characters that would become world famous: Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Foghorn Leghorn, Sylvester & Tweety, Pepe LePew, Wile E. Coyote, Speedy Gonzalez, Yosemite Sam and others. While voicing cartoons he also worked in radio, most memorably with Judy Canova and Jack Benny (Blanc did the comic sounds of Maxwell, Benny's sputtering jalopy). After Warner Brothers shut down their animation department Blanc did voice work for films and commercials (the Frito Bandito), and enjoyed his position as the most famous cartoon voice in the world.

Blanc is also credited with creating the character voices for Woody Woodpecker and Barney Rubble (Fred Flintstone's sidekick and neighbor).

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Biography: Mel Blanc
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Known in Hollywood as "The Man of a Thousand Voices," Mel Blanc (1908-1989) was the versatile cartoon voice creator of such unforgettable characters as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and Daffy Duck.

Blanc's voices have become standard-bearers for American popular culture throughout the world, heard, by some estimates, by more than 20 million people every day. Each of his characters is distinctive and many developed a trademark line that became famous, like "I tawt I taw a puddy tat!" (Tweety), "What's up, Doc?" (Bugs Bunny), "Thhhhufferin' Thhhhuccotash!" (Sylvester), and "Beep-beep!" (Road Runner). Blanc did the majority of his work for Warner Bros., performing in over 3,000 cartoons for that studio in a career that spanned more than 50 years, but he also worked for other animated film makers and as a memorable radio actor.

Porky Born

Born in 1908 and growing up in Portland, Oregon, Blanc studied music, becoming proficient on the bass, violin, and sousaphone. But he discovered a more amazing instrument in his own voice. "I used to look at animals and wonder, how would that kitten sound if it could talk," he said in the New York Times. " I'd tighten up my throat and make a very small voice, not realizing I was rehearsing." After marrying and working for a short time as a radio actor, Blanc moved to Los Angeles and joined Leon Schlesinger Productions, a cartoon workshop that eventually developed the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies characters for Warner Bros. While playing the part of a drunken bull in "Porky Picador," Blanc relates in his autobiography That'sNot All Folks, the actor who was then portraying Porky actually did stutter. When Blanc was later asked to play Porky, he left the stutter in the act, and his first major character was born. Blanc next developed the character who was to become his favorite, Happy Hare, in another Warner Bros. short. He lent a brash, Bronx accent to the wiseguy rabbit that eventually became Bugs Bunny. "He's a little stinker," Blanc told the New York Times. "That's why people love him. He does what most people would like to do but don't have the guts to do." More famous characters followed, including Pepe LePew, Wile E. Coyote, Elmer Fudd, Speedy Gonzales, and Yosemite Sam.

Branches Out

Despite his proficiency, Blanc did not own the rights to any of his characters and never earned more than $20,000 in a single year from Warner Bros., so he, was forced to pursue other activities. In the 1960s he was co-producer and voice animator for ABC's "The Bugs Bunny Show," a Saturday morning series that featured Looney Tunes characters in new cartoons designed for television. He also provided the voices for Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone's pet dinosaur, Dino, for the first prime-time cartoon series, "The Flintstones." Through the years, Blanc also kept up his work in radio, primarily as an actor and special effects creator for "The Jack Benny Show," on which he portrayed Benny's mexican gardener, Sy; his violin teacher, Mr. LeBlanc; his wise-cracking parrot; and his pet polar bear. Blanc also formed his own company to produce radio and television advertising. His last cartoon contribution came in the popular 1988 mixed-animation film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," in which he performed the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety, and Porky Pig. In assessing why his characters have become so endearing to all age-groups, Blanc told the New York Times: " What we tried to do was amuse ourselves. We didn't make pictures for children. We didn't make pictures for adults. We made them for ourselves." Mel Blanc died in 1989.

Further Reading

Chicago Tribune, July 11, 1989.

New York Times, July 11, 1989.

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Melvin Jerome Blanc
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(born May 30, 1908, San Francisco, Calif., U.S. — died July 10, 1989, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. entertainer. He began his career as a musician on NBC radio, and in 1933 he joined a daily radio program, for which he created several voices to augment the cast. In 1937 he joined the cartoon department of Warner Brothers, and he took part in the development of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, providing the voices of Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Woody Woodpecker, and Bugs Bunny. In his 50-year career he supplied the voices for about 3,000 animated cartoons, including 90% of the Warner Brothers cartoons.

For more information on Melvin Jerome Blanc, visit Britannica.com.

Spotlight: Mel Blanc
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From our Archives: Today's Highlights, May 30, 2006

The man who gave voice to hundreds of cartoon characters, Mel Blanc, was born on this date in 1908. From Porky Pig to Daffy Duck to Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Speedy Gonzales and both Tweety and Sylvester, Blanc created voices that became instantly recognizable to generations of cartoon fans. He had his own radio shows and was a regular on the Jack Benny Program. Blanc has said that Yosemite Sam was hardest on his throat, since his voice was so loud. In later years, he also voiced Barney Rubble and The Jetsons' Mr. Spacely.
Artist: Mel Blanc
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  • Born: May 30, 1908
  • Active: '60s
  • Genres: Children
  • Instrument: Voices
  • Representative Albums: "Bugs Bunny and the Tortoise," "Woody Woodpecker's Picnic," "Tweety Pie"

Biography

A case could be made that Mel Blanc, via his connection with Bugs Bunny, is actually the voice of one of the most popular and influential creatures known to mankind. After all, the Warner Brothers studio estimated at one point that on any given day, approximatly 250 million people hear and recognize the voice of Bugs. What? Bugs Bunny is not real? A much better way of describing the relationship between Blanc and Bugs is to tell the story of when the talented Hollywood voice artist had a terrible car accident and as a result was in a coma for a long period of time, with little hope of recovery. That is, until one day a doctor came into the room and decided to try something different, seeing as how it was that time of the day when the old Looney Tunes cartoons were being broadcast. He turned up the sound and the voices of Porky Pig and others began booming around the room. The comatose Blanc began to stir. All of a sudden he was snapping out of his coma and working the voice of Bugs Bunny. The busy career Blanc created for himself out of his ability to work unusual voices and his comical personality included not only the well-known cartoon work and television appearances such as the Jack Benny Show, but in a variety of recording projects aimed at children but appreciated by cartoon fans of all ages. It was his muscular vocal chords that made Blanc a natural for any kind of recording project, and it was said that no matter what he had been up to or how much he had been using his voice, he could still work the constantly shouting, overblown Yosemite Sam for hours, no problem.

Blanc supposedly developed his gift for doing voices and other vocal calisthenics early on. The madcap, piercing laugh that would eventually be associated with Woody Woodpecker was a gimmick Blanc the adolescent developed to drive teachers crazy in grade school. And like many great performers, there was a method and seriousness to his work, even in the creation of something like this laugh. The Woody bit only came about after extensive acoustic experimentation with the echoing characteristics of the hallways in his high school. Blanc jumped into show business professionally as soon as he graduated, but his first choice was music. He was proficient on three instruments and began working in the NBC Radio Orchestra. He also worked as a conductor of the pit orchestra at the Orpheum Theatre in Portland.

A shift in his performing interests came about after his marraige to performer Estelle Rosenhaum. The couple began hosting a daily one-hour radio show entitled Cobwebs and Nuts. They wanted to expand the number of actors on the show, but the management said forget it. Faced with these budgetary restrictions, Blanc began inventing voices enough for an entire repertory company. After listening to this insanity for two years, his wife encouraged him to head for Hollywood and try at the big time. He spent the first years working as a character actor on various radio shows, all the time trying to audition for the production company that had produced the early Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, headed up by one Leon Schelesinger. A production supervisor screening applicants for the boss told Blanc to pitch his tent elsewhere three times. Lucky for Blanc, this guy dropped dead one day. The next man to take over offered Blanc an actual oral test. He passed the challenging first test, which was to portray a drunken bull. In 1937 he was offered the role of Porky Pig. "A fine thing to ask a Jewish kid," was Blanc's initial reaction to this offer, but he took on the character and made great improvements over the earlier version of the pig, much of the progress attributable to Blanc's ability to stutter and ad lib in rhythm. The next year came Bugs Bunny, who was originally supposed to be known as "the Happy Hare." Blanc made radical changes in the character by making it act more like one of the writers on the cartoon, Bugs Hardaway. This man was something of a hipster and was always making comments such as "What's cookin'?" and "What's up, Doc?" Blanc gave the rabbit a Brooklyn accent and much jive talk snagged from Hardaway. The rest was history. But one of the strangest aspects of recording the rabbit's voice was that Blanc was unable to maintain the characterization if he had a bite of carrot. So, whenever Bugs is eating a carrot, every single sound of the vegetable being bitten had to be edited in seperately.

Blanc was by far the number one voice artist on the Warner Brothers lot, providing the voices for at least 90 percent of the cartoon characters and working closely with great animation directors such as Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Robert McKimson, and Fritz Freleng. He also worked freelance for Walter Lantz, who got the benefit of all the years of research into obnoxious laughing carried out during Blanc's school days. Blanc was also not a total stranger to the Walt Disney studios, but his efforts there do not represent the pinnacle of his success. For example, he worked for weeks on the cartoon film Pinnochio, but every single bit of it ended up on the cutting room floor except for one single hiccup, emitted by a minor character, a cat named Giddy. This is hardly an example of Blanc's career, however. He was, if anything, the greatest success in the history of cartoon voice-overs, and was the first such artist to receive over-the-title credits for his work. He became closely identified with his characters, easy to recognize and desirable to have on board any kind of entertaining project, leading to loads of radio work on shows such as Burns and Allen, Fibber McGee and Molly, and the previously mentioned comedian Benny. For the six months on the Benny show, all Blanc did was work the voice of a bear named Carmichael that guarded the stingy comedian's hoard of money. After six months of growling, Blanc apparently took Benny aside and said "You know, Mr. Benny, I can talk." Among the roles Blanc got out of this suggestion were that of the frustrated violin teacher Professor LeBlanc and the Mexican character Cy who answers most questions with "Si."

In the '60s, Blanc turned more and more to television cartoons for work and became involved in a series of recordings for Capitol that were distributed by the worldwide children's firm Ziv International. Working in conjunction with music arrangers such as Billy May, Blanc drew on his arsenal of characters from across the spectrum of studios. Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tune gang and even Woody Woodpecker are brought to life by Blanc on these records. He became closely involved in the creation of some of this material, even emerging as a songwriter with "I Taut I Taw a Puddy Tat," a sophisticated romantic ballad sung by Tweety. In the '70s he became critical of the quality of the cartoons he was forced to work in, although he never expressed the slightest interest in retiring.

Blanc's son Noel Blanc became interested in his father's work from an early age and he was skilled enough at imitating the imitator that he was called in to substitute for his dad following the car accident in the early '60s. Since his father's death in 1989, Noel has taken over the Blanc dynasty of voices completely, providing voices for newer shows such as Tiny Toon Adventures as well as hundreds of products involving the voice of Bugs and others, such as talking wall clocks. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide
Actor: Mel Blanc
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  • Born: May 30, 1908 in San Francisco, California
  • Died: Jul 10, 1989 in Los Angeles, California
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '30s-'60s
  • Major Genres: Comedy, Children's/Family
  • Career Highlights: For Scent-Imental Reasons, Pinocchio, The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie
  • First Major Screen Credit: Pinocchio (1940)

Biography

American entertainer Mel Blanc, who would make his name and fortune by way of his muscular vocal chords, started out in the comparatively non-verbal world of band music. He entered radio in 1927, and within six years was costarring with his wife on a largely adlibbed weekly program emanating from Portland, Oregon, titled Cobwebs and Nuts. Denied a huge budget, Blanc was compelled to provide most of the character voices himself, and in so doing cultivated the skills that would bring him fame. He made the Los Angeles radio rounds in the mid-1930s, then was hired to provide the voice for a drunken bull in the 1937 Warner Bros. "Looney Tune" Picador Porky. Taking over the voice of Porky ("Th-th-th-that's all, Folks") Pig from a genuine stammerer who knew nothing about comic timing, Blanc became a valuable member of the "Termite Terrace" cartoon staff. Before long, he created the voice of Daffy Duck, whose lisping cadence was inspired by Warner Bros. cartoon boss Leon Schlesinger. In 1940, Blanc introduced his most enduring Warners voice -- the insouciant, carrot-chopping Bugs Bunny (ironically, Blanc was allergic to carrots). He freelanced with the MGM and Walter Lantz animation firms (creating the laugh for Woody Woodpecker at the latter studio) before signing exclusively with Warners in the early 1940s. Reasoning that his limitless character repetoire -- including Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzales, Tweety Pie, Pepe Le Pew, Yosemite Sam and so many others -- had made him a valuable commodity to the studio, Blanc asked for a raise. Denied this, he demanded and got screen credit -- a rarity for a cartoon voice artist of the 1940s. Though his salary at Warners never went above $20,000 per year, Blanc was very well compensated for his prolific work on radio. He was a regular on such series as The Abbott and Costello Show and The Burns and Allen Show, and in 1946 headlined his own weekly radio sitcom. For nearly three decades, Blanc was closely associated with the radio and TV output of comedian Jack Benny, essaying such roles as the "Si-Sy-Si" Mexican, harried violin teacher Professor LeBlanc, Polly the parrot, and the sputtering Maxwell automobile. While his voice was heard in dozens of live-action films, Blanc appeared on screen in only two pictures: Neptune's Daughter (1949) and Kiss Me Stupid (1964). Extremely busy in the world of made-for-TV cartoons during the 1950s and 1960s, Blanc added such new characterizations to his resume as Barney Rubble on The Flintstones (1960-66) and Cosmo Spacely on The Jetsons (1962). In early 1961, Blanc was seriously injured in an auto accident. For weeks, the doctor was unable to communicate with the comatose Blanc until, in desperation, he addressed the actor with "How are you today, Bugs Bunny?" "Eh...just fine, Doc," Blanc replied weakly in his Bugs voice. At that miraculous moment, Blanc made the first step towards his eventual full recovery (this story sounds apocryphical, and even Blanc himself can't confirm that it took place, but those who witnessed the event swear that it really happened). In the 1970s, Blanc and his actor/producer son Noel -- whom Mel was grooming to take over the roles of Bugs, Daffy and the rest -- ran their own school for voice actors. Mel Blanc continued performing right up to his death in July of 1989; earlier that same year, he published his autobiography, That's Not All, Folks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Filmography: Mel Blanc
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Wikipedia: Mel Blanc
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Mel Blanc

Blanc in 1976
Born Melvin Jerome Blank
May 30, 1908(1908-05-30)
San Francisco, California,
United States
Died July 10, 1989 (aged 81)
Los Angeles, California, United States
Occupation Voice actor, comedian
Years active 1927–1989
Spouse(s) Estelle Rosenbaum
(1933–1989)[1]

Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc (May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989) was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros. during the so-called "Golden Age of American animation" (and later for Hanna-Barbera television productions) as the voice of such well-known characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, Woody Woodpecker, Barney Rubble, Mr. Spacely, and hundreds of others. Having earned the nickname “The Man of a Thousand Voices,” Blanc is regarded as one of the most influential persons in his field.[2]

Contents

Early years and radio work

Born Melvin Jerome Blank in San Francisco, California, to Jewish parents, Frederick and Eva Blank, he grew up in Portland, Oregon, attending Lincoln High School. At 16, he changed the spelling of his last name from “Blank,” reportedly because a teacher told him that he would amount to nothing and be, like his last name, “blank.” Blanc began his radio career in 1927 as a voice actor on the KGW program The Hoot Owls, where his ability to create voices for multiple characters first attracted attention. Blanc moved to sister station KEX in 1933 to produce and host his Cobweb And Nuts program, which debuted on June 15, 1933. The show ran Monday through Saturday 11:00pm to midnight. By the time the show ended on KEX June 15, 1935 it was on 10:30pm to 11:00pm six nights a week.

Moving to Warner Bros.-owned KFWB in Hollywood, California, in 1935, Blanc joined The Johnny Murray Show; then, in 1936, he moved to CBS Radio and The Joe Penner Show. Beginning in the late 1930s, Blanc was a regular on the NBC Red Network show The Jack Benny Program in various roles, including Benny’s automobile (a Maxwell in desperate need of a tune-up), violin teacher Professor LeBlanc, Polly the Parrot, Benny’s pet polar bear Carmichael, the tormented department store clerk, and the train announcer (see below).

One of Blanc’s most memorable characters from Benny's radio (and later TV) programs was “Sy, the Little Mexican,” who spoke one word at a time. The famous “Sí...Sy...sew...Sue” routine was so effective that no matter how many times it was performed, the laughter was always there, thanks to the comedic timing of Blanc and Benny.[3]

At times, sharp-eyed audience members (and later, TV viewers) could see Benny struggling to keep a straight face; Blanc’s absolute dead-pan delivery was a formidable challenge for him. Benny’s daughter, Joan, recalls that Mel Blanc was one of her father’s closest friends in real life, because “nobody else on the show could make him laugh the way Mel could.”

Another famous Blanc shtick on Jack’s show was the train depot announcer who inevitably intoned, sidelong, “Train leaving on Track Five for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga”. Part of the joke was the Angeleno studio audience’s awareness that no such train existed connecting those then-small towns (years before Disneyland opened). To the wider audience, the primary joke was the pregnant pause that evolved over time between "Cuc.." and "...amonga"; eventually, minutes would pass while the skit went on as the audience awaited the inevitable conclusion of the word. (At least once, a completely different skit followed before the inevitable “...amonga” finally appeared.)

Blanc’s success on The Jack Benny Program led to his own radio show on the CBS Radio Network, The Mel Blanc Show, which ran from September 3, 1946, to June 24, 1947. Blanc played himself as the hapless owner of a fix-it shop, as well as his young cousin Zookie (who sounded quite a bit like Porky Pig). Many episodes required Mel to impersonate an exotic foreigner or other stranger in town, ostensibly for carrying out a minor deception on his girlfriend's father, but of course simply as a vehicle for him to show off his talents. Other regular characters were played by Mary Jane Croft, Joseph Kearns, Hans Conried, Alan Reed, Earle Ross, Jim Backus, Bea Benaderet and The Sportsmen Quartet, who would supply a song and sing the Colgate Tooth Powder commercials. (Blanc would later work with Reed and Benaderet on The Flintstones.) Shows usually adhered to a predictable formula, involving a date with his girl Betty Colby (Mary Jane Croft) and trying to either impress her father or at least avoid angering him. However, Mr. Colby (Earle Ross) usually had occasion to deliver his trademark line, "Mel Blanc, I'm going to break every bone in your body!"

Blanc appeared frequently on The Great Gildersleeve, uncredited, often voicing two or more supporting characters in a single episode: deliverymen in "Planting a Tree" and "Father's Day Chair" also "Gus", a petty crook in the latter; a radio station manager and a policeman in "Mystery Singer", and many others.

Blanc also appeared on such other national radio programs as The Abbott and Costello Show, the Happy Postman on Burns and Allen, and as August Moon on Point Sublime. During World War II, he appeared as Private Sad Sack on various radio shows, most notably G.I. Journal. The character of Sad Sack was a bumbling Army private with an even worse stutter than Porky Pig. ("I'm Lieutena-eh-Lieutena-eh-Capta-eh-Majo-eh-Colone-eh-p-p-Private Sad Sack.")

For his contribution to radio, Mel Blanc has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6385 Hollywood Boulevard.

Animation voice work during the Golden Age of Hollywood

In 1936, Mel Blanc joined Leon Schlesinger Productions, which made animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Blanc liked to tell the story about how he got turned down at the Schlesinger studio by music director Norman Spencer, who was in charge of cartoon voices, saying that they had all the voices they needed. Then Spencer died, and sound man Treg Brown took charge of cartoon voices, while Carl Stalling took over as music director. Brown introduced Blanc to animation directors Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, and Frank Tashlin, who loved his voices. The first cartoon Blanc worked on was Picador Porky as the voice of a drunken bull. He took over as Porky Pig's voice in Porky's Duck Hunt, which marked the debut of Daffy Duck, also voiced by Blanc.

Blanc soon became noted for voicing a wide variety of cartoon characters, adding Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, Pepé Le Pew and many others. His natural voice was that of Sylvester the Cat, but without the lispy spray. (Blanc's voice can be heard in an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies that also featured frequent Blanc vocal foil Bea Benaderet; in his small appearance, Blanc plays a vexed cab-driver.)

In his later years, Blanc claimed that a handful of late 1930s and early 1940s Warner cartoons that each featured a rabbit clearly a precursor of Bugs Bunny all actually dealt with a single character named Happy Rabbit. No use of this name by other Termite Terrace personnel, then or later, has ever been documented, however. Happy Rabbit was noted for his laugh which became more famous as the laugh of Woody Woodpecker which Blanc was the original voice of until he won an exclusive contract with Warner Bros. which meant he couldn't do Woody's voice anymore as the Woody Woodpecker cartoons were produced by Walter Lantz Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures. Blanc later recorded "The Woody Woodpecker Song" for Capitol Records.

Though his best-known character was a carrot-chomping rabbit, munching on the carrots interrupted the dialogue. Various substitutes, such as celery, were tried, but none of them sounded like a carrot. So for the sake of expedience, he would munch and then spit the carrot bits into a spittoon rather than swallowing them, and continue with the dialogue. One oft-repeated story is that he was allergic to carrots and had to spit them out to minimize any allergic reaction; but his autobiography makes no such claim; in fact, in a 1984 interview with Tim Lawson, co-author of The Magic Behind The Voices: A Who's Who of Cartoon Voice Actors (University Press of Mississippi, 2004), Blanc emphatically denied being allergic to carrots. In a recent Straight Dope column, a Blanc confidante confirmed that Blanc only spit out the carrots because of time constraints, and not because of allergies or general dislike[4].

Blanc said his most challenging job was voicing Yosemite Sam; it was rough on the throat because of Sam’s sheer volume and raspiness. (Foghorn Leghorn's voice was similarly raucous, but to a lesser degree.) Late in life, he reprised several of his classic voices for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but deferred to Joe Alaskey to do Yosemite Sam's and Foghorn Leghorn's voices.

Throughout his career, Blanc was well aware of his talents and protected the rights to them contractually and legally. He, and later his estate, did not hesitate to take civil action when those rights were violated. Voice actors usually got no screen credits at all, but Blanc was a notable exception; by 1944, his contract stipulated a credit reading "Voice characterization by Mel Blanc." Blanc asked for and received this screen credit from studio boss Leon Schlesinger when Leon objected to giving Blanc a raise in pay.[5] Other frequent Warner voice artists, such as Arthur Q. Bryan (Elmer Fudd), Stan Freberg (Pete Puma) among many other characters, June Foray (Granny) and Bea Benaderet (many female voices), remained uncredited on-screen. However, Freberg did receive screen credit for Three Little Bops, a musical spoof of The Three Little Pigs, directed by Friz Freleng. Freberg is a frequent contributor to the various Golden Collection projects that showcase the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Blanc, himself, is often spoken of with reverence by younger voice specialists in those DVD collections.

Blanc's screen credit was noticed by radio show producers, who gave him more radio work as a result. It wouldn't be until the early '60s that the other voice actors and actresses became credited on Warner Brothers theatrical cartoons.

Benny/Bugs crossover

The Warner cartoons were filled with references to the popular media of film and radio, including references to The Jack Benny Program, whose various gags frequently found their way into Warner scripts voiced by Blanc. For example:

  • Bugs was known for repeating Benny's catchphrase, "Now cut that out!"
  • The "Anaheim, Azusa and Cuc...amonga" joke was once used by Daffy Duck in the cartoon Daffy Duck Slept Here.
  • Frank Nelson's "Yeeeeees?" would be invoked by minor characters from time to time.
  • Blanc's imitations of sputtering cars, squawking parrots, whinnying horses, etc., would be invoked frequently in both series.
  • On the March 23, 1954 episode of Benny's radio program, Benny encounters Bugs Bunny in a dream.

The ultimate clash of the mythos occurred with the 1959 release of the Warner Bros. cartoon The Mouse that Jack Built. Directed by Robert McKimson, the cartoon features the cast of the Benny radio and TV program drawn as mice. Blanc was credited as the voice of the Maxwell, and besides Benny, co-stars Mary Livingstone, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, and Don Wilson all reprised their Benny show roles.

Car accident and aftermath

On January 24, 1961, Blanc was involved in a near-fatal car accident on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Hit head-on, Blanc suffered a triple skull fracture that left him in a coma for three weeks, along with fractures of both legs and the pelvis.

The accident prompted over 15,000 get-well cards from anxious fans, including some addressed only to "Bugs Bunny, Hollywood, USA", according to Blanc's autobiography. One newspaper falsely reported that he had died. After his recovery, Blanc reported in TV interviews, and later in his autobiography, that a clever doctor had helped him to come out of his coma by talking to him as Bugs Bunny, after futile efforts to talk directly to Blanc. Although he had no actual recollection of this, Blanc's wife and son swore to him that when the doctor was inspired to ask him, "How are you today, Bugs Bunny?", Blanc answered in Bugs' voice. Blanc thus credited Bugs with saving his life.[6]

Blanc returned home from the UCLA Medical Center on March 17 to the cheers of more than 150 friends and neighbors. On March 22, he filed a US$500,000 lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles. His accident, one of 26 in the preceding two years at the intersection, resulted in the city funding restructuring curves at the location.

Years later, Blanc revealed that during his recovery, his son Noel "ghosted" several Warner Brothers cartoons' voice tracks for him. At the time of the accident, Blanc also served as the voice of Barney Rubble on ABC's The Flintstones. His absence from the show would be relatively brief; Daws Butler provided the voice of Rubble for a few episodes, after which the show's producers set up recording equipment in Blanc's house to allow him to work from his residence. He also returned to The Jack Benny Program to film the program's 1961 Christmas show, moving around via crutches and/or a wheelchair.

Voice work for Hanna-Barbera and others

In the early 1960s, after the expiration of his exclusive contract with Warner Brothers, Blanc went to Hanna-Barbera and continued to voice various characters, his most famous being Barney Rubble from The Flintstones (whose dopey laugh is similar to Foghorn Leghorn's booming chuckle) and Mr. Spacely from The Jetsons (similar to Yosemite Sam, but not as raucous). Daws Butler and Don Messick were Hanna-Barbera's top voice men, while Blanc was the newcomer, but with all of the 1930s and 1940s Warner Brothers theatrical cartoons appearing on Saturday morning TV to compete with the made-for-TV Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Blanc was again deemed relevant.

Blanc did these voices, plus others for such ensemble cartoons as Wacky Races and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop for Hanna-Barbera. Blanc shared the spotlight with his two professional rivals and personal friends, Butler and Messick: In a short called Lippy the Lion, Butler was Lippy, while Blanc was his hyena sidekick, Hardy Har-Har. In the short Ricochet Rabbit, Messick was the voice of the gunslinging rabbit, while Blanc was his sidekick, Deputy Droop-a-Long Coyote.

Blanc also worked with Chuck Jones, who by this time was directing shorts with his own company Sib Tower 12 (later MGM Animation), doing vocal effects in the Tom and Jerry series from 1962 to 1967.

In addition, Blanc was the first person to play Toucan Sam in Froot Loops commercials, using a slightly cartoonish version of his natural voice. (The ad agency later decided to give Sam an upper-crust English accent and replaced Blanc with Paul Frees.)

Blanc reprised some of his Warner Brothers characters when the studio contracted to make new theatrical cartoons in the mid-to-late 1960s. For these, Blanc voiced Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales, the characters who received the most frequent use in these shorts (later, newly introduced characters such as Cool Cat and Merlin the Magic Mouse were voiced by Larry Storch). Blanc also continued to voice the Looney Tunes characters on the bridging sequences for The Bugs Bunny Show and in numerous animated advertisements.

Later career and death

Contrary to popular belief, Blanc was not one of hundreds of individuals that George Lucas auditioned to provide the voice for the character of C-3PO for his 1977 film Star Wars. That distinction instead fell to fellow voice actor Stan Freberg, and it was Freberg who ultimately suggested that the producers use mime actor Anthony Daniels' own voice in the role.[7]

After spending most of two seasons voicing the robot Twiki in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Blanc's last original character, in the early 1980s, was Heathcliff, who spoke a little like Bugs Bunny but with a more street-tough demeanor. Blanc continued to voice his famous characters in commercials and TV specials for most of the decade, although he increasingly left the "yelling" characters like Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn and the Tasmanian Devil to other voice actors, as performing these were too hard on his throat and voice by the time of his old age in the 1980s. One of his last recording sessions was for a new animated theatrical version of The Jetsons.[8]

Mel Blanc's gravesite marker.

Blanc died on July 10, 1989 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California of heart disease and emphysema. [9] He was interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California. Blanc's will stated his desire to have the inscription on his gravestone read, "THAT'S ALL FOLKS."[10]

That range was partially aided by recording technology; for instance, Blanc's standard Daffy Duck voice is essentially his Sylvester voice played a few percent faster than it was recorded to give it a higher pitch, as well as pronouncing "s" with a "th" sound.[11] Blanc would later develop the skill to reproduce such "sped-up" voices himself live as necessary. Other Blanc character voices that were given this special treatment included Porky Pig, Henery Hawk, and Speedy Gonzales.

After his death, Blanc's voice continued to be heard in newly released properties. In particular, a recording of his Dino the Dinosaur from the 1960s Flintstones series was used without a screen credit in the 1994 live-action theatrical film based upon the series. This resulted in legal action against the film studio by the Blanc estate, which claimed his recordings were used without permission or proper credit. The credit was later added to the home release of the movie. Less problematic was the retention of older recordings of Blanc as Uncle Orville and a pet bird in the 1994 update of the Carousel of Progress attraction at Walt Disney World, despite cast changes in other roles. Blanc's distinctive voice can still be heard in the Audio-Animatronic presentation.

Children

Blanc trained his son, Noel, in the field of voice characterization. While the younger Blanc has performed his father's characters (particularly Porky Pig) on some programs, he has chosen not to become a full-time voice artist. Noel appeared in the booth as a celebrity guest for the 2002 and 2003 Chevrolet Monte Carlo 400 NASCAR Races featuring the Looney Tunes characters in themed paint schemes for Chevrolet drivers and did the voices of the characters. Noel is a regular featured guest on radio shows throughout the United States and Canada.

Noel's wife, Katherine Blanc, is an artist and book author.

Animation records

Mel Blanc holds a few very important records in the field of animation (none of which are currently recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records), the most famous being, of course, the "1000 Voices" he was said to have performed. Not as notable are two records of longevity: his original characterization of Daffy Duck (for over 52 years) is the longest time any animated character has been performed by his or her original voice contributor. He also voiced Porky Pig for exactly the same amount of time as Daffy — since the same cartoon (Porky's Duck Hunt) — through to his death, though Porky was not originally voiced by Blanc. Blanc was also the original voice of almost every character he voiced, leaving him as the clear runaway for the record of "Most Characters Originally Voiced By One Actor," and he almost certainly provided voices in more cartoons than any other voice actor. And to top that off, he is runner-up to his own 52-year record of his original characterization of Daffy, by voicing Bugs Bunny for almost 49 years from the date of his debut (July 27, 1940). In third place is Clarence Nash who voiced Donald Duck for 48 and a half years.

List of cartoon characters

Besides these, Blanc also voiced many minor and one time characters and animal sound effect roles.

List of noteworthy radio characters

Besides voicing characters on his own radio show (which ran from 1946–47) Blanc was a regular on such comedy classics as The Jack Benny Show, Burns & Allen, and Abbott & Costello, providing both voices and sound effects ranging from people to animals to backfiring cars.

  • The Happy Postman (Burns & Allen)
  • Professor LeBlanc (The Jack Benny Program)
  • Mr. Technicolovich (Abbott & Costello)
  • Sy the Mexican (Jack Benny, radio & TV)
  • Himself (The Mel Blanc Show)
  • Zookie (The Mel Blanc Show)
  • Polly the Parrot (The Jack Benny Program)
  • Carmichael the Polar Bear (The Jack Benny Program)
  • Train Station Announcer (The Jack Benny Program; "Train leaving on Track Five for Ana-heim, A-zuza, and Cuc-a-monga!!")
  • Christmas sales clerk (The Jack Benny Program; in most holiday episodes of the radio and TV version, Blanc would appear as a sales clerk in a department store who's driven insane by Jack's style of shopping and returning gifts.)

Other credits

  • Mel Blanc was hired to perform the voice of Gideon the Cat in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. However, it was eventually decided for Gideon to be mute (just like Dopey, whose whimsical, Harpo Marx-style persona made him one of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' most comic and popular characters), and all of Blanc's recorded dialogue in this film had been deleted, save for one military hiccup, which was heard three times in the film (he was still paid for all of the unused dialogue so if you consider his salary against the actual used "hiccup", he holds the record for highest paid—per word—voice-over actor). This and Who Framed Roger Rabbit are the only known work he ever did for Disney animation. He was, however, heard on occasional radio projects featuring Disney characters, such as The Mickey Mouse Theater of the Air.
  • In 1949, Mel appeared in the film Neptune's Daughter with Esther Williams, Red Skelton and Ricardo Montalban.
  • Blanc was one of three regular panelists in the 1955 game show Musical Chairs. Occasionally, he was asked to sing in the style of a popular singer.
  • Blanc once called into the game show Press Your Luck during the end credits when host Peter Tomarken mistakenly gave the answer to the question "Which cartoon character uses the phrase 'Sufferin' succotash'?" as Daffy Duck. Blanc informed him that the correct answer was Sylvester. (In reality, both characters have used the phrase, although it is more commonly associated with Sylvester.) Blanc spoke to Tomarken in Sylvester's voice to explain the error, as well in the voices of Speedy Gonzales and Porky Pig. Tomarken apologized for the error and promised that all three contestants would be allowed to return to play the game again.
  • Blanc was the voice of Bob and Doug McKenzie's father in the movie Strange Brew.
  • In 1971, he appeared as himself in one of the American Express "Do you know me?" credit card TV commercials. The ad campaign centered on famous people whose faces were nonetheless usually not recognized by the public.
  • Blanc appeared in a public service announcement for the Shriners Burns Institute on the dangers of burns on children.
  • He also provided the voice of Quintro the Puppet in Snow White and the Three Stooges.
  • Blanc did virtually all of his famous Looney Tunes characters' voices in NFL Films' The Son of Football Follies
  • In addition to hundreds of credited vocal roles, Blanc also provided many brief incidental voices and vocal effects for TV sitcoms, almost never receiving screen credit. Two noted examples were regularly providing the voice of the raven cuckoo clock in The Munsters' and voicing a parrot (who even spoke in the courtroom) in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Perjured Parrot."
  • In his autobiography, That's Not All, Folks!, Blanc confessed to a minor bit of deception regarding his nickname, "The Man of a Thousand Voices," stating that by his estimate, he had provided only 850 voices.[6]
  • Blanc performed his Speedy Gonzales character in Pat Boone's 1962 hit record of "Speedy Gonzales".
  • Blanc also made many records for Capitol Records, including his Warner Brothers characters and such other characters as Woody Woodpecker, with his most famous Capitol album being Party Panic and in 1950 had a hit single (also in the UK) as Sylvester and Tweety-Pie in "I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat". He also performed on records with other artists including Spike Jones and His City Slickers and The Sportsmen.
  • During 1977–1978, Blanc was an active CB Radio operator. He often used the CB handles Bugs or Daffy and talked over the air in the Los Angeles area using his many voices. He appeared in an interview with clips of him having fun talking to children on his home CB radio station in the NBC Knowledge Series television episode about CB radio in 1978.
  • He was also the voice of the cuckoo & the parrot in the Coco Wheats Commercials
  • Blanc's voice over sound effects were used in many animated films such as Paramount's Gulliver's Travels (as an uncredited voice over as King Bombo's shout of joy) to animated shorts from The Pink Panther to most recently in Jetix'a "Pucca", in Gremlins 2 The New Batch some of the gremlin laughter and their hiccups were recycled from his recordings, also several monster growls and his bird screeches were also frequently used in several films and animation.

Homages and tributes

  • In the Porky Pig short Curtain Razor, Mel Blanc appears as a turtle doing only 999 voices out of a claimed one thousand (he actually does only about 7 distinct voices here, which were edited into a rapid-fire montage of short sound bites, thus giving the impression of more voices). The clip was shown by Turner Network Television out of context as a tribute when Blanc died.
  • In the Frasier episode 'HAM Radio', a voice actor of many voices is named Mel White, a homage to Mel Blanc. In French, blanc, the way the famous voice actor preferred to spell his surname, means white.
  • In the 1944 Warner's cartoon Russian Rhapsody (directed by Bob Clampett), Blanc appears as one of the gremlins (the one sawing around Henry Binder's hair) who are sabotaging Adolf Hitler's plane. The other gremlins are other members of the Warners' staff, including Binder, Leon Schlesinger, and Friz Freleng.
  • A well-known lithograph was made in his honor. It shows Looney Tunes characters Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig, Pepé Le Pew, Sylvester, Tweety Bird, and Speedy Gonzales with their heads bowed in reverence, standing around a lone microphone with a spotlight shining on it.[12] The simple inscription on the print reads: "Speechless." According to Warner Bros., it is the highest selling piece of animation art ever produced. The picture was also made into an animated picture, with sound and changing scenes, and sold in the now-defunct Warner Brothers chain of retail stores.
  • In the The Office episode "Take Your Daughter to Work Day," boss Michael Scott acts out Blanc's "Cucamonga" bit, even including a pause.[13]
  • In The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne/Batman receives a tip that the Joker's real name is Melvin White. As stated in the aforementioned Frasier scene, Blanc is the French word for White.

Listen to

References

Notes

  1. ^ "Estelle Z. Blanc". Social Security Death Index. http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi?lastname=blanc&firstname=Estelle&nt=exact. Retrieved 2008-11-23. "Estelle Z. Blanc 12 Jul 1910 28 Feb 2003 (V) 90405 (Santa Monica, Los Angeles, CA) (none specified) 551-68-9122 California" 
  2. ^ Mel Blanc's bio at Ochcom.org
  3. ^ Video of Mel and Jack with one version of the Sy The Little Mexican routine
  4. ^ http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2820/did-mel-blanc-hate-carrots "Did Mel Blanc hate carrots?" A Straight Dope column by Science Advisory Board Member Rico November 4, 2008 (accessed November 20, 2008)
  5. ^ New York Times filmography
  6. ^ a b That's Not All, Folks!, 1988, by Mel Blanc and Philip Bashe. Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-39089-5 (softcover), ISBN 0-446-51244-3 (hardcover)
  7. ^ Interview with Mel Blanc's son Noel
  8. ^ Beck, Jerry. The Animated Movie Guide (2005).
  9. ^ "Mel Blanc, Who Provided Voices For 3,000 Cartoons, Is Dead at 81". New York Times. July 11, 1989. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE1D7143EF932A25754C0A96F948260. Retrieved 2008-06-26. "Mel Blanc, the versatile, multi-voiced actor who breathed life into such cartoon characters as Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Pie, Sylvester and the Road Runner, died of heart disease and emphysema yesterday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 81 years old." 
  10. ^ Mel Blanc at Find A Grave.
  11. ^ Barrier, Michael. Audio commentary for The Scarlet Pumpernickel on disc two of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1, citing his interview with Blanc.
  12. ^ The "Speechless" lithograph
  13. ^ "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" at NBC.com

Bibliography

External links

Preceded by
original voice
Voice of Bugs Bunny
July 27, 1940 — July 10, 1989
Succeeded by
Jeff Bergman (impersonator)
Preceded by
original voice
Voice of Barney Rubble
September 30, 1960 — July 10, 1989
Succeeded by
Frank Welker



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