Mel Blanc


Melvin Jerome Blanc was an American voice actor and radio personality whose career spanned over sixty years. Referred to as "The Man of a Thousand Voices", he is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential voice actors of all time. Blanc is best known for providing voices for Looney Tunes cartoons by Warner Bros. during the golden age of American animation.
Blanc began his career during the Golden Age of Radio when he provided character voices and vocal sound effects for comedy radio programs, including those of Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, The Great Gildersleeve, Judy Canova and his own short-lived sitcom. He later expanded to animation, providing the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Speedy Gonzales, Marvin the Martian, Foghorn Leghorn, the Tasmanian Devil, Pepé Le Pew and numerous other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoons. Blanc also voiced the Looney Tunes characters Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd after replacing their original performers, Joe Dougherty and Arthur Q. Bryan, respectively, although he occasionally voiced Elmer during Bryan's lifetime as well. He later voiced characters for Hanna-Barbera's television cartoons, including: Barney Rubble and Dino on The Flintstones, Mr. Spacely on The Jetsons, Secret Squirrel on The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show, the title character of Speed Buggy, and Captain Caveman on Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels and The Flintstone Kids. He was also the voice of Gideon's hiccups in Pinocchio, his only appearance at Disney. Blanc was also the voice of Woody Woodpecker in the first four animated shorts from 1940 to 1941, his only appearance at Universal Pictures. He also provided the screams for Tom and Jerry in the short films from 1963 to 1967, in just 34 short films directed by Chuck Jones.
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Early life

Blanc was born on May 30, 1908, in San Francisco, California. Blanc's birth name was Melvin Jerome Blank and his Jewish-American parents were Eva and Frederick Blank. He grew up in San Francisco's Western Addition neighborhood, and later in Portland, Oregon, where he attended Lincoln High School. He had an early fondness for voices and dialect, which he began practicing at the age of 10. He claimed that he changed the spelling of his name when he was 16, from Blank to Blanc, because a teacher told him that he would amount to nothing and be like his name, a "blank". He joined the Order of DeMolay as a young man, and was eventually inducted into its Hall of Fame. After graduating from high school in 1927, he divided his time between leading an orchestra, becoming the youngest conductor in the country at the age of 19; and performing shtick in vaudeville shows around Washington, Oregon and northern California.

Career

Radio work

Blanc began his radio career at the age of 19 in 1927, when he made his acting debut on the KGW program The Hoot Owls, where his ability to provide voices for multiple characters first attracted attention. He moved to Los Angeles in 1932, where he met Estelle Rosenbaum, whom he married a year later, before returning to Portland. He moved to KEX in 1933 to produce and co-host his Cobweb and Nuts show with his wife Estelle, which debuted on June 15. The program played Monday through Saturday from 11:00 pm to midnight, and by the time the show ended two years later, it appeared from 10:30 pm to 11:00 pm.With his wife's encouragement, Blanc returned to Los Angeles and joined Warner Bros.–owned KFWB in Hollywood in 1935. He joined The Johnny Murray Show, but the following year switched to CBS Radio and The Joe Penner Show.
Blanc was a regular on the NBC Red Network show The Jack Benny Program in various roles, including voicing Benny's Maxwell automobile, violin teacher Professor LeBlanc, Polly the Parrot, Benny's pet polar bear Carmichael and the train announcer. The first role came from a mishap when the recording of the automobile's sounds failed to play on cue, prompting Blanc to take the microphone and improvise the sounds himself. The audience reacted so positively that Benny decided to dispense with the recording altogether and have Blanc continue in that role. One of Blanc's characters from Benny's radio programs was "Sy, the Little Mexican", who spoke one word at a time. He continued to work with Benny on radio until the series ended in 1955 and followed the program into television from Benny's 1950 debut episode through guest spots on NBC specials in the 1970s.
Radio Daily magazine wrote in 1942 that Blanc "specialize in over fifty-seven voices, dialects, and intricate sound effects", and by 1946, he was appearing on over fifteen programs in various supporting roles. His 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. 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, including G.I. Journal. Blanc recorded a song titled "Big Bear Lake".

Animation voice work during the golden age of Hollywood

In December 1936, Mel Blanc joined Leon Schlesinger Productions, which was producing theatrical cartoon shorts for Warner Bros. After sound man Treg Brown was put in charge of cartoon voices, and Carl Stalling became 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 Porky's drunken friends who dress up as a bull. He soon after received his first starring role when he replaced Joe Dougherty as Porky Pig's voice in Porky's Duck Hunt, which marked the debut of Daffy Duck, also voiced by Blanc.
Following this, Blanc became a very prominent vocal artist for Warner Bros., voicing a wide variety of the Looney Tunes characters. Bugs Bunny, as whom Blanc made his debut in A Wild Hare, was known for eating carrots frequently. To follow this sound with the animated voice, Blanc would bite into a carrot and then quickly spit into a spittoon. One often-repeated story is that Blanc was allergic to carrots, which Blanc denied.
In Disney's Pinocchio, Blanc was hired to perform the voice of Gideon the Cat. However, it was eventually decided to have Gideon be a mute character, so all of Blanc's recorded dialogue was deleted except for a solitary hiccup, which was heard three times in the finished film.
Blanc also originated the voice and laugh of Woody Woodpecker for the theatrical cartoons produced by Walter Lantz for Universal Pictures, but stopped voicing Woody after the character's first four shorts when he was signed to an exclusive contract with Warner Bros. Blanc had recorded some of Woody's lines for Pantry Panic, but had already left the Lantz studio before the short was released, so Danny Webb was hired to finished Woody's remaining lines for that particular short. Despite this, his laugh was still used in the Woody Woodpecker cartoons until 1951, when Grace Stafford recorded a softer version, while his "Guess who!?" signature line was used in the opening titles until the end of the series and closure of Walter Lantz Productions in 1972.
During World War II, Blanc served as the voice of the hapless Private Snafu in a series of shorts produced by Warner Bros. as a way of training recruited soldiers through the medium of animation.
Throughout his career, Blanc, aware of his talents, protected the rights to his voice characterizations contractually and legally. He, and later his estate, never hesitated to take civil action when those rights were violated. Voice actors at the time rarely received screen credits, but Blanc was an exception; by 1944, his contract with Warner Bros. stipulated a credit reading "Voice characterization by Mel Blanc". According to his autobiography, Blanc asked for and received this screen credit from studio boss Leon Schlesinger after he was denied a salary raise. Initially, Blanc's screen credit was limited only to cartoons in which he voiced Bugs Bunny. This changed in March 1945 when the contract was amended to also include a screen credit for cartoons featuring Porky Pig and/or Daffy Duck. This however, excluded any shorts with the two characters made before that amendment occurred, even if they released after the fact. By the end of 1946, Blanc began receiving a screen credit in any subsequent Warner Bros. cartoon for which he provided voices.

Voice work for Hanna-Barbera and others

In 1960, after the expiration of his exclusive contract with Warner Bros., Blanc continued working for them, but also began providing voices for the TV cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera; his roles during this time included Barney Rubble of The Flintstones and Cosmo Spacely of The Jetsons. His other voice roles for Hanna-Barbera included Dino the Dinosaur, Secret Squirrel, Speed Buggy, and Captain Caveman, as well as voices for Wally Gator and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop.
Blanc also worked with former Looney Tunes director Chuck Jones, who by this time was directing shorts with his own company Sib Tower 12, doing vocal effects for the Tom and Jerry series from 1963 to 1967. Blanc was the first voice of Toucan Sam in Froot Loops commercials.
Blanc reprised some of his Warner Bros. characters when the studio contracted him 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. Blanc also continued to voice the Looney Tunes for the bridging sequences of The Bugs Bunny Show, as well as in numerous animated advertisements and several compilation features, such as The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie. He also voiced Granny on Peter Pan Records in 4 More Adventures of Bugs Bunny and Holly-Daze, in place of June Foray, and replaced the late Arthur Q. Bryan as Elmer Fudd's voice during the post-golden age era.

Car accident and aftermath

On January 24, 1961, Blanc was driving alone when his sports car was involved in a head-on collision on Sunset Boulevard; his legs and his pelvis were fractured as a result. He was in a coma and completely non-responsive. About two weeks later, one of Blanc's neurologists at the UCLA Medical Center tried a different approach than just trying to address the unconscious Blanc—address his characters instead. Blanc was asked, "How are you feeling today, Bugs Bunny?" After a slight pause, Blanc answered, in a weak voice, "Eh ... just fine, Doc. How are you?" The doctor then asked Tweety if he was there, too. "I tawt I taw a puddy tat", was the reply. Blanc returned home on March 17. Four days later, Blanc 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 known as Dead Man's Curve, resulted in the city funding the restructuring of curves at the location.
Years later, Blanc's son Noel revealed that he performed some of his father's Warner Bros. characters for some cartoons during his recovery. Warner Bros. had also asked Stan Freberg to provide the voices for Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig, but Freberg declined, out of respect for Blanc. Jerry Hausner briefly filled in for Blanc as Bugs and Yosemite Sam for some commercials and spots for The Bugs Bunny Show and additional lines in Devil's Feud Cake. At the time of the accident, Blanc was also serving as the voice of Barney Rubble in The Flintstones. His absence from the show was relatively brief; Daws Butler provided the voice of Barney for a few episodes, after which the show's producers set up recording equipment in Blanc's hospital room and later at his home to allow him to work from there. Some of the recordings were made while he was in full-body cast as he lay flat on his back with the other Flintstones co-stars gathered around him. Unknown people would arrive at Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera and say that they could do Blanc's character voices, but ended up being dismissed. He returned to The Jack Benny Program to film the program's 1961 Christmas show, moving around by crutches and a wheelchair.

Later years

On January 29, 1962, Mel and his son Noel formed Blanc Communications Corporation, a media company which produced over 5,000 commercials and public service announcements, which remains in operation. Mel and Noel appeared with many stars, including: Kirk Douglas, Lucille Ball, Vincent Price, Phyllis Diller, Liberace and The Who.
In the 1970s, Blanc gave a series of college lectures across the US and appeared in commercials for American Express. In 1972, Chuck McKibben started working as Blanc's personal recording engineer/producer and studio manager. His daily responsibilities at Mel Blanc Audiomedia in Beverly Hills, California included recording Blanc's voice for a variety of film, advertising and theme park projects. In 1982, Mel's production company, Blanc Communications Corporation, collaborated on a special with the Boston-based Shriners' Burns Institute called Ounce of Prevention, which became a 30-minute TV special.
Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, Blanc performed his Looney Tunes characters for bridging sequences in various compilation films of Golden Age-era Warner Bros. cartoons, such as: The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales, Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island and Daffy Duck's Quackbusters. His final performance of his Looney Tunes roles was in Bugs Bunny's Wild World of Sports. After spending most of two seasons voicing the diminutive robot Twiki in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Blanc's last major original character was Heathcliff, who he voiced from 1980 to 1988.
In the live-action film Strange Brew, Blanc voiced the father of Bob and Doug McKenzie, at the request of comedian Rick Moranis. In the live-action/animated movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Blanc reprised several of his roles from Warner Bros. cartoons, but left Yosemite Sam to Joe Alaskey. The film was one of the few Disney projects in which Blanc was involved. Blanc died just a year after the film's release. His final recording session was for Jetsons: The Movie.

Personal life

Blanc and his wife Estelle Rosenbaum were married on January 4, 1933, and remained married until his death in 1989. Their son, Noel Blanc, was also a voice actor.
Blanc was a Freemason as a member of Mid Day Lodge No. 188 in Portland, Oregon. He held membership at the lodge for 58 years. Blanc was also a Shriner.

Death

Blanc began smoking at least one pack of cigarettes per day at the age of nine and continued up through 1985, having quit smoking after being diagnosed with emphysema. He was later diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, after his family checked him into the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on May 19, 1989 when they noticed he had been coughing profusely while shooting an Oldsmobile commercial. He was originally expected to recover, but after his health had worsened, doctors discovered that he had advanced coronary artery disease. He also fell from his bed and broke his femur during the stay.
Blanc died at the age of 81 from complications related to both illnesses on July 10, 1989, at 2:30 pm, nearly two months after being admitted into the hospital. He is interred in Hollywood Forever Cemetery section 13, Pinewood section, plot No. 149 in Hollywood. His will specified that his memorial marker read ""—the phrase with which Blanc's character, Porky Pig, concluded Warner Bros. cartoons from 1937 to 1946.

Legacy

Blanc is regarded as the most prolific voice actor in entertainment history. He was the first voice actor to receive on-screen credit.
Blanc's death was considered a significant loss to the cartoon industry because of his skill, expressive range, and the sheer number of the continuing characters he portrayed, whose roles were subsequently assumed by several other voice talents. As film critic Leonard Maltin observed, "It is astounding to realize that Tweety Bird and Yosemite Sam are the same man!" Darrell Van Citters drew a lithograph titled "Speechless" in tribute to Blanc, which showed a spotlight on a microphone while the Looney Tunes characters somberly bowed their heads in a moment of silence.
Blanc said that Sylvester the Cat was the easiest character for him to voice, because " just my normal speaking voice with a spray at the end"; and that Yosemite Sam was the hardest, because of his loudness and raspiness. A doctor who examined Blanc's throat found that he possessed unusually thick, powerful vocal cords that gave him an exceptional range, and compared them to those of opera singer Enrico Caruso.
After his death, Blanc's voice continued to be heard in newly released productions, such as recordings of Dino the Dinosaur in the live-action films The Flintstones and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. Similarly, recordings of Blanc as Jack Benny's Maxwell were featured in Looney Tunes: Back in Action. In 1994, the Blanc estate and Warner Bros. created the Warner-Blanc Audio Library, consisting of 550 songs and voices of Blanc's Looney Tunes characters, which he had begun setting down at his multi-track studio in 1958. 15 hours of new tapes of Mel's material were discovered in 1996. Noel Blanc stated that they could also rearrange "syllables" of the new recordings to create custom dialogue for the characters. These recordings were also used for toys, watches, video games, commercials, and websites. Later archive recordings of Blanc were featured in computer-generated imagery-animated Looney Tunes theatrical shorts; I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat and Daffy's Rhapsody.
For his contributions to the radio industry, Blanc has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6385 Hollywood Boulevard. His character Bugs Bunny was also awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on December 10, 1985.
Blanc trained his son Noel in the field of voice characterization. Noel performed his father's characters on some programs, but did not become a full-time voice artist. Warner Bros. expressed reluctance to have a single voice actor succeed Blanc, and employed multiple new voice actors to fill the roles since the 1990s, including Noel Blanc, Jeff Bergman, Joe Alaskey, Greg Burson, Bob Bergen, Billy West and Eric Bauza.
On September 19, 2017, publisher Penguin Random House released the picture book Melvin the Mouth, written by Mel's daughter-in-law Katherine Blanc and illustrated by Jeffrey Ebbeler. The book follows the daily life of Blanc during his childhood, in which he makes his comical noises and sound effects. An audiobook adaptation was released on December 15, 2017, narrated by Ramón De Ocampo.

Filmography

Discography

  • Yah, Das Ist Ein Christmas Tree and I Tan't Wait Til Quithmuth Day
  • Clink, Clink, Another Drink as Drunk
  • Bugs Bunny Stories for Children as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, additional voices
  • The Woody Woodpecker Song as Woody Woodpecker
  • Bugs Bunny and the Tortoise as Bugs Bunny, Cecil Turtle, Daffy Duck, Henery Hawk, additional voices
  • That's All Folks! as Porky Pig
  • Won't You Ever Get Together With Me as Tweety, Sylvester
  • Bugs Bunny in Storyland as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Beaky Buzzard, Old King Cole, Fiddlers Three, Mary's Lamb, Bo Peep's Sheep, Big Bad Wolf
  • "Clink, Clink, Another Drink", sings the bridge and hiccups
  • Woody Woodpecker and His Talent Show as Woody Woodpecker, Stanley Squirrel, Billy Goat, Plato Platypus, Fido, Happy Hedgehog, Harry Humbug
  • Bugs Bunny Sings with Daffy Duck, Tweety Pie, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Tweety, Sylvester
  • Bugs Bunny Meets Hiawatha as Bugs Bunny
  • Daffy Duck Meets Yosemite Sam as Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam
  • Tweety Pie as Tweety, Sylvester
  • Woody Woodpecker's Picnic as Woody Woodpecker, Tommy Turtle, English Bulldog, German Shepherd, Irish Setter, Scotty
  • Henery Hawk as Henery Hawk, Foghorn Leghorn, Daffy Duck
  • Tweety's Puddy Tat Twouble as Tweety, Sylvester
  • Tweet, Tweet, Tweety as Tweety, Sylvester
  • Bugs Bunny and the Grow-Small Juice as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck
  • Henery Hawk's Chicken Hunt as Henery Hawk, Foghorn Leghorn, additional voices
  • Bugs Bunny and Aladdin's Lamp as Bugs Bunny, Genie
  • Woody Woodpecker and the Scarecrow as Woody Woodpecker, additional voices
  • Daffy Duck's Feathered Friend as Daffy Duck
  • Sylvester and Hippety Hopper as Sylvester, Sylvester Jr., additional voices
  • Woody Woodpecker and the Animal Crackers as Woody Woodpecker, additional voices
  • Woody Woodpecker and the Lost Monkey as Woody Woodpecker, additional voices
  • Bugs Bunny and Rabbit Seasoning as Bugs Bunny
  • Snowbound Tweety as Tweety, Sylvester
  • Woody Woodpecker and His Spaceship as Woody Woodpecker, additional voices
  • Wild West Henery Hawk as Henery Hawk, Foghorn Leghorn, additional voices
  • Pied Piper Pussycat as Sylvester, additional voices
  • Daffy Duck's Duck Inn as Daffy Duck, Dog
  • Bugs Bunny and the Pirate as Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam
  • Woody Woodpecker and the Truth Tonic as Woody Woodpecker, additional voices
  • Tweety's Good Deed as Tweety, Sylvester, additional voices
  • Woody Woodpecker's Fairy Godmother as Woody Woodpecker, additional voices
  • Woody Woodpecker in Mixed-Up Land as Woody Woodpecker, additional voices
  • Woody Woodpecker Meets Davy Crockett as Woody Woodpecker, additional voices
  • Woody Woodpecker's Family Album as Pepito, sailor, Malamute, Andy Panda, Fluten Bluten, Heinie the Hyena, Homer Pigeon, Cuckoo, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
  • "There's a Hole in the Iron Curtain"
  • Bugs Bunny Songfest as Bugs Bunny, Sylvester, Tweety, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Henery Hawk, Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Hippety Hopper, Foghorn Leghorn, Cicero Pig
  • Speedy Gonzales as Speedy Gonzales
  • Magilla Gorilla and His Pals as Droop-A-Long
  • The Flintstones: Flip Fables as Barney Rubble, Chubby, Tubby, Stubby, Landlord, Beowolfe
  • The Flintstones: Hansel and Gretel as Barney Rubble, Hansel, Gretel, Strudelmeyer, Fang, Witch, Reporter
  • Treasure Island Starring Sinbad, Jr. as Salty
  • Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole in: Super Spy as Secret Squirrel, Tyrone
  • The New Alice in Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This? as Barney Rubble, March Hare, Prosecuting Attorney/King's Son
  • The Flintstones Meet the Orchestra Family as Barney Rubble
  • The New Adventures of Bugs Bunny as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Petunia Pig, Speedy Gonzales, Pablo, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, additional voices
  • Four More Adventures of Bugs Bunny as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Petunia Pig, Speedy Gonzales, Tweety, Sylvester, Granny, Road Runner, additional voices
  • Holly Daze as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Speedy Gonzales, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Granny, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Sylvester, Junior, Santa Claus, narrator, Radio Announcer
  • Bugs Bunny Goes To Sea as Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, additional voices
  • The Desert Island as Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam
  • Looney Tales as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Tweety, Sylvester, Granny, additional voices
  • Looney Tunes Learn About Numbers as Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, additional voices
  • Looney Tunes Learn About The Alphabet as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, additional voices
  • Looney Tunes Learn About Going To School as Bugs Bunny, Sylvester, Sylvester Jr., Tweety, additional voices
  • Looney Tunes Learn About Sing-Along Songs as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety, Sylvester, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, additional voices
  • Looney Tunes Learn About Colors as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, additional voices
  • Looney Tunes Learn About Shapes and Sizes as Bugs Bunny, Cecil Turtle, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, additional voices
  • Space Jam: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture as Porky Pig