Arthur Q. Bryan

Arthur Q. Bryan (May 8, 1899 – November 18, 1959) was a United States comedian and voice actor. Bryan was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up with a deep desire to go into show business, he stumbled through the industry for several years before finding steady if unsatisfying work as a bit player and occasional film narrator in Hollywood.

Bryan first came to prominence in his late 20s and 30s as the voice of Egghead and Elmer Fudd at Warner Brothers animation unit, headed by Leon Schlesinger.

Before there was a Bugs or a Daffy, one of Warner's biggest stars (along with Porky Pig, voiced by Mel Blanc) was Bryan's Elmer Fudd. The slow-talking, slower-witted Mr. Fudd is a game hunter whose Brooklynesque speech (courtesy of Bryan's own childhood upbringing in the borough) was exaggerated for memorable effect by his inability to properly enunciate the letters L and R, habitually substituting W for both. This is confirmed by the tongue-in-cheek screen credits in Wabbit Twouble (1941).

When watching him perform, director Bob Clampett thought Bryan's girth added to the hilarity of his dialogue, and redesigned Fudd as a fat man. After a few shorts, Clampett decided it was a mistake, and Fudd returned to his classical form.

Bryan's Fudd was so popular, that the character's shorts were used to create and develop the character of Bugs Bunny, with the first "official" Bugs Bunny appearance coming in the Fudd cartoon, A Wild Hare (1940).

Bryan's work in animation was not left unnoticed by radio producers. Although his first forays into that medium were inevitably accompanied by instructions that he use the Fudd voice, Bryan soon came to the attention of Don Quinn and Phil Leslie, the production team responsible for the Fibber McGee and Molly universe of characters, including such well-remembered creations as Beulah and The Great Gildersleeve.

The onset of World War II and the spin-off of the Gildersleeve character into its own series left Quinn and Leslie short of male vocal talents. Series regular Gale Gordon's departure for the Coast Guard in early 1942 took two more central characters (the town mayor and the local weather forecaster) out of the mix, while the drafting later that year of MGM cartoon voice extraordinaire, Bill Thompson, nabbed nearly every other remaining male voice.

Quinn and Leslie hired Bryan first for the new Great Gildersleeve series, to play the part of one of Gildersleeve's cronies, Floyd Munson the barber (originally played by Mel Blanc, and no relation to the later character of barber Floyd Lawson played by Howard McNear on television's The Andy Griffith Show). His work on the series (in Bryan's natural voice) so impressed the pair that Bryan was added to the cast of their main show, Fibber McGee and Molly, in 1943.

On Fibber, Bryan found himself in the unusual position of being smarter than, more educated than, and generally superior to his foil, the titular Fibber McGee. Playing the town doctor, "old" Doc Gamble, Bryan was in many ways the polar opposite of the Fudd character which had brought him his first acclaim. Well-respected, well-spoken, even-tempered Gamble nearly always got the better of McGee &mdash;something Fudd could never say about Bugs.

Despite his success in voice acting, both on film and over the air, Bryan never had a big break in film, his body of work there remaining mostly uncredited cameos, usually employing the Fudd persona, or minor supporting roles in B-movies. Still, Bryan appeared in dozens of films over the years, in such successful releases as Samson and Delilah (1949); two Bob Hope/Bing Crosby "Road" films, Road to Singapore (1940) and Road to Rio (1947); and the Ozzie and Harriet feature Here Come the Nelsons (1952).

Bryan continued as the Fibber show's secondary male lead, even after the returns of Thompson and Gordon, through its final incarnation on the NBC Monitor series in 1959, as well as on "Gildersleeve" through its conclusion in 1954. Bryan's final original work as Fudd came in the Warner Bros. Edward R. Murrow spoof Person to Bunny (1960). Bryan died of a heart attack in November, 1959. Mel Blanc took over the voice of Elmer Fudd.

The DVD specials for some cartoons such as What's Opera, Doc?, in Looney Tunes Golden Collection, includes bits of conversation between Bryan and Mel Blanc, affording a rare opportunity to hear them working together, and to hear Bryan's natural voice (no trouble with R's and L's).

Trivia
Arthur Q. Bryan served as an air raid warden in Burbank, California, during World War II.