Mel Blanc Dies: Voice of a Thousand Characters Lost

Mel Blanc passed away in Los Angeles on July 10, 1989, at the age of eighty-one, leaving behind a body of vocal work so vast that no single performer has come close to matching it. Born in San Francisco in 1908, Blanc discovered his gift for mimicry early, entertaining classmates with impersonations that drew laughter and, occasionally, suspensions. He broke into radio in the early 1930s and joined Warner Bros. in 1937, where he quickly became the studio's indispensable vocal chameleon. Over the next five decades, he created and performed the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepe Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote, and the Tasmanian Devil, among others. His ability to inhabit radically different characters in a single recording session was unmatched: he could shift from Bugs's streetwise Brooklyn drawl to Porky's anxious stutter to Yosemite Sam's volcanic rage without a pause. He was the only voice actor in the golden age of animation to receive an on-screen credit. Beyond Looney Tunes, Blanc voiced Barney Rubble in The Flintstones, Mr. Spacely in The Jetsons, and was the original Woody Woodpecker for Universal Pictures. A near-fatal car accident in 1961 left him comatose for weeks; doctors reportedly found he would respond only when addressed as Bugs Bunny. He continued working into his eighties. His gravestone reads "That's All Folks," the sign-off he had voiced for Porky Pig thousands of times.