The Mel Blanc Show

Comedy (1946-47)

Mel Blanc voice is still heard around the world every day, thanks to the constant replay of the great Warner Brothers cartoons. Best known as the voice of Bugs Bunny, Blanc did a host of other cartoon characters as well including Porky Pig, Foghorn Leghorn, Tasmanian Devil, Pepe Lew Pew, Marvin the Martian, The Roadrunner ("Meep Meep"), and Woody Woodpecker.

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In radio, his talents were in high demand for characters and vocal sound effects, and he was on many shows in old time radio, including Burns and Allen, Judy Canova Show, and especially the Jack Benny Show, where he was a regular for decades. On the Benny show, he played a car (Benny's fabled Maxwell), a railroad announcer (the famous Cu-ca-mongaroutine), the parrot Polly and the Little Mexican, Sy. "Si, Sy" and many other "soundeffects."

Of course, Blanc does many wacky voices on the show, one of which is Zookie, who is the assistant to "Mel" on the show. The "Mel" of the show runs a fix-it shop that allows for many strange and silly sounds in the shop, too. There's a romantic angle, with Mary Jane Croft playing Mel's girlfriend Betty Colby. Joe Kearns plays Betty's father as the gruff old man. The show featured many regular characters including Hans Conried, Bea Benaderet, Alan Reed, Earle Rose, and Jim Backus.

Kooky characters tend to show up often, and in all those funny sounding characters and objects, we have our most satisfying Mel Blanc. He was a one-of-kind actor, for in him, with a nod to Lon Chaney, we had the "man of a thousand voices."

See also, Mel Blanc's quiz program: Are You a Genius? See also: Paul Frees