Robert Emerson "Bob" Clampett (May 8, 1913 – May 2, 1984) was an American animator, producer, director, and puppeteer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes animated series from Warner Bros., and the television shows Time for Beany and Beany and Cecil. Clampett was born and raised not far from Hollywood, and early on expressed an interest in animation and puppetry. After leaving high school a few months shy of graduating in 1931, Clampett joined the team at Harman-Ising Productions and began working on the studio's newest short subjects, titled Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.

Clampett was promoted to a directorial position in 1937 and during his fifteen years at the studio, directed 84 cartoons later deemed classic and designed some of the studio's most famous characters, including Porky Pig and Tweety. Among Clampett's most acclaimed films are Porky in Wackyland (1938), Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943) and The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946). Clampett left Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1946 and turned his attention to television, creating the famous puppet show Time for Beany in 1949. A later animated version of the series, titled Beany and Cecil, ran on ABC for five years beginning in 1962.

In his later years, Bob Clampett toured college campuses and animation festivals as a lecturer on the history of animation. Clampett died of a heart attack in Detroit, Michigan on May 2, 1984. After his death, he was criticized by many peers at Warner Bros. with accusations of egotism and plagiarism, with many notable figures, including Chuck Jones and Mel Blanc, expressing a general dislike for Clampett. Despite this, his Warner cartoons have seen renewed praise in decades since for their surrealistic qualities, energetic and outrageous animation, and irreverent humor. Animation historian Jerry Beck lauded Clampett for "putting the word 'looney' in Looney Tunes."

Early life[link]

Robert Emerson "Bob" Clampett was born in San Diego, California on May 8, 1913. Clampett was displaying extraordinary art skills by the age of five.^[1] From the beginning, Clampett was intrigued with and influenced by Douglas Fairbanks, Lon Chaney, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and he began making film short-subjects in his garage beginning when he was twelve.^[2] While living in Hollywood as a young boy, Clampett and his mother Joan lived next door to Charlie Chaplin and his brother Syd. Clampett also recalled watching his father play handball at the Los Angeles Athletic Club with another of the great silent comedians, Harold Lloyd. From his early teens Clampett showed an interest in animation and puppetry. Clampett made hand puppets as a child, and before adolescence had completed what animation historian Milt Gray describes as "a sort of prototype, a kind of nondescript dinosaur sock puppet that later evolved into Cecil." In high school, Clampett drew a full-page comic about the nocturnal adventures of a pussycat, later published in color in a Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times. King Features took note and offered Clampett a "cartoonist's contract" to begin a seventy-five dollars a week after high school. King Features allowed Clampett to work in their Los Angeles art department on Saturdays and vacations during high school. On occasion, King Features would print one of Clampett's cartoons for encouragement. In addition, they paid his way through Otis Art Institute, where Clampett learned to paint with oils and to sculpt.^[3]

Clampett attended both Glendale High School and Hoover High School in Glendale California but left Hoover a few months short of graduating in 1931. Afterwards, Clampett got a job working at a doll factory owned by his aunt, Charlotte Clark. Clark was looking for an appealing item to sell and Clampett suggested Mickey Mouse due to growing popularity. Unable to find a drawing of the character anywhere, Clampett took his sketchpad to the movies and came out with several sketches. Clark was concerned with the copyright, so the two drove to the Disney studio. Walt and Roy Disney were delighted and they set up a business not far from the Disney studio. Clampett recalled his short time working for Disney: "Walt Disney himself sometimes came over in an old car to pick up the dolls; he would give them out to visitors to the studio and at sales meetings. I helped him load the dolls in the car. One time his car, loaded with Mickeys, wouldn't start, and I pushed while Walt steered, until it caught, and he took off."^[3]

Career[link]

[edit] Looney Tunes

Clampett was, in his words, so "enchanted" by the new medium of sound cartoons that he instead joined Harman-Ising Studios in 1931 for ten dollars a week. Schlesinger viewed one of Clampett's 16mm films and was impressed, offering him an assistant position at the studio.^[2] His first job was animating secondary characters in the first Merrie Melodie, Lady, Play Your Mandolin! (1931). The same year, Clampett began attending story meetings after submitting an idea eventually used for Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!. The two series were produced at Harman-Ising until mid-1933 when they split into Leon Schlesinger Productions. In his first years at the studio, Clampett mostly worked for Friz Freleng, under whose guidance Clampett grew into an able animator.^[3] When he joined Harman-Ising, Bob Clampett was only 17 years old.^[1]

By 1934, Schlesinger was in a bit of a crisis trying to find a well-known cartoon character. He noted that the Our Gang series consisted of nothing but "little kids doing things together," and a studio-wide drive to get ideas for an animal version of Our Gang commenced. Clampett submitted a drawing of a pig (Porky) and a black cat (Beans), and, in an imitation of the lettering on a can of Campbell's Pork and Beans, wrote "Clampett's Porky and Beans." Porky debuted in the Friz Freleng-directed I Haven't Got a Hat in 1935. Around the same time, Schlesinger announced a studio-wide contest, with a money prize to whichever member of the staff turned in the best original story. Clampett's story won first prize was made into My Green Fedora, also directed by Freleng.^[3]

Clampett felt encouraged after these successes, and began writing in more story contributions. After Schlesinger realized he needed another unit, he made a deal with Tex Avery, naming Clampett his collaborator. They were moved to a ramshackle building used by gardeners and WB custodial staff for storage of cleaning supplies, solvents, brooms, lawnmowers and other implements.^[2] Working apart from the other animators in the small, dilapidated wooden building in the middle of the Vitaphone lot, Avery and Clampett soon discovered they were not the only inhabitants - they shared the building with thousands of tiny termites. They christened the building "Termite Terrace", a name eventually used by fans and historians to describe the entire studio. The two soon developed an irreverent style of animation that would set Warner Bros. apart from its competitors.^[1] They were soon joined by animators Chuck Jones, Virgil Ross, and Sid Sutherland, and worked virtually without interference on their new, groundbreaking style of humor for the next year. It was a wild place with an almost college fraternity-like atmosphere. Animators would frequently pull pranks such as gluing paper streamers to the wings of flies. Leon Schlesinger, who rarely ventured there, was reputed on one visit to have remarked in his lisping voice, "Pew, let me out of here! The only thing missing is the sound of a flushing toilet!!"

On the side, Clampett directed a sales film, co-animated by Chuck Jones and in-betweened by Robert Cannon. Clampett filmed Cannon in live action as the hero and rotoscoped it into the film. Clampett planned to leave Leon Schlesinger Productions, but Schlesinger offered him a promotion to director and more money if he would stay. Clampett was promoted to director in late 1936, directing a color sequence in the feature When's Your Birthday? (1937). This led to what was essentially a co-directing stint with fellow animator Chuck Jones for the financially ailing Ub Iwerks, whom Schlesinger subcontracted to produce several Porky Pig shorts. These shorts featured the short-lived and generally unpopular Gabby Goat as Porky's sidekick. Despite Clampett and Jones' contributions, however, Iwerks was the only credited director. Clampett's first cartoon with a directorial credit was Porky's Badtime Story. Under the Warner system, Clampett had complete creative control over his own films, within severe money and time limitations (he was only given $3,000 and four weeks to complete each short).^[3] During production of Porky's Duck Hunt in 1937, Avery created a character that would become Daffy Duck and Clampett animated the character for the first time.^[3]

'Booby Traps', Private Snafu short directed by Bob Clampett in 1944

Clampett was so popular in theaters that Schlesinger told the other directors to imitate him, emphasizing gags and action.^[1] When Tex Avery departed in 1941, Avery's unit was taken over by Clampett, while Norman McCabe took over Clampett's old unit. Clampett finished Avery's remaining unfinished cartoons. When McCabe joined the armed forces, Frank Tashlin rejoined Schlesinger as director, and that unit was eventually turned over to Robert McKimson. Milton Gray notes that from The Hep Cat (1942) on, the cartoons become even more wild as Clampett's experimentation reaches a peak.^[1] Clampett later created the character of Tweety, introduced in A Tale of Two Kitties in 1942. His cartoons grew increasingly violent, irreverent, and surreal, not beholden to even the faintest hint of real-world physics, and his characters have been argued to be easily the most rubbery and wacky of all the Warner directors'. Clampett was heavily influenced by the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, as is most visible in Porky in Wackyland (1938), wherein the entire short takes place within a Dalí-esque landscape complete with melting objects and abstracted forms. Clampett and his work can even be considered part of the surreal movement, as it incorporated film as well as static media.^[1] It was largely Clampett's influence that would impel the Warners directors to shed the final vestiges of all Disney influence and enter the territory they are famous for today. Clampett was also famous for doing some brief voices or sound effects in some of the cartoons, the most famous being ending his most famous cartoons with his own joke on impersonating the Warner Bros. zooming in shield sound effect (otherwise known as "Bay-woop!").^[3] Clampett liked to bring hip cultural movements into his cartoons, especially jazz; film, magazines, comics, novels, and popular music are referenced in Clampett shorts, most visible in Book Revue (1946), where performers are drawn onto various famous books.^[1]

Clampett continued to direct cartoons each year at the studio until 1946. Although Clampett was still quite young when he left Warner Bros. Cartoons, he was their oldest employee. His unit was taken over by Arthur Davis. The Big Snooze was his final cartoon with the studio, and one for which he did not get screen credit (only one of three he directed pitting Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd). While the generally accepted story was that Clampett left over matters of artistic freedom, Davis remembered that Clampett was fired by then-cartoon studio executive Eddie Selzer, who was far less tolerant of him than Leon Schlesinger. Clampett's style was becoming increasingly divergent from those of Freleng and Jones, the other unit directors, and this is thought by some to be the primary reason for his departure. The Warners style that he was so instrumental in developing was leaving him behind. Warner Bros. had recently bought the rights to the entire Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies studio from Schlesinger, and while his cartoons of 1946 are today considered on the cutting edge of the art for that period, at the time, Clampett was ready to seek new challenges.^[3] Clampett left at what some considered the peak of his creativity and against everyone's advice.^[2]

[edit] Later career and Beany and Cecil

Clampett worked for a time at Screen Gems, then the cartoon division of Columbia Pictures, as a screenwriter and gag writer. In 1947 Republic Pictures incorporated animation into its Gene Autry feature film Sioux City Sue. It turned out well enough for Republic to dabble in animated cartoons; Bob Clampett directed a single cartoon, It's a Grand Old Nag, featuring the equine character Charlie Horse. Republic management, however, had second thoughts due to dwindling profits, and discontinued the series.^[4] Clampett took his direction credit under the name "Kilroy".

In 1949, Clampett turned his attentions to television, where he created the famous puppet show Time for Beany. The show, featuring the talents of voice artists Stan Freberg and Daws Butler, would earn Clampett three Emmys. Groucho Marx and Albert Einstein were both fans of the series. In 1952, he created the Thunderbolt the Wondercolt television series and the 3D prologue to Bwana Devil featuring Beany and Cecil. In 1954, he directed Willy the Wolf (the first puppet variety show on television), as well as creating and voicing the lead in the Buffalo Billy television show. In the late 1950s, Clampett was hired by Associated Artists Productions to catalog the pre-August 1948^[5] Warner cartoons it had just acquired. He also created an animated version of the puppet show called Beany and Cecil, which began its run on ABC in 1962 and was on the network for five years.^[6]

In his later years, Bob Clampett toured college campuses and animation festivals as a lecturer on the history of animation. In 1975 he was the focus of a documentary entitled Bugs Bunny: Superstar, the first documentary to examine the history of the Warner Bros. cartoons. Clampett, whose collection of drawings, films, and memorabilia from the golden days of Termite Terrace was legendary, provided nearly all of the behind-the-scenes drawings and home-movie footage for the film.

Clampett died of a heart attack on May 2, 1984 in Detroit, Michigan, just six days before his 71st birthday,^[7] while touring the country to promote the home video release of Beany & Cecil cartoons.^{[citation needed]}He is buried in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California.

Controversy[link]

Though Clampett's contribution to the Warner Brothers animation legacy was considerable and inarguable, he has been criticized by his peers as "a shameless self-promoter who provoked the wrath of his former Warner's colleagues in later years, for allegedly claiming credit for ideas which were not his."^{[citation needed]} Chuck Jones particularly disliked Clampett, and made no mention of his association with him in either his 1979 compilation film The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (in which Jones lists himself and other Warners directors) or his 1989 autobiography Chuck Amuck.^[8] Some of this animosity appears to have come from Clampett's perceived "golden boy" status at the studio (Clampett's mother was said to be a close friend of cartoon producer Leon Schlesinger), which allowed him to ignore studio rules that everyone else were expected to follow. In addition, Mel Blanc (the great voice actor who had worked with Clampett at the same studio for ten years) also accused Clampett of being an "egotist who took credit for everything."^[9]

Beginning with a magazine article in 1946, shortly after he left the studio, and increasing as years went on, Clampett repeatedly referred to himself as "the creator" of Bugs Bunny, often adding the side-note that he used Clark Gable's carrot-eating scene in It Happened One Night as inspiration for his "creation." However, a viewing of the early Bugs cartoons of the late 1930s and early 1940s clearly demonstrates that the character was not "created" as a whole at one time, but rather evolved in terms of personality, voice, and design over several years through the efforts of Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Cal Dalton and Ben "Bugs" Hardaway, Robert McKimson, Sr., and Mel Blanc, in addition to Clampett's contributions. In the 1979 compilation feature film The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, Clampett is not mentioned when Bugs Bunny refers to his "several fathers." As the feature was compiled by Jones (along with Friz Freleng), the complete omission of Clampett is not surprising. (The other two directorial fathers Bugs claims to have had are Avery, who directed A Wild Hare, his first official short, and McKimson, who is the least known of the three best-known Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies directors, but drew the definitive Bugs Bunny model sheet. Depending on the source, number one could be either Jones or Freleng.)

Animation historian Milton Gray details a long rivalry between fellow animator and former friend Chuck Jones and Clampett in an essay titled "Bob Clampett Remembered." Gray, a personal friend of Clampett, calls the controversy "a deliberate and vicious smear campaign by one of Bob's rivals in the cartoon business." He reveals that Jones was angry at Clampett for making some generalizations in his 1970 interview with Funnyworld that seemingly gave Clampett too much credit. He writes that Jones began making additional accusations against Clampett, such as that Clampett would "go around the studio at night, looking at other directors' storyboards for ideas he could steal for his own cartoons." Jones wrote a letter of accusations in 1975 and, according to Gray, distributed copies to every fan he met: seemingly the genesis of the growing controversy. Gray asserts that Clampett was a "kind, generous man [that was] deeply hurt and saddened by Jones' accusations. […] I feel that Bob Clampett deserves tremendous respect, and gratitude for the wonderful work that he left us."^[10] Other Warner Bros. peers such as musical co-ordinator Carl Stalling and animator Tex Avery stood by Clampett during his talks on the cartoon industry in the 1960s and 1970s.

Legacy[link]

Since 1984, the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award is given each year at the Eisner Awards. Clampett's Tin Pan Alley Cats (1943) was chosen by the Library of Congress as a "prime example of the music and mores of our times" and a print was buried in a time capsule in Washington, D.C. so future generations might see it.^[3] Porky in Wackyland (1938) was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2000, deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."^[11]

John Kricfalusi, best known as the creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show, got to know Clampett in his later years and has reflected on those times as inspirational. Kricfalusi calls Clampett his favorite cartoon director and calls The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946) his favorite cartoon: "I saw this thing and it completely changed my life, I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen, and I still think it is."^[12] Animation historian Leonard Maltin has called Clampett's cartoons "unmistakable." Milton Gray believes that Schlesinger put Clampett in charge of the black and white cartoon division in order to save it, and many historians have singled out a scene in Porky's Duck Hunt in which Daffy exits as a defining Clampett moment. Maltin called it "a level of wackiness few moviegoers had ever seen." Historian Charles Solomon noted a rubbery, flexible animation quality visible in all Clampett's shorts, and Maltin noted an "energetic, comic anarchy." Clampett's cartoons were not as well known in the latter half of the 20th century because television syndicators only had the rights to the post-1948 Warner cartoons, however, his creations have increased in notierety and acclaim in recent decades.^[1]

Films directed or co-directed by Bob Clampett[link]

Warner Bros.[link]

Republic Pictures[link]

• It's a Grand Old Nag (1947)

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Barrier, Michael. (1999). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-503759-6.
• Maltin, Leonard. (1980). Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-039835-6.

External links[link]

• [1]
• Robert Clampett at the Internet Movie Database
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Clampett Studio Collections
• On a Desert Island with....Bob Clampett
• Michael Barrier's interview with Bob Clampett
• Correspondence between Tex Avery and Chuck Jones concerning Michael Barrier's interview with Bob Clampett
• Milt Gray's essay on Bob Clampett

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (August 2011)

Mel Blanc
Blanc in 1976
Born	Melvin Jerome Blank (1908-05-30)May 30, 1908 San Francisco, California, U.S.
Died	July 10, 1989(1989-07-10) (aged 81) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Heart disease
Nationality	American
Other names	"The Man of 1000 Voices"
Alma mater	Lincoln High School
Occupation	Voice actor/Comedian
Years active	1927–89
Spouse	Estelle Rosenbaum (1933–89; his death)

Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc (May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989) was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros. during the "Golden Age of American animation" as the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, the Tasmanian Devil, and many of the other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoons. He later worked for Hanna-Barbera's television cartoons, most notably as the voice of Barney Rubble in The Flintstones and Mr. Spacely in The Jetsons. Having earned the nickname “The Man of a Thousand Voices,” Blanc is regarded as one of the most influential people in the voice-acting industry.^[1]

At the time of his death, it was estimated that 20 million people heard his voice every day.^[2]

Early life[link]

Blanc was born Melvin Jerome Blank in San Francisco, California, to Jewish parents Frederick and Eva Blank. The youngest of two children, he grew up in the neighborhood of Western Addition in San Francisco, and later in Portland, Oregon, attending Lincoln High School. Growing up, he had a fondness for voices and dialect, which he started to do as early as the age of 10. He claimed that when he was 16, he changed the spelling 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.^[3] He dropped out of high school in the ninth grade and split his time between leading an orchestra, becoming the youngest conductor in the country at the time at 17, and performing shtick in vaudeville shows around Washington, Oregon, and northern California.

Career[link]

Radio work[link]

Blanc began his radio career in 1927 as a voice actor 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, California, 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 (in desperate need of a tune-up), violin teacher Professor LeBlanc, Polly the Parrot, Benny's pet polar bear Carmichael, the tormented department store clerk, and the train announcer (see below).

One of Blanc's most memorable characters from Benny's radio (and later TV) programs was "Sy, the Little Mexican", who spoke one word at a time. The famous "Sí...Sy...sew...Sue" routine was so effective that no matter how many times it was performed, the laughter was always there, thanks to the comedic timing of Blanc and Benny.^[4]

At times, sharp-eyed audience members (and later, TV viewers) could see Benny struggling to keep a straight face; Blanc's absolute dead-pan delivery was a formidable challenge for him. Benny's daughter, Joan, recalls that Mel Blanc was one of her father's closest friends in real life, because "nobody else on the show could make him laugh the way Mel could."

Another famous Blanc shtick on Jack's show was the train depot announcer who inevitably intoned, sidelong, "Train leaving on Track Five for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga". Part of the joke was the Angeleno studio audience's awareness that no such train existed connecting those then-small towns (years before Disneyland opened). To the wider audience, the primary joke was the pregnant pause that evolved over time between "Cuc.." and "...amonga"; eventually, minutes would pass while the skit went on as the audience awaited the inevitable conclusion of the word. (At least once, a completely different skit followed before the inevitable “...amonga” finally appeared.)

Benny's writers would regularly try to "stump" Blanc by asking him to perform supposedly impossible vocal effects and characterizations, such as an "English horse whinny" and a goldfish. For the latter, Mel walked up to the microphone and pursed his lips several times, making no noise.

By 1946, Blanc appeared on over 15 radio programs in 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 (who sounded quite a bit like Porky Pig). Many episodes required Mel to impersonate an exotic foreigner or other stranger in town, ostensibly for carrying out a minor deception on his girlfriend's father, but of course simply as a vehicle for him to show off his talents. Other regular characters were played by Mary Jane Croft, Joseph Kearns, Hans Conried, Alan Reed, Earle Ross, Jim Backus, Bea Benaderet and The Sportsmen Quartet, who would supply a song and sing the Colgate Tooth Powder commercials. (Blanc would later work with Reed and Benaderet on The Flintstones.) Shows usually adhered to a predictable formula, involving a date with his girl Betty Colby (Mary Jane Croft) and trying to either impress her father or at least avoid angering him. However, Mr. Colby (Joseph Kearns) usually had occasion to deliver his trademark line, "Mel Blanc, I'm going to break every bone in your body!" The show was the inspiration for the real Mel Blanc Fix-It Shop, a small hardware store in Venice, so his parents can have something to do. It garnered a lot of publicity, due to the long line of people wanting to meet Blanc.

Blanc appeared frequently on The Great Gildersleeve, uncredited, often voicing two or more supporting characters in a single episode: deliverymen in "Planting a Tree" and "Father's Day Chair" also "Gus", a petty crook in the latter; a radio station manager and a policeman in "Mystery Singer", and many others.

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, most notably G.I. Journal. The character of Sad Sack was a bumbling Army private with an even worse stutter than Porky Pig. ("I'm Lieutena-eh-Lieutena-eh-Capta-eh-Majo-eh-Colone-eh-p-p-Private Sad Sack.")

Blanc also had hit recordings throughout the 1940s and 1950s, including his biggest hit song, "Big Bear Lake." Due to the immense popularity of Blanc and the song, the city of Big Bear Lake, California made Blanc an honorary mayor for 33 years.

For his contribution to radio, Mel Blanc has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6385 Hollywood Boulevard.

Animation voice work during the Golden Age of Hollywood[link]

Private Snafu: 'Spies', voiced by Blanc in 1943

In March 1937, Mel Blanc joined Leon Schlesinger Productions, which made animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Blanc liked to tell the story about how he got turned down at the Schlesinger studio by music director Norman Spencer, who was in charge of cartoon voices, saying that they had all the voices they needed, as he went to him once every two weeks for two years straight. Then Spencer died, and sound man Treg Brown took charge of cartoon voices, while Carl Stalling took over as 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 a drunken bull. 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.

Blanc soon became noted for voicing a wide variety of cartoon characters from Looney Tunes, adding Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, Pepé Le Pew and many others. His natural voice was that of Sylvester the Cat, but without the lispy spray. (Blanc's voice can be heard in an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies that also featured frequent Blanc vocal foil Bea Benaderet; in his small appearance, Blanc plays a vexed cab-driver.)

In his later years, Blanc claimed that a handful of late 1930s and early 1940s Warner cartoons that each featured a rabbit clearly a precursor of Bugs Bunny all actually dealt with a single character named Happy Rabbit. No use of this name by other Termite Terrace personnel, then or later, has ever been documented, however. Happy Rabbit was noted for his laugh which became more famous as the laugh of Woody Woodpecker (of which Blanc was the original voice) until he won an exclusive contract with Warner Bros. which meant he couldn't do Woody's voice anymore as the Woody Woodpecker cartoons were produced by Walter Lantz Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures. Blanc later recorded "The Woody Woodpecker Song" for Capitol Records.

Though his best-known character was a carrot-chomping rabbit, munching on the carrots interrupted the dialogue. Various substitutes, such as celery, were tried, but none of them sounded like a carrot. So for the sake of expedience, he would munch and then spit the carrot bits into a spittoon rather than swallowing them, and continue with the dialogue. One oft-repeated story is that he was allergic to carrots and had to spit them out to minimize any allergic reaction; but his autobiography makes no such claim; in fact, in a 1984 interview with Tim Lawson, co-author of The Magic Behind The Voices: A Who's Who of Cartoon Voice Actors (University Press of Mississippi, 2004), Blanc emphatically denied being allergic to carrots. In a Straight Dope column, a Blanc confidante confirmed that Blanc only spit out the carrots because of time constraints, and not because of allergies or general dislike.^[5]

Blanc said his most challenging job was voicing Yosemite Sam; it was rough on the throat because of Sam’s sheer volume and raspiness. (Foghorn Leghorn's voice was similarly raucous, but to a lesser degree.) Late in life, he reprised several of his classic voices for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but deferred to Joe Alaskey to do Yosemite Sam's and Foghorn Leghorn's voices.

Throughout his career, Blanc was well aware of his talents and protected the rights to them contractually and legally. He, and later his estate, did not hesitate to take civil action when those rights were violated. Voice actors usually got no screen credits at all, but Blanc was a notable exception; by 1944, his contract stipulated a credit reading "Voice characterization(s) by Mel Blanc." Blanc asked for and received this screen credit from studio boss Leon Schlesinger when Leon objected to giving Blanc a raise in pay.^[6] Other frequent Warner voice artists, such as Arthur Q. Bryan (Elmer Fudd), Stan Freberg (Pete Puma among many other characters), June Foray (Granny) and Bea Benaderet (many female voices), remained uncredited on-screen. However, Freberg did receive screen credit for Three Little Bops, a musical spoof of The Three Little Pigs, directed by Friz Freleng. Freberg is a frequent contributor to the various Golden Collection projects that showcase the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Blanc, himself, is often spoken of with reverence by younger voice specialists in those DVD collections.

Blanc's screen credit was noticed by radio show producers, who gave him more radio work as a result. It wouldn't be until the early '60s that the other voice actors and actresses became credited on Warner Brothers theatrical cartoons.

Benny/Bugs crossover[link]

The Warner cartoons were filled with references to the popular media of film and radio, including references to The Jack Benny Program, whose various gags frequently found their way into Warner scripts voiced by Blanc. For example:

• Bugs was known for repeating Benny's catchphrase, "Now cut that out!"
• The "Anaheim, Azusa and Cuc...amonga" joke was once used by Daffy Duck in the cartoon Daffy Duck Slept Here.
• The joke resurfaced once again with more subtlety in Mississippi Hare as the announcer aboard the steamer Southern Star called out destinations in "Memphis, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Cuc...amonga."
• Frank Nelson's "Yeeeeees?" would be invoked by minor characters from time to time.
• Blanc's imitations of sputtering cars, squawking parrots, whinnying horses, etc., would be invoked frequently in both series.
• On the March 28, 1954 episode of Benny's radio program, Benny encounters Bugs Bunny in a dream.

The ultimate clash of the mythos occurred with the 1959 release of the Warner Bros. cartoon The Mouse that Jack Built. Directed by Robert McKimson, the cartoon features the cast of the Benny radio and TV program drawn as mice. Blanc was credited as the voice of the Maxwell, and besides Benny, co-stars Mary Livingstone, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, and Don Wilson all reprised their Benny show roles.

Voice work for Hanna-Barbera and others[link]

In 1960, after the expiration of his exclusive contract with Warner Bros., although Blanc continued his voice work for Warner Bros., he also went to Hanna-Barbera and continued to voice various characters, his most famous being Barney Rubble from The Flintstones (whose dopey laugh is similar to Foghorn Leghorn's booming chuckle) and Mr. Spacely from The Jetsons (similar to Yosemite Sam, but not as raucous). Daws Butler and Don Messick were Hanna-Barbera's top voice men when Blanc began providing voices for the company.

Blanc did those voices plus others for such ensemble cartoons as Wacky Races and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop for Hanna-Barbera in the late '60s. Blanc shared the spotlight with his two professional rivals and personal friends, Butler and Messick: In a short called Lippy the Lion, Butler was Lippy, while Blanc was his hyena sidekick, Hardy Har-Har, and Don Messick was usually the guest villain or other supporting characters. In the short Ricochet Rabbit, Messick was the voice of the gun slinging rabbit, while Blanc was his sidekick, Deputy Droop-a-Long Coyote.

Blanc also worked with Chuck Jones, who by this time was directing shorts with his own company Sib Tower 12 (later MGM Animation), doing vocal effects in the Tom and Jerry series from 1963 to 1967.

In addition, Blanc was the first person to play Toucan Sam in Froot Loops commercials, using a slightly cartoonish version of his natural voice. (The ad agency later decided to give Sam an upper-crust English accent and replaced Blanc with Paul Frees.)

Blanc reprised some of his Warner Bros. characters when the studio contracted 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 (later, newly introduced characters such as Cool Cat and Merlin the Magic Mouse were voiced by Larry Storch). Blanc also continued to voice the Looney Tunes characters on the bridging sequences for The Bugs Bunny Show and in numerous animated advertisements.

Car accident and aftermath[link]

On January 24, 1961, Blanc was involved in a near-fatal car accident on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Hit head-on, Blanc suffered a triple skull fracture that left him in a coma for three weeks, along with fractures of both legs and the pelvis.

The accident prompted over 15,000 get-well cards from anxious fans, including some addressed only to "Bugs Bunny, Hollywood, USA", according to Blanc's autobiography. One newspaper falsely reported that he had died. After his recovery, Blanc reported in TV interviews, and later in his autobiography, that a clever doctor had helped him to come out of his coma by talking as-if to Bugs Bunny, after futile efforts to talk directly to Blanc. Although he had no actual recollection of this, Blanc's wife and son swore to him that when the doctor was inspired to ask him, "How are you today, Bugs Bunny?", Blanc answered in Bugs' voice. Blanc thus credited Bugs with saving his life.^[7]

Blanc returned home from the UCLA Medical Center on March 17 to the cheers of more than 150 friends and neighbors. On March 22, he 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, resulted in the city funding restructuring curves at the location.

Years later, Blanc revealed that during his recovery, his son Noel "ghosted" several Warner Brothers cartoons' voice tracks for him. At the time of the accident, Blanc was also serving as the voice of Barney Rubble in The Flintstones. His absence from the show would be relatively brief; Daws Butler provided the voice of Rubble for a few episodes, after which the show's producers set up recording equipment in Blanc's hospital room and later, at his house to allow him to work from his residence. Some of the recordings were made while he was in full-body cast while he lay flat on his back, with the other Flintstones co-stars gathered around him.^[8][9] He also returned to The Jack Benny Program to film the program's 1961 Christmas show, moving around via crutches and a wheelchair.

During that time, Warner Bros. considered having Stan Freberg to do the voice of Bugs Bunny, while Blanc recovers from his injuries; Freberg refused, out of respect to Blanc.

Later career[link]

In the 1970s, Blanc did a series of college lectures across the United States on the side, which broke attendance records of any college lectures in the country. He would also collaborate on a special with the Boston-based Shriners Burns Institute called Ounce of Prevention. It would become a 30-minute TV special that aired worldwide.

Contrary to popular belief, Blanc was not one of hundreds of individuals that George Lucas auditioned to provide the voice for the character of C-3PO in the original Star Wars film. That distinction instead fell to fellow voice actor Stan Freberg, and it was Freberg who ultimately suggested that the producers use mime actor Anthony Daniels' own voice in the role.^[10]

After spending most of two seasons voicing the robot Twiki in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Blanc's last original character, in the early 1980s, was Heathcliff, who spoke a little like Bugs Bunny. Blanc continued to voice his famous characters in commercials and TV specials for most of the decade, although he increasingly left the "yelling" characters like Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn and The Tasmanian Devil to other voice actors, as performing these were too hard on his throat. One of his last recording sessions was for a new animated theatrical version of The Jetsons.^[11]

In the early 1980s, he would appear on commercials for American Express.

In 1983, six years before his death, he was asked by comedian Rick Moranis to voice the father of Bob and Doug MacKenzie in the film Strange Brew, which he did.

Blanc voiced all his well known Looney Tunes characters (save for Yosemite Sam and Foghorn Leghorn, both of whom were voiced by Joe Alaskey) in the 1988 live-action/animated comedy-mystery film Who Framed Roger Rabbit making this project one of the final times he voiced these characters as he died only a year after the film's release. The Looney Tunes characters (along with many other characters) were "borrowed" from their respective owners to appear in this film by Disney making Who Framed Roger Rabbit one of only a few times Blanc worked for Disney.

Death[link]

Mel Blanc's gravesite marker.

Blanc died on July 10, 1989 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. As part of Bugs Bunny's 50th anniversary, Mel Blanc had filmed an Oldsmobile commercial with his son, Noel Blanc. At the end of shooting, Noel noticed that his dad had a heavy cough. They drove to the doctor, who said that Mel could either stay in the hospital overnight, "just to be safe", or that they could take an inhaler home. Mel Blanc chose the former, and while at the hospital, due to the fact that someone had forgot to put bed rails on his hospital bed, he fell out of bed and broke his femur, which released fat emboli into his brain, causing a stroke. He had died within 48 hours.

Blanc's death was considered a significant loss to the cartoon industry because of his skill, expressive range, and sheer volume of continuing characters he portrayed, which are currently taken up by several other voice talents. Indeed, as movie critic Leonard Maltin once pointed out, "It is astounding to realize that Tweety Bird and Yosemite Sam are the same man!"

Animator Darrell Van Citters did a memorable drawing entitled "Speechless," which showed a spotlight on a microphone, as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzales, Pepe Le Pew, Tweety, Sylvester, and Yosemite Sam bowed their head somberly in a moment of silence. It was printed on some newspapers around the world.

That range was partially aided by recording technology; for instance, Blanc's standard Daffy Duck voice is essentially his Sylvester voice played a few percent faster than it was recorded to give it a higher pitch, as well as pronouncing "s" with a "th" sound.^[12] Blanc would later develop the skill to reproduce such "sped-up" voices himself live as necessary. Other Blanc character voices that were given this special treatment included Porky Pig, Henery Hawk, and Speedy Gonzales.

After his death, Blanc's voice continued to be heard in newly released properties such as Woody's laugh in games such as Woody Woodpecker: Escape from Buzz Buzzard Park. In particular, a recording of his Dino the Dinosaur from the 1960s Flintstones series was used without a screen credit in the 1994 live-action theatrical film based upon the series. This resulted in legal action against the film studio by the Blanc estate, which claimed his recordings were used without permission or proper credit. The credit was later added to the home release of the movie. Less problematic was the retention of older recordings of Blanc as Uncle Orville and a pet bird in the 1994 update of the Carousel of Progress attraction at Walt Disney World, despite cast changes in other roles. Blanc's distinctive voice can still be heard in the Audio-Animatronic presentation. In addition, Blanc's archive recordings of the Maxwell are used for the AMC Gremlin in the 2003 film Looney Tunes: Back in Action and his recordings of Daffy Duck's Rhapsody, and an untitled Road Runner cartoon will be used in three new Looney Tunes cartoons, including I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat, which was released with Happy Feet 2 on November 18, 2011, and Daffy's Rhapsody.

Legacy[link]

Blanc is regarded as one of, if not the, most prolific voice actor(s) in the history of the industry. He was the first voice actor to get credit in the ending credits and ushered in a new era for voice actors, where they were regarded as a significant part of the creative process, rather than easy-to-replace finishing touches.

Children[link]

Blanc trained his son, Noel, in the field of voice characterization. Although the younger Blanc has performed his father's characters (particularly Porky Pig) on some programs, he has chosen not to become a full-time voice artist. Noel appeared in the booth as a celebrity guest for the 2002 and 2003 Chevrolet Monte Carlo 400 NASCAR Races featuring the Looney Tunes characters in themed paint schemes for Chevrolet drivers and did the voices of the characters. Noel is a regular featured guest on radio shows throughout the United States and Canada. Noel's wife, Katherine Blanc, is an artist and book author.

Animation records[link]

Mel Blanc holds a few very important records in the field of animation (none of which are currently recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records), the most famous being, of course, the "1000 Voices" he was said to have performed. Not as notable are two records of longevity: his original characterization of Daffy Duck (for over 52 years) is the longest time any animated character has been performed by his or her original voice contributor. He also voiced Porky Pig for exactly the same amount of time as Daffy — since the same cartoon (Porky's Duck Hunt) — through to his death, though Porky was not originally voiced by Blanc. Blanc was also the original voice of almost every character he voiced, leaving him as the clear runaway for the record of "Most Characters Originally Voiced By One Actor," and he almost certainly provided voices in more cartoons than any other voice actor. And to top that off, he is also in 3rd place to his own 52-year record of his original characterization of Daffy, by voicing Bugs Bunny for almost 49 years from the date of his debut (July 27, 1940). The runner-up is Clarence Nash, who voiced Donald Duck for 51 years.

Selected list of cartoon characters[link]

List of noteworthy radio characters[link]

Besides voicing characters on his own radio show (which ran from 1946–47) Blanc was a regular on such comedy classics as The Jack Benny Show, Burns & Allen, and Abbott & Costello, providing both voices and sound effects ranging from people to animals to backfiring cars.

• The Happy Postman (Burns & Allen)
• Professor LeBlanc (The Jack Benny Program)
• Mr. Technicolovich (Abbott & Costello)
• Sy the Mexican (Jack Benny, radio & TV)
• Himself (The Mel Blanc Show)
• Zookie (The Mel Blanc Show)
• Polly the Parrot (The Jack Benny Program)
• Carmichael the Polar Bear (The Jack Benny Program)
• Chuck the Plumber (The Jack Benny Program)
• Train Station Announcer (The Jack Benny Program; "Train now departing on Track Five for Ana-heim, A-zuza, and Cuc-a-monga!!")
• Christmas sales clerk (The Jack Benny Program; in most holiday episodes of the radio and TV version, Blanc would appear as a sales clerk in a department store who's driven insane by Jack's style of shopping and returning gifts.)
• The Maxwell (The Jack Benny Program)

Other credits[link]

• Mel Blanc was hired to perform the voice of Gideon the Cat in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. However, it was eventually decided for Gideon to be mute (just like Dopey, whose whimsical, Harpo Marx-style persona made him one of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' most comic and popular characters), and all of Blanc's recorded dialogue in this film had been deleted, save for one military hiccup, which was heard three times in the film (he was still paid for all of the unused dialogue so if you consider his salary against the actual used "hiccup", he holds the record for highest paid—per word—voice-over actor). This and Who Framed Roger Rabbit are the only known work he ever did for Disney animation. He was, however, heard on occasional radio projects featuring Disney characters, such as The Mickey Mouse Theater of the Air.
• In 1949, Mel appeared in the film Neptune's Daughter with Esther Williams, Red Skelton and Ricardo Montalban.
• Blanc was one of three regular panelists in the 1955 game show Musical Chairs. Occasionally, he was asked to sing in the style of a popular singer.
• In 1959 Blanc played the role of Trinkle the dog catcher on the sitcom Dennis the Menace, episode titled " Miss Cathcart's Friend".
• Appeared in the 1964 movie Kiss Me Stupid as The Dentist
• Blanc once called into the game show Press Your Luck during the end credits when host Peter Tomarken mistakenly gave the answer to the question "Which cartoon character uses the phrase 'Sufferin' succotash'?" as Daffy Duck. Blanc informed him that the correct answer was Sylvester. (In reality, both characters have used the phrase, although it is more commonly associated with Sylvester.) Blanc spoke to Tomarken in Sylvester's voice to explain the error, as well in the voices of Speedy Gonzales and Porky Pig. Tomarken apologized for the error and promised that all three contestants would be allowed to return to play the game again.
• Blanc was the voice of Bob and Doug McKenzie's father in the movie Strange Brew.
• In 1970, Blanc narrated an educational film that was commissioned by the City of Dallas called How Motor Cars and Other Living Things Can Find Happiness in the Dallas Freeway System. He also did the sound effects for the animated car.
• In 1971, he appeared as himself in one of the American Express "Do you know me?" credit card TV commercials. The ad campaign centered on famous people whose faces were nonetheless usually not recognized by the public.
• Blanc appeared in a public service announcement for the Shriners Burns Institute on the dangers of burns on children.
• He also provided the voice of Quintro the Puppet in Snow White and the Three Stooges.
• Blanc did virtually all of his famous Looney Tunes characters' voices in NFL Films' The Son of Football Follies
• In addition to hundreds of credited vocal roles, Blanc also provided many brief incidental voices and vocal effects for TV sitcoms, almost never receiving screen credit. Two noted examples were regularly providing the voice of the raven cuckoo clock in The Munsters' and voicing a parrot (who even spoke in the courtroom) in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Perjured Parrot."
• In his autobiography, That's Not All, Folks!, Blanc confessed to a minor bit of deception regarding his nickname, "The Man of a Thousand Voices," stating that by his estimate, he had provided only 850 voices.^[7]
• Blanc performed his Speedy Gonzales character in Pat Boone's 1962 hit record of "Speedy Gonzales".
• Blanc also made many records for Capitol Records, including his Warner Brothers characters and such other characters as Woody Woodpecker, with his most famous Capitol album being Party Panic and in 1950 had a hit single (also in the UK) as Sylvester and Tweety-Pie in "I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat". He also performed on records with other artists including Spike Jones and His City Slickers and The Sportsmen.
• During 1977–1978, Blanc was an active CB Radio operator. He often used the CB handles Bugs or Daffy and talked over the air in the Los Angeles area using his many voices. He appeared in an interview with clips of him having fun talking to children on his home CB radio station in the NBC Knowledge Series television episode about CB radio in 1978.
• He was also the voice of the cuckoo & the parrot in the Coco Wheats Commercials
• Blanc's voice over sound effects were used in many animated films such as Paramount's Gulliver's Travels (as an uncredited voice over as King Bombo's shout of joy) to animated shorts from The Pink Panther to most recently in Jetix's "Pucca", in Gremlins 2 The New Batch some of the gremlin laughter and their hiccups were recycled from his recordings, also several monster growls and his bird screeches were also frequently used in several films and animation.
• Blanc supplies Charlie Brown's grunting in the 1979 special You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown as he tries to lift the barbell which is the same grunting Daffy Duck made in the 1965 Warner Bros. cartoon Tease for Two when Daffy tries lifting a rock. The same grunt was also heard in the 1980 film Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!) by Linus van Pelt.
• Portland's Mayor Sam Adams, with the help of the Oregon Cartoon Institute, officially declared June 29th to be Mel Blanc Day in Portland, Oregon.

Homages and tributes[link]

• In the Porky Pig short Curtain Razor, Mel Blanc appears as a turtle doing only 999 voices out of a claimed one thousand (he actually does only about 7 distinct voices here, which were edited into a rapid-fire montage of short sound bites, thus giving the impression of more voices). The clip was shown by Turner Network Television out of context as a tribute when Blanc died.
• In the Frasier episode "Ham Radio", a voice actor of many voices is named Mel White, a homage to Mel Blanc. In French, blanc, the way the famous voice actor preferred to spell his surname, means white.
• In the 1944 Warner's cartoon Russian Rhapsody (directed by Bob Clampett), Blanc appears as one of the gremlins (the one sawing around Henry Binder's hair) who are sabotaging Adolf Hitler's plane. The other gremlins are other members of the Warners' staff, including Binder, Leon Schlesinger, and Friz Freleng.
• A well-known lithograph was made in his honor. It shows Looney Tunes characters Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig, Pepé Le Pew, Sylvester, Tweety Bird, and Speedy Gonzales with their heads bowed in reverence, standing around a lone microphone with a spotlight shining on it.^[13] The simple inscription on the print reads: "Speechless." According to Warner Bros., it is the highest selling piece of animation art ever produced. The picture was also made into an animated picture, with sound and changing scenes, and sold in the now-defunct Warner Brothers chain of retail stores.
• In the The Office episode "Take Your Daughter to Work Day", boss Michael Scott acts out Blanc's "Cucamonga" bit, even including a pause.^[14]
• In the Histeria! episode "General Sherman's Campsite", during the sketch about the Transcontinental Railroad, Loud Kiddington acts as a conductor and does the "Cucamonga" bit.
• On an episode of Night Court, Harry's father, Buddy (John Astin), tells Harry (Harry Anderson) that he had wanted to name him Mel, after Mel Blanc. The joke is that Harry is an avid fan of singer Mel Tormé, and assumes that to be what Buddy meant.

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• That's Not All, Folks!, 1988 by Mel Blanc, Philip Bashe. Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-39089-5 (Softcover), ISBN 0-446-51244-3 (Hardcover)
• Terrace, Vincent. Radio Programs, 1924–1984. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1999. ISBN 0-7864-0351-9

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mel Blanc

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mel Blanc

• Mel Blanc at the Internet Movie Database
• Mel Blanc Show Archive in MP3 format
• Toonopedia article about Mel Blanc
• Mel Blanc sings Somebody Stole My Gal (Capitol F2470)
• 40 MP3 downloads of The Mel Blanc Show