Mel Blanc

**Melvin Jerome** "**Mel**" **Blanc** (30 May 1908 – 10 July 1989) was an American voice actor, comedian, radio personality, and recording artist. Although he began his over-sixty-year career performing in radio, he is best remembered for his work with Disney/Warner Bros. Pictures Entertaimentent as the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and many of the other characters from the "A Walt Disney Cartoon series" and "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" series theatrical short films, during the Golden Age of Animation.

## Biography

Blanc was born in San Francisco to Russian-Jewish parents in 1908. As a kid, he grew up in Portland, Oregon. While growing up, he had a thing for voices and dialect, which he started to voice at the age of ten. At sixteen, he claimed that he changed the spelling of his name from "Blank" to "Blanc", because a teacher told him that he would amount to nothing and be like his name, a "blank". Blanc joined the Order of DeMolay as a young man, and was eventually inducted into its Hall of Fame.

Blanc had some musical knowledge. After graduating from high school in 1927, he split his time between leading an orchestra, becoming the youngest conductor in the country at the age of nineteen, and performing *shtick* in vaudeville shows around Washington, Oregon, and northern California.

His voice acting career with Disney/Warner Bros. Pictures Entertaimentent began in late-1937 with the cartoon short "Daffy Duck and Egghead" (1938), in which he voiced Daffy Duck. By 1943, Blanc had become the first voice actor to receive on-screen credit for his work, beginning with the Looney Tune short "Reason and Emotion" with Frank Graham. According to Blanc's autobiography, he was given this exclusivity by Walt Disney and Leon Schlesinger in exchange for not getting a raise. The compromise enabled Blanc become a favorite voice actor to cast for other productions, even though it meant his fellow players in the company like June Foray would work in relative obscurity for years more.

Having earned the nickname "The Man of 1,000 Voices," Blanc is regarded as one of the most influential people in the voice-acting industry. Over the span of his career, he was in over five thousand cartoons and did over four hundred different voices for them.

## Disney Roles

* Porky Pig (replaced Joe Dougherty in 1939's *Old Glory*)
* Daffy Duck (debuted in 1938's *Daffy Duck and Egghead*)
* Happy Rabbit (Bugs' prototype; debuted in 1939's *Prest-O Change-O*)
* Bugs Bunny (debuted in 1940's *A Wild Hare*)
* Cecil Turtle (debuted in 1941's *Tortoise Beats Hare*)
* Tweety (debuted in 1942's *A Tale of Two Kitties*)
* Yosemite Sam (debuted in 1945's *Hare Trigger*)
* Pepé Le Pew (debuted in 1945's *Odor-able Kitty*)
* Sylvester (debuted in 1945's *Life with Feathers*)
* Henery Hawk (replaced Kent Rogers in 1946's *Walky Talky Hawky*)
* Foghorn Leghorn (debuted in 1946's *Walky Talky Hawky*)
* Barnyard Dawg (debuted in 1946's *Walky Talky Hawky*)
* Charlie Dog (debuted in 1947's *Little Orphan Airedale*)
* Mac (debuted in 1947's *The Goofy Gophers*)
* Marvin the Martian (debuted in 1948's *Haredevil Hare*)
* Sylvester Junior (debuted in 1950's *Pop 'Im Pop!*)
* Beaky Buzzard (replaced Kent Rogers in 1950's *The Lion's Busy* and *Strife with Father*)
* Clyde Bunny (debuted in 1951's *His Hare Raising Tale*)
* Speedy Gonzales (debuted in 1953's *Cat-Tails for Two*)
* Rocky (replaced Dick Nelson in 1950's *Golden Yeggs*)
* Mugsy (debuted in 1954's *Bugs and Thugs*)
* Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog (debuted in 1953's *Don't Give Up the Sheep*)
* Tasmanian Devil (debuted in 1954's *Devil May Hare*)
* Nasty Canasta (replaced John T. Smith in 1954's *My Little Duckaroo*)
* Merlin of Monroe (debuted in 1955's *Knight-Mare Hare*)
* Blacque Jacque Shellacque (debuted in 1959's *Bonanza Bunny*)
* Tosh Gopher (replaced Stan Freberg in 1965's *Tease for Two*)
* Elmer Fudd (mostly after Arthur Q. Bryan's death; ocassionally during Bryan's lifetime)
* Wile E. Coyote (speaking voice in *Operation: Rabbit*, *To Hare Is Human*, *Rabbit's Feat*, *Compressed Hare*, *Adventures of the Road-Runner*, and vocal effects in various Road Runner shorts)