Mel Blanc on How He Created His Iconic Voices | Carson Tonight Show

I don't know if there's a person in the entire civilized world who has not heard the voice of Mel Blanc he's probably the most famous voice in the entertainment World he's celebrating his 50th anniversary in Show Business and his 75th birthday some of the voices Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck Sylvester Tweety Bird Yosemite Sam Mel for years worked with Jack Benny on radio Burns and Allen all the top radio Comedians and he's done the voices for a new cartoon movie called daffy's fantastic Island which opens in New York May 30th would you welcome please Mel Blanc [Music] [Applause] well congratulations happy birthday hey thanks very much right away I suppose anytime sometime anybody runs into you the first thing they say is do somebody right right right A lot of people come up to me and say aren't you somebody yeah you have appeared uh I suppose in films as in Parts but basically it's been all voice cartoons yeah voices and cartoons and uh I was in a couple of pictures short little bits but I never had time for it yeah I remember the great Jack Benny shows you you've been doing a college tours lectures yes I I've I spoke at 144 different colleges in the last few years and broke attendance records at every one the kids are cartoon freaks they load yeah that's great what do they want to know do they want to learn how to get into it do they want to know how you do the voices so that's that's one of the things and they they all want to know I tell them how the voices were created right and they're very interested in that then I showed them three Academy award-winning cartoons right uh one is nighty night bugs the singing sword and uh the other is uh Christopher Columbus and Bugs Bunny discover America right and then the third one is uh uh Pussycats which is a takeoff on uh what do you call that word uh Alcoholics Anonymous it's called Birds Anonymous cats threaded to each other cats not to eat birds did you ever figure out how many different characters or voices that you've portrayed in your career yeah you know when I had this accident I was in a full body cast and I wanted to figure out how many different voices I could do couldn't move I started early in the morning and I fell asleep around midnight and I passed the 400 Mark Could Happen 400 different voices you see with each with each dialect right you can do several different voices and I know practically all the dialects right take a Yiddish dialect for example they're the guy what he's talking down here like this that's the fellow what is speaking like this here right then of course there's the uh delete [ __ ] what can't pronounce the sh together he says do you like desserts there are my swords don't you think it and then I ran into one uh one gay fella he says uh I'll make for you a very beautiful lamp don't you worry about anything remember everything to me I'll take care of the whole thing and then of course there's a there's the guy that tried to get away from the Yiddish dialect entirely and he spoke like that he's entirely away from the yiddisha dialect to see so this is that's what you can do with each different dialect different voices how old were you when you realized you had this talent I imagine you're probably a kid to school then you made silly sounds right to break everybody up at assemblies and the kids would better get a big kick out of it and laugh and the teachers would laugh too right then naturally get lousy marks I don't know why how did you get into the cartoon business I mean doing the voices well I went to the man who was in charge it was Schlesinger cartoons right and he was in charge of hiring voices and uh I said look won't you give me an audition listen to me it says no I'm sorry we have all the voices we need so uh I came back in a couple of weeks I said won't you just listen to me right so sorry we have all the voices we need well I was as persistent as he was I kept going back every two weeks to this guy for a year and a half and he gave me the same story we have all the voices we need finally this guy died [Applause] I laughed too [Laughter] so I went to the next man in Church's name was Craig Brown let's hear what you have and I auditioned for him he said would you do it again for the directors I said sure and they got a kick out of it one of the directors said I have a cartoon coming up with a drunken Bowl drunken you think you can do the voice of a drunken bull it was my first assignment I said yeah I think so he said what would he sound like well he would sound like it was a little it was a little loaded and it was looking for for the sour mash so he said he said great great what are you doing next Tuesday I wasn't doing the darn thing I said I think that was my first voice in the cartoon it's drunken we're going to take a break we're coming back and talk about a lot of other things with Mel the only one I can do is you used to play on The Jack Benny show you played the car the Maxwell uh you played his Professor LeBlanc his uh violin teacher you played a parrot all other kinds of characters can you do still do the Maxwell boom there's a famous story I know there's true or not about they had a the English horror story right yes they had guys had written a sketch I guess or something in the script and they you they came to Mountain says can you do an English horse name right English horse women Quinny an English horse Winnie we were visiting Epsom Downs in England right so they wrote Into The Script can you do an English or swimming and you said it sure sure so it came to the queue and I gave him an English horse when he oh [Applause] that's my favorite um when they you the voices like say Bugs Bunny they bring the character to you and then you see the character and work around that they show me a picture of the characters still picture and they show me your storyboard which tells what this character is going to do in the cartoons right and they said Bugs Bunny was a tough little stinker right so I had to make make him tough I thought which is the toughest voice either Brooklyn or the Bronx right for bugs [Music] Daffy Duck well definitely is Affordable crazy little duckies always better than bugs and he says that bunny is Despicable a drone man sitting here doing it the train conductor always in Southern California now people around the rest of the country will hear those names of these towns and almost thought they were made up until they'd come to California and find out that they existed that's right do a little bit of that foreign come on uh what do you find has there been any challenges you haven't been able to meet over the years has they've thrown you no so far they haven't I'm very fortunate like somebody said they wrote Into The Script Mel blank does the sound of an of a uh goldfish so I did a goldfish laughs close enough all right I'll throw you a nutsy pig a Nazi Pig it is we'll be right back [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Johnny Carson

Views: 666,030

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Id: HKVw4Zc5Xdw

Length: 8min 53sec (533 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 27 2023