
Mel Blanc
131 Fans
Age
81 (passed away Jul. 10th, 1989)
Birthday
May. 30th, 1908
Born in
San Francisco, California, USA
Height
Guest TV Roles
[none found]Voice specialist from radio, movies and TV rarely seen by his widespread audience. On 1940s radio, for example, his voice supplied the sound effects for the comedian 'Jack Benny's antique "Maxwell" automobile's gasping and wheezing and struggling to crank up. More widely recognized as the voice of virtually every major character in the Warner Bros. cartoon pantheon, including Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety & Sylvester both, Yosemite Sam, et al. Since Blanc's death, his son 'Noel Blanc' has taken up some of his father's mantle.
TRIVIA:
- Only got his start at Warner Brothers after one of their voice actors died.
- Shared first name as well as voice booth time with friend 'Mel Tormé' (qv).
- Played boarder Tiffany Twiggs in the radio series "Major Hoople," which debuted on NBC's Blue Network on June 22, 1942. Based on Gene Ahern's comic strip "Our Boarding House," the radio series starred 'Arthur Q. Bryan' (qv) as Major Hoople and 'Patsy Moran' (qv) as the Major's wife, Martha Hoople, who ran the boarding house (Bryan would later become the voice of Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny's nemesis). The 30-minute program, which aired on Mondays at 7 pm, went off the air on April 26, 1943.
- 1961: He was the voice of Speedy Gonzalez [sic] in the hit record of the same name by 'Pat Boone (I)' (qv). Blanc actually ad-libbed most of his dialogue, since the record was Boone's version of a song recorded by another artist earlier that year, in which the character had very little dialogue.
- While in a coma after a cataclysmic automobile accident, doctors unsuccessfully tried to get Mel to talk. Finally, a doctor, who was also a fan of his cartoon characters, asked Mel, "Bugs? Bugs Bunny? Are you there?" Mel responded, in Bugs Bunny's voice, "What's up, Doc?" After talking with several other characters, they eventually led Mel out of his coma.
- Many of the voices he did for Looney Tunes were sped up after being recorded. Examples are Tweety, Speedy Gonzales, Porky Pig, and Daffy Duck. Porky's voice sounds a little like Bugs' voice before being sped, and Daffy's voice is Sylvester's voice sans the slobbering.
- Biography in Smith, Ronald S., "Who's Who in Comedy," pp. 54-55. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387.
- Blanc legally changed his last name from Blank to Blanc because of a nasty school teacher who used to make fun of it.
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