Mel Blanc

Melvin Jerome Blanc, better known as Mel Blanc, (May 30, 1908 - July, 10 1989) was a famous American voice actor for many animation studios, primarily the Warner Brothers and Hanna-Barbera studios.

Early Career
Blanc's ability to create voices for multiple characters first attracted attention when he worked as a voice actor in radio. He was a regular on 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, and Benny's pet polar bear Carmichael. Blanc also appeared on other national radio programs such as Burns and Allen as the Happy Postman, August Moon on Point Sublime, Sad Sack on G.I. Journal, Floyd Munson the barber on The Great Gildersleeve (in the earliest episodes only, relinquishing the role to his cartoon co-star Arthur Q. Bryan), and later played various small parts on Benny's television show. Blanc's most famous role on Benny's TV show, a role which he originated on radio, was as "Sy, the Mexican" in which he spoke one word at a time. The famous 'si-sy-sue' routine was so hilarious that no matter how many times it was performed, the laughter was always there. Another famous Blanc role on Jack's show was the Train Depot announcer who always said the phrase: "Train leaving on Track Five for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga". What made that phrase so funny was the spacing between "Cu.." and "...camonga" -- sometimes minutes would pass while the skit went on, the audience waiting the inevitable conclusion of the word.

Warner Bros.
Mel Blanc joined Leon Schlesinger Studios (the subsidiary of Warner Brothers Pictures which produced animated cartoons) in 1936. He soon became noted for voicing a wide variety of cartoon characters, including Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and many others. His natural voice was that of Sylvester the cat but without the lispy spray (you can hear it in an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies, which also featured frequent Blanc vocal foil Bea Benaderet; in his small appearance, Blanc plays a vexed cab-driver).

Though his best-known character was a carrot-chomping rabbit, Blanc had a severe distaste for carrots. No other vegetable produced the desired crunch, however, so Blanc would chomp a raw carrot, say his lines, and then hawk a mouthful of chewed carrot in a convenient wastebasket. He also once claimed to dislike doing the voice of Yosemite Sam; it was rough on the throat.

Blanc's long association with the theatrical cartoons of Warner Brothers gave him an edge over the made-for-TV voice actors like the two greats Daws Butler and Don Messick. Although Daws and Don both had voice roles in MGM theatrical cartoons {Daws being the southern talking wolf who always whistled and Don at times being "Droopy"}, the two didn't do as many theatricals as Mel.

After Warner
In the early 1960s Mel went to Hanna Barbera and continued to voice various characters, with Barney Rubble from The Flintstones (whose dopey laugh is very similar to Foghorn Leghorn's booming chuckle) and Mr. Spacely from The Jetsons being his most famous. Daws Butler and Don Messick were Hanna-Barbera's top voice men and Mel was the newcomer to H-B. However, all of the 1930s and 190s theatrical cartoons from Warner Brothers were making their way to Saturday morning TV to compete with the made-for-TV Hanna-Barberas and Mel was once more deemed relevant. Warner Bros. then started to make first-run cartoon shorts for TV in the late '60s, mostly shorts consisting of Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales or Tweety and Sylvester. Mel did these voices, plus the ones he did for the ensemble cartoons like The Perils of Penelope Pitstop for Hanna-Barbera. Mel even shared the spotlight with his two rivals and personal friends Daws Butler and Don Messick. In the series "Lippy the Lion", Daws was Lippy while Mel was his side-kick, Hardy Har-Har. In the "Ricochet Rabbit" TV shorts, Don provided the voice of the gunslinging rabbit while Mel was his sidekick, Deputy Droop-a-Long.

List of characters and year he first voiced them

 * Porky Pig (1937, assumed from Joe Dougherty)
 * Daffy Duck (1938)
 * Bugs Bunny (1940)
 * Tweety Bird (1942)
 * The Hep Cat (1942)
 * Pepe Le Pew (1946)
 * Sylvester the Cat (1946) in some films
 * Wile E. Coyote (1947)
 * Foghorn Leghorn (1947)
 * Marvin the Martian (1948)
 * Road Runner (1948)
 * The Tasmanian Devil (1954)
 * Speedy Gonzales (1955)

Reference

 * That's Not All, Folks!, 1989 by Mel Blanc, Philip Bashe. Warner Books, ASIN 0446390895 (Softcover) ASIN 0446512443 (Hardcover)