Art by Zach Christy.
This episode was written and produced by James Introcaso.
Bugs Bunny, Barney Rubble, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, and more were all voiced by one man, Mel Blanc. Discover the incredible life and talent that helped to elevate the animation industry into big business. Featuring interviews with Mel’s son, Noel Blanc, and voice actors Debi Derryberry and Bob Bergen.
MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
For Real (Instrumental) by Joybird Falling
In by Shawn Williams
Volcano by Human Pyramids
Golden Hour by Sound of Picture
A Stirring of Patience by Chad Lawson
Particles by Tony Anderson
Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound, and hosted by Dallas Taylor.
Follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, & Reddit
Become a monthly contributor at 20k.org/donate.
If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org.
To get your 20K referral link and earn rewards, visit 20k.org/refer.
Consolidate your credit card debt today and get an additional interest rate discount at lightstream.com/20k.
Get 25% off your first kit at cleancult.com/20k.
Check out more of Debi’s work at debiderryberry.com.
Discover Bob’s work at bobbergen.com.
View Transcript ▶︎
You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.
[SFX clip: Bugs Bunny from YouTube clip: Eh, what’s up doc?]
[SFX clip: Barney Rubble from YouTube clip: You’re pretty good, Fred.]
[SFX clip: Daffy Duck from YouTube clip: You’re despicable.]
[SFX clip: Cosmo S. Spacely from YouTube clip: Jetson, I thought I fired you.]
[SFX clip: Tweety from YouTube clip: I tawt I taw a puddy tat.]
[SFX clip: Yosemite Sam from soundboard clip: Ya better say your prayers!]
[SFX clip: Porky Pig from YouTube clip: That’s all folks!]
[music in]
All of the voices you just heard came from the same person.
[David Letterman from YouTube clip: It's a pleasure to welcome Mr. Mel Blanc.
Mel: Eh… what’s up, David?]
Mel Blanc is a voice acting legend.
[Mel from YouTube clip: I’ve worked in about 5,000 different cartoons. And actually I do about 400 different voices.]
Noel: Mel Blanc was the greatest voice artist that ever lived. His range was a full eight octaves, his ear was unbelievable. His ability to hear a dialect was uncanny.
Noel: And he was the kindest, gentlest man you'd ever know.
That’s Noel Blanc, Mel’s son.
[music out]
Noel: And what do I do? Produce commercials and films and do a lot of the voices that my dad did.
Here’s Noel as Elmer Fudd in Family Guy.
[SFX Clip: Elmer Fudd from YouTube clip: Shh! Be very, very quiet. I’m hunting rabbits.]
[music in]
Everyone in animation agrees that Mel Blanc was unique and completely changed the industry. His voices helped create iconic cartoon franchises that are still going strong today.
Even from a young age, Mel loved doing voices. He was totally the class clown. ...but even though Mel clearly had immense talent, his first job wasn’t even as an actor.
Noel: He was a musician. He played various music on a trumpet on tuba, on violin and piano. At 17 years old, he was conducting the major orchestra out of Portland.
A few years later, he met his soon-to-be wife, Estelle Rosenbaum. They eventually started a radio show together in Portland called Cobweb and Nuts.
Noel: They were paid $15 a week total for the two of them. So they were pretty well starving up there. And then that's when they decided to come down to Los Angeles.
[music out]
Estelle encouraged Mel to pursue his dreams of acting. He knew just the place that needed his specific talents. This clip is from the documentary Mel Blanc, The Man of a Thousand Voices.
[SFX clip: Mel from YouTube clip: I had seen some of the Warner Brothers voices in the cartoons, and I thought, “Jeez they're missing out on an awful lot. The voices are pretty bad.”]
Even though Mel is now famous for Porky Pig, he actually wasn’t the first person to play the character. Here’s the original voice.
[SFX clip: Original Porky Pig]
Mel was convinced he could do better, so, like clockwork Mel went to Warner Brothers every two weeks. And he was rejected over and over by the person responsible for hiring voice actors.
[SFX clip: Mel from YouTube clip: I said, “I'd like to audition for you and show you what I can do.” He said, “Sorry we've got all the voices we need.”]
But, after two years of persistence, Mel knocked on Warner Brothers’ door at the perfect time. The person who kept rejecting him just happened to be home sick.
Noel: The next fellow in line happened to be the sound effects engineer for the Warner Brothers cartoons.
[SFX clip: Mel from YouTube clip: He says, “Well, let me hear what you do.” So I auditioned for him, and he got a big kick out of it. He said, “Would you do it again for the directors?” I said, “Gladly.”]
Noel: And they loved him and said, "What are you doing next week?" Of course Mel wasn't even working. And he said, "Well, I don't know, I think I can make it."
Mel’s first Warner Brothers cartoon was “Picador Porky.” But he wasn’t Porky Pig. He was Porky’s unnamed drunk friend.
[SFX clip: Drunken friend in “Picador Porky”: La cockaroacha! La cucaracha! [Hiccup!] Play it on the ol' guitar! [Hiccup!] La cockarocha! Play it any place ya are!]
The Warner directors recognized Mel’s talent immediately. And when Porky Pig’s original actor was fired from the role, they offered it to Mel.
[SFX clip: Mel from YouTube clip: I went out to a pig farm and wallowed around the pigs for a couple of weeks. I come back I said, “If a pig could talk he talked with a grunt you know, ‘Oink, oink, oink, oink, blah, blah, blah, that’s P-P-P-P-P-Porky talking with a grunt.’”]
Mel’s debut of Porky came in the 1930’s.
[SFX clip: Porky Pig from YouTube clip: Don’t worry. It’s not loaded. Watch. [SFX: Gun shot.]]
The cartoon was called, “Porky’s Duck Hunt.” It introduced one of Mel’s other famous characters: Daffy Duck.
[SFX clip: Daffy Duck from “Porky’s Duck Hunt”: Don’t let it worry you, skipper. I’m just a crazy, darn fool duck. Woohoo! Woohoo! Woohahahoo!]
Porky and Daffy helped make Mel and Warner Brothers famous. But one of Mel’s creations is clearly king.
[SFX clip: Mel from YouTube clip: They showed me a picture of this little rabbit and he's gonna say, “Hey what's cooking?” And I said, “Instead of him saying, ‘Hey what's cooking?’ why don't you have him say ‘Eh, what's up, doc?’” That's an expression that was being so popular, and I said, “Why don't you name him after the guy who drew the first picture of him?” His name was Bugs Hardaway. “Why don’t you call him Bugs Bunny?”]
Mel first appeared as Bugs Bunny in a 1940s cartoon called, “A Wild Hare.”
[SFX clip: Mel from YouTube clip: Well they told me that Bugs was a tough little stinker. And I thought, “What kind of a voice could I give him? He’s a tough character. Maybe Brooklyn or the Bronx.” [switches to Bugs voice] So, uh, I put the two of them together, doc, and that’s how Bugs Bunny came out.”]
[SFX clip: Bugs Bunny from “A Wild Hare”: What’s up, doc?]
In that first appearance as Bugs, the character had big teeth way outside his mouth and sort of a long face. Today Bugs has smaller teeth closer to his mouth and a rounder face. When the animation changed, Mel changed Bugs’ voice to match. Here’s Mel’s son, Noel again.
Noel: Bugs was a different kind of voice that instead of going, “eh, what’s up doc?”, they had big teeth and that sounded like this, what you heard in early cartoons. “Eh, what’s up doc?” is a totally different kind of a voice until they move the teeth back into the mouth.
[SFX clip: Bugs Bunny from “A Wild Hare”: Now don’t spread this around… but confidentially. I AM A WABBIT!]
The process of forming a new character always started with the art.
[SFX clip: Mel from YouTube clip: First they would show me a picture of the character that they wanted to use in the cartoon. Then they would show me what they call a storyboard. This is what this character is going to do throughout the cartoon.]
After Mel looked at the art and storyboards, he would do a little research about the character’s animal. When he landed the role of Daffy Duck, he did a bit of bird watching.
Noel: Actually that's where he picked up Daffy Duck's voice because Daffy Duck, that spray is a spray. It's not a lisp, a lisp is this [SFX]. It's a spray. Well, if you've seen the ducks land in the water, they get a lot of water in both orifices.
[SFX clip: Daffy Duck from YouTube clip: “Listen, sport. You don’t know the meaning of fair play.”]
Daffy Duck sounds a bit similar to another iconic character, Sylvester the cat. There’s one key difference though. Daffy is spraying water out of his mouth. Sylvester is drooling over a little yellow canary that he wants to eat so badly. [SFX clip: Sylvester from YouTube clip: Sufferin’ succotash.]
Noel: Sylvester, which is the lower down here, is just salivating because of Tweety. So they're not lisping. They're salivating.
[SFX clip: Sylvester from YouTube clip: I never thought just being a pussy cat could get so complicated.]
Mel traveled all the way to Australia to find the voice for the Tasmanian Devil.
Noel: When he was in Tasmania in Hobart, they have a wonderful zoo in the main city there. And he visited the Tasmanian devil in the zoo and realized that the Tasmanian devil devoured everything in front of him.
Here’s what actual Tasmanian Devils sounds like [SFX: Tasmanian Devil Vocalization] ...they’re notorious for how aggressively they eat [SFX: aggressive eating].
...and here’s how Mel interpreted those sounds.
[SFX clip: Tasmanian Devil from YouTube clip: [Spitting and incoherent noises]]
Mel’s also famous for the voice of Tweety Bird.
[SFX clip: Tweety from YouTube clip: I twat I taw a putty tat. I did, I did, I see taw a putty tat.]
From the start people loved Mel’s characters, but their popularity really soared in the 1940s.
Noel: The major thing that sold Bugs Bunny to the public was a two minute song on buying bonds. And those at that time there were war bonds and he and Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig sang the song, "Any bonds today."
[SFX clip: Bugs Bunny from YouTube clip: Any bonds today? Bonds of freedom, that’s what I’m selling! Any bonds today?...]
Noel: Every theater between every performance, and this is again where 50 million people a week going to the theater or more. And that's how they really became popular.
[SFX clip: Continue Any Bonds Today clip]
Mel’s characters were so popular that he asked for a raise. But instead of more money, Warner Brothers countered with something no other cartoon voice actor had at the time. That was his name featured in the credits.
That meant his name got out there, and other studios wanted to hire him.
Noel: He was doing 18 radio shows a week at one time. And so he would run from CBS to NBC to ABC, which were very close there. So he would come on, he would know exactly the characters he was doing, whether it was the Abbott and Costello Show...
[SFX clip: Bugs Bunny from YouTube clip: Eh, what’s up, doc? What’s cooking, fatso?
Bud Abott: Costello, look it’s Bugs Bunny!]
Noel: … or the Jack Benny Show...
[SFX clip: Jack Benny from YouTube clip: It says here that you do imitations. Is that right?
Mel: Oh yeah, that’s right. I do animals, all kinds of things.]
Mel even had his own show!
[SFX clip: Announcer from YouTube clip: Starring himself in person, Mel Blanc!
Mel: Good evening, folks!]
Mel Blanc was a household name. For decades he voiced many of the Looney Tunes while also doing bit parts for Hanna Barbera. Here he is as George Jetson’s boss, Cosmo Spacely.
[SFX clip: Cosmo S. Spacely from YouTube clip: Jetson! I thought I fired you… Now get out!]
He did the barks for Fred Flintstone’s pet dinosaur, Dino.
[SFX clip: Dino from soundboard: Barking and panting]
...and he was even the voice of Barney Rubble!
[SFX clip: Barney Rubble from YouTube clip: Now I know how it feels to be hatched.]
[music in]
In all, Mel created over 400 voices.
As far as we know, there is no person on earth who can voice all the characters of Mel Blanc. It was a unique combination of factors that all came together to create his unparalleled talent. We’ll unravel the mystery of what made Mel not just one of the greatest voice actors in history, but one of the greatest actors period, after this.
[music out]
MIDROLL
[music in]
Mel Blanc was the most prolific and influential voice actor of all time. He performed more than 400 characters, many of which he created out of thin air. And every one of these characters had a distinct personality and voice. No other actor since then has been able to perform every voice Mel did.
Here he is as Yosemite Sam.
[music out]
[SFX clip: Yosemite Sam from YouTube clip: That dirty perka shark a back flat'n port'n filla bunka borton perka luma burton durton bosh da nat'n bart'n da naddah oooh.]
And Mel performed a lot of Hanna Barbera characters too, like Secret Squirrel.
[SFX clip: Secret Squirrel from YouTube clip: If you don’t mind, it’s sort of secret.]
He even did characters who never spoke actual words.
Noel: He was doing all the different craziness of Tom and Jerry.
[SFX clip: Jerry from “Cat and Dupli-Cat”: [Sings in animal noises]]
Mel also created the voice for Woody Woodpecker.
[SFX clip: Woody Woodpecker singing: Everybody thinks I’m crazy. Yessiree that’s me, that’s me.]
Mel actually left the role of Woody early in the series, but the show still used Mel’s pre-recorded laugh for the character.
[SFX clip: Woody Woodpecker from YouTube clip: [Laughs]]
Those few short giggles at the end are totally intentional. They’re actually meant to sound like a woodpecker pecking.
[SFX clip: Woody Woodpecker from YouTube clip: [Laughs]]
How do you even do that? [SFX: Dallas attempts laugh]
[SFX clip: Woody Woodpecker from YouTube clip: [Laughs]]
Nowadays, it takes about a dozen people just to cover all of Mel’s Looney Tunes characters. He could pull off feats of acting that were difficult for even seasoned voice actors. Here’s Hank Azaria, who plays Moe, Chief Wiggum, and more than fifteen other characters on The Simpsons. In this clip from the documentary, Mel Blanc: The Man of a Thousand Voices, Azaria talks about something Mel can do that the entire cast of The Simpsons can’t.
[SFX clip: Hank Azaria from YouTube clip: Only if you're a voice actor do you realize how incredible this is. When Bugs and Daffy are fighting over whether it's wabbit season or duck season, and Daffy Duck comes out dressed up as Bugs Bunny doing a Bugs Bunny imitation. Then Bugs Bunny comes out dressed as Daffy doing a Daffy impression.]
[SFX clip: Daffy [doing Bugs imitation]: Eh, what’s up, doc? Having any luck with those ducks? It’s duck season, ya know?
Bugs [doing Daffy imitation]: Just a darn minute. Where do you get that duck season stuff?]
[SFX clip: Hank Azaria: You know how hard that is to do, to take your own character and have it imitate another one of your own characters? It’s almost impossible, because if you try to like combine two voices that you’re doing, you kind of just land in the middle… We tried it one day at The Simpsons, we were talking about, we were marveling at Mel Blanc’s ability to do this, and we all tried to do one of our characters imitating another one and have them sound different, and we couldn’t do it.]
[music in]
Mel’s immense voice talent was a unique combination of factors. First, he had an amazing ear for dialects.
Noel: Whether it was Armenian or Scottish, British, Irish, whatever it might be, even in the States. Mel could do voices from every state, somebody was from Mississippi, he could tell that difference between that and Arkansas.
Mel also had a unique vocal chord structure.
Noel: The doctor said after we put a camera down it, because I thought it would be a good idea to photograph his larynx. He said, "We haven't seen this kind of vocal structure." And it's about twice as large as a normal vocal structure. So between the vocal structure of the larynx and his ability and ear and octave range, he had the bare assets for being the greatest voice person that ever lived.
[music out]
There were times when Mel had a little help from technology. Here’s Bob Bergen, one of today’s leading voice actors, who actually got to watch Mel work.
Bob: Many of Mel's voices were sped up electronically. A lot of people don't know that. I actually discovered that when I crashed a recording session when I was about 14. I was watching him work and he was doing Tweety and it was like really bad. I just thought it was because of his age and he was smoking, and they played it back and it was great. And I said to the producer, "What did you do to the playback to make it sound so good?" And she said, "We sped his voice up."
Bob: Technically, they were recorded slower and played back at real time. So they were recorded depending on the character, 10 or 12 percent slower. So when they played it back in real time, it was sped up.
Here’s Tweety as we recognize it from the cartoons.
[SFX clip: Tweety from YouTube clip: I tawt I taw a puddy tat. I did, I did taw a puddy tat.]
And here’s that same line, slowed down. This would have been the normal recording speed.
[SFX clip: Tweety from YouTube clip 12 percent slower: I tawt I taw a puddy tat. I did, I did taw a puddy tat.]
Even with a few genetic advantages and a little help from technology, this kind of acting requires a lot of talent and a lot of work.
Debi: It's commitment to the character. Acting wise, you have to be able to inhabit and commit to fully that character and never leave it for a moment.
This is Debi Derryberry. She’s the voice behind more than 250 animated characters.
Debi: On-camera, they go through inhabiting the character for days and days on end, but in VO, you have to be able to hop into that character quickly, completely, and it will be believable if you are there.
One of Debi’s characters is Jimmy Neutron on Nickelodeon.
[SFX clip: Jimmy Neutron from YouTube clip: Good work everybody! We’re ready for intergalactic travel.]
Debi: Howie Mendell did a cartoon called Bobby's World, and I was his best friend Jackie, who was very cerebral.
[SFX clip: Jackie from YouTube clip: I knew you’d come to your senses, Bobby. You finally realized that I’m the only woman you’ll ever love.]
Both of Debi’s characters you just heard were little kids. Yet they sounded like different people. So she really understands what it takes to create a distinct character.
Debi’s favorite Mel Blanc creation is Pépé Le Pew.
[SFX clip: Pépé Le Pew singing from YouTube clip: Tip-toe from your pillow to the shadow of a willow tree and tip-toe down the tulips, avec… hey!]
[music in]
Despite never being a Looney Tune, Debi knows a ton about Mel Blanc. That’s because everyone who works in the industry studies him.
Debi: We never have to say Mel Blanc. People just know who Mel is.
Debi loves Mel’s characters not just because he’s a legend. Mel was an incredible actor.
Debi: I'll hit on my, the all time common misconception. "Hey, my friends say I have a good voice. I would think I should do voice acting. I think I should be a cartoon voice." "Oh really?"
Debi: Here's the lowdown on that one. Voice acting is an acting job. That means you need to be an actor. You just don't say, "I'm going to be a rocket scientist or a computer programmer." You go to school to learn how to do these things. There's a lot involved in being a voice actor, learning the ins and outs of the microphone and being able to read, get the words off the page, meeting your acting beats in it, being able to change accents, being able to change characters.
[music out]
Lots of people can imitate Bugs Bunny’s voice. For example, I can say, “What’s up, doc?” and sound like Mel. But only a few people can truly become the character of Bugs. It’s a lot harder than you might think.
Debi: So, I just happen to be able to get my voice, oh, in that baby thing where baby's talking, [SFX: baby talk]. So, I can get there pretty easy and then that baby can age up, but each age has to be fully committed, and so if I have no accent, then that age transition can be, [SFX: baby talk that ages into an adult] “I don't know mommy, I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. You know what? He doesn't know what you're talking about. Tell mom he doesn't know. Mom. Look it. I'm just going to go to college. Okay, I am out of here. Honey, when are you going to come home from school? You know what darling? Get that girl home from school.” So, it's just moving it around and committing.
Like Debi, Mel was a master of modifying his voice. He could change the age or the dialect. He could turn the variables of his performance like dials.
Debi: He was able to look at the picture and inhabit them, and as a voice artist, I would say, you layer them, okay? So, you have your Pépé Le Pew.
[SFX clip: Pépé Le Pew from YouTube clip: Comment allez-vous this fine morning?]
Debi: Okay, he uses his voice, but he's got his French accent and his cadence. You know he's got his french accent and everything goes up like this and this [SFX: French accent]. And then you have your Tweety.
[SFX clip: Tweety from YouTube clip: I did. I did. I did taw a puddy tat.]
Debi: Okay, you put your speech impediment on it and you go down into your baby voice. SFX: baby voice] Still, you're going to the baby spot. First, you're in the baby spot, and then you start doing your Ah's, Oh's, try and get them just right, and then you put the actual sweetness in there, like inhabiting and committing to the sweetness of this little Tweety Bird character, or you're Daffy Duck.
[SFX clip: Daffy from YouTube clip: That’s dandy. Ho ho. That’s rich, I say. Now how about some color, stupid?]
Debi: You're going to start with Mel's voice, you're going to put in your sideways speech impediment there [SFX: Daffy speech impediment] and you've got your sideways thing going in and his voice and then you put in your mischievous and your snark and the nastiness that goes with Daffy.
Other voice actors agree with Debi. Here’s Bob Bergen again.
Bob: Well, he was vocally versatile, but he was also a brilliant actor.
Bob: It was in the creating of the characters. He had lots of characters that might've sounded similar. Like Daffy Duck…
[SFX clip: Daffy Duck from YouTube clip: How about a little something to stimulate the scalp?]
Bob: ...is basically Sylvester sped up.
[SFX clip: Slyvester from YouTube clip: Sufferin’ succotash.]
Bob: But the personalities were totally different. The man could take those words and bring them to life with a uniqueness that was just his own. Also, because of the way his vocal chords were built, he had such a lovely, deep bassy voice, at the same time he had a very nasal voice. So when he was sped up, it didn't sound like a chipmunk. He had so much bottom to his range that the sped up voice didn't sound artificially enhanced. So a lot of it was just the way he was built.
Mel made the characters his own. When Flintstones’ producers gave him direction for Barney Rubble, they said they wanted him to sound like Art Carney on The Honeymooners.
[SFX clip: Art Carney from YouTune clip: Hehe, I knew it would work.]
His response was, “I don’t do impressions.”
[SFX clip: Mel from YouTube clip: [Barny Rubble voice] The voice for Barney Rubble. I did the voice for him. And, uh, you know it's a different voice than Art Carney, but they said, “Do a voice like Art Carney.” I said, “No, I won’t do that, but I'll give you this voice here. I'll take the same inflections that he uses and a slow laugh at the end.” [Laughs]]
[SFX clip: Barney Rubble from YouTube clip: Oh boy! Wait’ll Fred sees my new bowling ball...STRIKE! [Laughs] They’ll call me twinkle toes Rubble, the terror of the alleys. STRIKE!]
Mel Blanc was at the height of his career… and the characters he created grew the animation industry into big business. There were more than 400 voices in one man. Hundreds, if not thousands of jobs depended on him… and millions of viewers had come to rely on him for their escape and entertainment. All of that, came to a sudden halt. Here’s Mel’s son Noel again.
[SFX: Start drone that slowly over takes the music under the following.]
Noel: He was driving in Dead Man's Curve... Big curve around UCLA. And a kid in a big Oldsmobile jumped through the divider on Dead Man's Curve and plowed him straight on, head on, head to head. The kid didn't get hurt because he was driving this huge car. My dad was in an aluminum car, an Aston Martin. It folded up.
We’ll hear the rest of the story, next time.
[music in]
Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound, a sound design team dedicated to making television, film, and games sound incredible. Find out more at defacto sound dot com.
This episode was written and produced by James Introcaso...and me, Dallas Taylor. With help from Sam Schneble. It was sound designed and mixed by Soren Begin and Colin DeVarney.
Thanks to Noel Blanc for sharing stories of his dad. Thanks also to Katherine Blanc, Noel’s wife, who wrote a children’s book called Melvin the Mouth, which shares more of Mel’s life. Thanks also to Debi Derryberry. You can find her work, books, and more at debiderryberry.com. That’s Debi with an “I” not a “Y.” Finally, thanks to Bob Bergen. You can find out all about Bob on his web site at bobbergen.com.
Many of the clips of Mel came from an amazing documentary called Mel Blanc: The Man of a Thousand Voices. You can check out the whole video on our website, 20k dot org. There you’ll also find the music tracks and transcripts for all of our episodes, plus original artwork. So go check it out.
Thanks for listening.
[music out]
