The Man of a Thousand Voices”

Brother Mel Blanc: “The Man of a Thousand Voices” By Sir Knight Ivan Tribe lthough the name of Mel Blanc in 1925. He held the group in high es- may not be widely known, over teem for the rest of his life. In 1966, he A the last seventy-five years un- received the Legion of Honor. On April told millions, especially children, have 27, 1987, Blanc was inducted into their heard his voice in one of its numer- Hall of Fame commenting at the time, ous forms. Virtually anyone who has “I have been a member of DeMolay for watched a Warner Brothers cartoon has sixty-three years. I thank God and De- heard his voice as that of Bugs Bunny, Molay for helping me become kind and Foghorn Leghorn, Porky Pig, and numer- thoughtful to my parents and all my ous other Warner characters. Blanc did friends. I had many opportunities to do numerous other voices and sounds dur- the wrong things, and I might have done ing the “Golden Age of Radio” and other them if it had not been for DeMolay. cartoon voices as well. A lesser-known God bless them.” fact concerning Blanc is his long affili- Intrigued by show business, Melvin ation with the Order of DeMolay, blue watched vaudeville performances when- lodge Masonry (fifty-eight years), the ever he could and also saw opportuni- Scottish Rite, and Shrine. Entertaining ties in the new medium of radio. Station children at Shrine hospitals became one KGW went on the air in 1922, and Blanc of his principal causes in life. who dropped out of school prior to Melvin Jerome Blank (spelling of last graduation, sang there with friends on a name later legally changed) was born program called The Hoot Owls. Since lo- to a Jewish family in San Francisco, Cali- cal radio paid only a pittance, the young fornia on May 30, 1908. The Blank fam- dropout supported himself primarily as ily, which also included an older brother, a tuba player. Initially interested in the Henry, soon moved to Portland, Oregon violin, he switched to the big horn be- where Melvin grew to adulthood. For cause there were few tuba players and the most part, the youth proved to be he could get more work. After a couple an indifferent student, interested only of years he returned to Portland as pit in music and entertaining his friends conductor at the Orpheum Theater. with voice imitations. Some faculty were However, vaudeville was on the decline, impressed while others were not. One and with the onset of the Great Depres- unappreciative teacher told him “you’ll sion, it went downhill at an accelerated never amount to anything” adding pace and eventually died. “you’re just like your last name, blank”; Mel did, however, scrape up enough Mel legally changed it as soon as he money to petition Mid Day Lodge No. 188 came of age. On the positive side, he in Portland. He received his Entered Ap- joined Sunnyside Chapter of DeMolay prentice degree on November 20, 1930, knight templar 9 with the country mired in the Great Depression and more job seekers than positions, Brother Blanc did not expect success to come easily. Small speaking parts and sounds on network radio programs became Blanc’s principal forte, but he seldom cleared more than twenty-five dollars a week in those early days. He did meet his future wife, Estelle Rosenbaum, whom he married in 1933. Some years later the couple had a son, Noel. Even- tually, better and more regular parts came Mel’s way, but first he returned to Portland for a time where he did most of the male parts and wrote the scripts for a program called Cobwebs and Nuts. Estelle loaned her voice to the show, portraying such girls as the and was passed a Fellowcraft on Janu- coquettish “Toots Waverly” and the ary 5, 1931. Blanc was raised on March snooty “Mrs. McFlaggpoople IV.” After 12, 1931. No one recalls whether he took a time, Mel’s imagination wore thin and his oral examination with different voices. the Blancs returned to Hollywood. Although he remained a faithful member Soon Brother Mel landed regular voice of Mid Day Lodge for fifty-eight years, parts on such network radio shows as Jack Blanc had virtually no opportunity to Benny, George Burns & Gracie Allen, and serve as an officer because he left Port- Judy Canova. However, voices in anima- land that summer for California where he tion art (or cartoons) really led to major lived most of his life thereafter. success. In 1936, he became the voice of Mel figured that if he was going Warner Brothers cartoon star, the stutter- to make it in show business, then he ing “Porky Pig” although he was not the would have to go to Hollywood. On original Porky. Later he added “Daffy Duck” his way southward he stopped for sev- and most notably “Bugs Bunny” who ulti- eral months in San Francisco where he mately became the biggest cartoon “star” took a job as emcee and sometime joke in the studio’s animation department teller in a variety program called The headquartered in the old wooden building Road Show. Again, it did not pay much, known as “Termite Terrace.” but ethnically-diverse San Francisco As the decade of the forties ensued, enabled him to develop and assimilate Mel Blanc created additional voices to a wide variety of dialects. Hollywood match new characters created by War- remained his ultimate goal where op- ner artists. Often the creations were an- portunities awaited in sound motion tagonistic to each other: “Tweety” and pictures, fledgling network radio, and “Sylvester,” “Henery Hawk” and “Foghorn perhaps musical work. Nonetheless, Leghorn” (my personal favorite). Bugs 10 march 2013 Bunny, and Daffy Duck had two “hu- first two characters being products of the man” rivals in “Yosemite Sam” and the Hanna-Barbera company. hapless “Elmer Fudd” (the latter usually Brother Blanc continued Masonic voiced by Arthur Bryan). New creations related activity becoming a member of voiced by Blanc that came along in the the Scottish Rite Valley of Los Angeles, fifties included the French skunk “Pepe taking his degrees from June 14 through LePew,” the Mexican mouse “Speedy June 16, 1951, giving his occupation as a Gonzales,” “Marvin the Martian,” and “motion picture voice artist,” and Al Ma- the “Tasmanian Devil.” In addition, he laikah Shrine Temple on June 29, 1951. voiced many lesser figures in Warner Given his God-given talents, one might cartoons and continued in network ra- correctly expect Noble Mel to be drawn dio as long as the comedy dramas re- to Shrine Hospital work. In his autobiog- mained on the networks. Before he had raphy he wrote, “when I was teenager, an exclusive contract with Warner, dur- I used to pass by the Portland Shrine ing the decade of the 1950s, he voiced Hospital located not far from my parents the Walter Lantz creation “Woody home. Hearing about the work they did Woodpecker.” Although he gave up this with crippled children was what initially voice, Lantz Productions continued to piqued my interest in the fellowship and dub in the distinctive laugh associated prompted me to seek admission.” with Woody, a laugh Mel had originally Mel Blanc as a Shriner “spent count- created to irritate his high school princi- less hours with the youngsters” adding pal many years earlier. “I don’t know who appre- Outside of his voice work ciates whom more, me or in cartoons, Mel Blanc had them. ‘Do Bugs Bunny! Do some other achievements. Tweety! They . .shout ex- In the 1946-1947 season, citedly.’” Then on January he had a CBS network ra- 24, 1961, the person Rich dio program, The Mel Blanc Little called “the greatest Show, a sit-com in which he voice man of all time” had was the hapless owner of a near brush with death. a fix-it shop. He had a pair Brother Blanc’s car was of hit records “The Woody one-half of a head-on col- Woodpecker Song” and lision on Sunset Boulevard. “I Taut I Saw a Puddy Tat” He sustained numerous based on Tweety and Sylvester. He also broken bones including thirty-nine frac- voiced numerous commercials ranging tures in his right leg and a severe con- from the “Frito Bandito” to “Toucan Sam” cussion and lost nine pints of blood. For in Fruit-Loop advertisements. After his three weeks he was in a coma. Blanc exclusive contract with Warner Brothers finally responded only when his physi- expired in 1960, he continued to do voice cian, seeing a Warner Brothers cartoon work for them but did other cartoon on the TV asked, “How are you feeling voices as well including “Barney Rubble” today, Bugs Bunny?” Mel replied in his on The Flintstones, “Cosmo Spacely” on best known voice, that of the brash rab- The Jetsons, and the cat Heathcliff, the bit. “Eh, just fine Doc, how’re you.” He knight templar 11 then replied to another question when up Doc” was as strong as ever. However, asked of Porky Pig, complete with stut- he did let others do voices of those who ter. He credited the two cartoon animals yelled loudly a great deal, such as Yosem- with restoring his senses if not his life. ite Sam and Foghorn Leghorn. After two more months in the hospital In 1988, Warner Books published during which time he did some Barney Brother Blanc’s memoirs, That’s Not All Rubble sound tracks propped up in bed, Folks.

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