Latest / Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People / Mel Blanc - Man of A Thousand Voices

Transcript

Mel Blanc - Man of A Thousand Voices · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_05: Hello.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_05: New style.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_04: How are you?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_04: I'm I'm good.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I think I don't know if our listeners know this, but you know I've been moving, and and uh I will tell you 15 years in the same house, moving is a lot.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_04: It is it is a especially if you're downsizing, you're moving into a smaller place.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_04: Just piles and piles of stuff around our house.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_04: So much stuff we need to get rid of.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_04: So I know you you pride yourself on having everything ready, 100 100 disc changer, um, you know, a queas.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_04: I'll never throw away anything around here.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_04: They're all right there, but when you move, you're gonna have to make some decisions.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_05: That's why I'm never gonna move.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_05: Well, that is the sound of my friend Kelly.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_05: I am Alex.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_05: This is Dirtnap City, the podcast about interesting dead people, and boy, do I have an interesting one for you today, Kelly.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_04: Is he a mover?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_05: A shaker?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_05: He was a mover and a shaker.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_05: I would say, I would say it's right in my wheelhouse, 20th century white guy.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_05: Do people still say mover and shaker?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_05: I do.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I don't know if people do, but you know, I think we're old enough to uh not really be in touch with things that people are saying today.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, some of these phrases they come and go, and you know, I think that we're on the right side of things.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_04: I just recently said um I said to somebody, I'll be out of pocket.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I was told that out of pocket meaning that I wasn't gonna be available, I was gonna be out of town, so you know, d don't don't try to call me or whatever, don't expect a response because I'm out of pocket.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_04: And I was told um that that phrase can also mean uh a little crazy or out of control.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_04: Like I'm gonna be that's not true.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_04: Well, uh it is a secondary meaning, but I I I asked chat GPT and she said that's silly.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_05: That's silly.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_05: You shouldn't have a phrase that means two very different different things like that.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_05: Out of pocket only means that you're not um I usually say I'm gonna be in the basement.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, or I'm gonna go see a man about a horse.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_05: That's what I like to say.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_05: That that means I've heard that expression.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_05: That means you're not gonna be available.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it usually means I'm going to pee.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's what I need to see a man about a horse.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_05: So you wouldn't use the term I'm out of pocket, I'm gonna be out of pocket if you're just going to the restroom.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, you literally are out of pocket, right?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I guess so.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_04: There is a pocket or a pouch that you're out of.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_04: So uh is this guy's name Dick today that we're gonna be talking about?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_05: Nope, nope, nope, nope.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_05: Sorry, sorry.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_05: But his name is his name is Melvin.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_05: Melvin, Melvin, Melvin.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_05: He was born in San Francisco in 1908 and died in LA in 1989.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_05: You know, you know when someone dies in LA, you know, they're probably in show business, right?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_04: The only Melvin I could think of is Melvin Lack, who started Lack's Furniture in Texas, but I don't think it's that person.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_05: Nope.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_05: Nope.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_05: And we should do a show about him one day.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_04: We should.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_04: Al from Austin.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_05: He gave me a bottle of champagne when I got married.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_04: Nice, nice.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um well, so this is Melvin.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_04: He died in LA.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_04: Where'd you say he was born?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it doesn't really matter.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_05: It was San Francisco, but that doesn't really give a clue.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_05: But 1908 to 1989.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_05: Usually when they die in LA, that means they were in show business.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_05: And I'll give you the clue that he was known as the man of a thousand voices.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, Mel Blanc.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_05: Mel blank, yeah.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_05: Blank.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_04: Is it blank?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_04: I thought it was blank.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_05: Well, you know, it was interesting.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_05: It he was born Mel Blank, B-L-A-N-K, changed it to B-L-A-N-C because when he and this is this is a very common thing that we find at Dartnop City, that when he was sixteen, a teacher told him that he would amount to nothing and be just like his name, a blank.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_05: Oh.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_05: So he changed the spelling of his name to B-L-A-N-C to make it sound more, I guess, French.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_05: But it was uh it was originally uh blank.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_05: I think that's a very rude thing for a teacher to say, but not at all uncommon in what we found among the greats.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_05: At some point a teacher tells them they're terrible and worthless.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_04: He struggled in school, probably drove an ambulance at some point.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_05: Do you do you think the teachers should start doing more of that to make people greater?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_04: Start like really well, you know, that's what they say they do in the military, is they they cut you down and then they build you back up.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I don't think there was any building up here.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_05: She just was 16, he's almost out of school.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_04: You'll amount to nothing.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_04: And but you know, when he got older, he probably had could write a blank check or had a blank check for whatever he wanted in life, you know.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_05: True, every check you wrote was a blank check.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_04: Um, no, I don't think teachers should do that.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_04: I think that's not a good teaching technique.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_05: All right, so don't do that.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_05: If you're a teacher, don't do that.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, we'll just continue to breed mediocrity.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_05: And have people change their names.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, well, so uh not too other than that real story, uh, not too much of a memorable childhood.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_05: I think he was a pretty good student and very creative and talented, particularly in music.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_05: He was a conductor, actually, an orchestra conductor.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_04: And after not a train conductor.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, not the kind.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but after he graduated from high school, he was the youngest orchestra conductor in the country.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_05: He was only 19 years old, and he was a conductor of uh of an orchestra.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_05: And then on the weekends, he would go and perform in vaudeville.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_05: Oh wow.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_05: He was up, he was in San Francisco and Portland.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_05: I think he um uh graduated from high school in Portland, Oregon, and then he so he would do the port uh vaudeville circuits in Washington, Oregon, Northern California.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_05: Just a talented, uh talented guy.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_05: Well, he made his acting debut.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_05: Now remember, there's no television back here.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_05: We're talking the 1920s.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_05: This is radio.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_05: This is radio, radio was huge.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_05: So he made his acting debut when he was 19 years old.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_05: This would be in 1927, on the radio show called The Hood Owls.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, I like that.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_05: The Hoot Owls.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_05: The Hood owls, yeah.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_05: I think back then they used to call owls hood owls.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_05: That was a that's the thing I think with Beverly Hill Bullies.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_04: I used to call them yeah, it's like a shade tree.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, right.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_04: You know, a little redundant, but it's it it's like well, it's like what it does, and then it's its name.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_04: You know, a shade tree gives you shade, as opposed to any other tree that that doesn't block the sun, an invisible tree.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly, yeah.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_04: Or an owl that just talks, a talking owl would be different than a hooting owl.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_05: Well, he was on the hoot owls and really took to the radio, got to got to do little characters and voices.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_05: And remember, the radio is just such a medium where you really have to, your voice really matters.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_05: Like a podcast.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_05: I think exactly.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_05: I think once once TV came, it was your face that mattered, um and and your and your looks, but really on the radio, such an audio, uh, audio medium that you're really making characters, making them different from one another.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you could you could have two people on a show and represent 30 different characters, and people are using imagination.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_05: Like, dude.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, what when are you gonna drop this character, by the way?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_05: I'm a little sick of it.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think 2026.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_04: 2026, I'll I'll I'll come back to somebody, somebody more realistic.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_05: Go back to your real voice, maybe your real accent.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_05: I think, by the way, for someone who has never been to the US, your accent is remarkable.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_04: Well, thank you.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I really worked on that.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_04: It's hard to it's hard to lose that uh Russian Russian uh accent, but I think I've done it.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think you have.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um, well, in 1933, he uh he was married by this time and he produced a show with his wife.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um this show was called Cobweb and Nuts.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_05: Sounds like a morning zoo, like a morning radio show, right?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_05: Cob Web and Nuts.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_05: And that show, I you never I always think of these radio shows as being played like uh in the evening or this was a late night show.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_05: This was like 11 p.m.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_05: Cob Web and Nuts.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know if it was saucy or anything, but it was uh a late night, late night show, Cob Webb and Nuts, and it was he and his wife just playing a lot of different characters.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it was pretty popular in the in the region.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_05: By then, um though he decided to move to LA and he got on the Jack Benny show as a record.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, that's a I don't know if you remember the Jack or Aaron here about the Jack Benny show.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_04: I've heard of it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_04: I've heard of it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_04: I've I don't know that I've ever seen it, but yeah, this was one of those classic variety shows, right?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_05: Very popular.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_05: Well, uh, I suppose I don't think it was they didn't have a lot of like um it wasn't like Ed Sullivan or anything.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but he was Jack Benny played this uh played a version of himself that was real pompous and um um and played the violin really poorly and all these people around him, but he believed he was really good, and all these people were he had kind of enablers around him, and he was kind of the straight man Jack Benny was, and then all these crazy characters would pop in and out.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um well that was a radio show, and then that lasted forever.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_05: I mean that was that was in the 30s.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_05: I think it finally migrated to TV later.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um Jack Benny was just at one time was just one of the most popular entertainers in the in the country.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um so so you know you get on that show and and and play a bunch of crazy characters, people people like you.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_05: He even had his own show in uh 1946, but only lasted uh a year or two.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_05: But Jack Benny was yeah.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_05: Uh but that's that's kind of um that was kind of where he got popular.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_05: It was the Jack Benny show.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_05: Well in 19 Can I ask a quick question?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_04: Um so you said it was B-L-A-N-K originally.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_04: Um was it when he changed the spelling?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_04: Did is Blanc like it's actually Mel Blanc?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so I should say Mel Blank.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um he joined in 1936, he joined Leon Schlesinger Productions.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_05: You ever heard that name Leon Schlesinger?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_04: I feel like I have, yeah.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, well, they always used to on uh like Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny, those guys sometimes used to make fun of Leon Schlesinger, like as being their boss.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, okay.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_05: And uh there was a lot of kind of inside jokes about Mr.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_05: Schlesinger, and Porky Pig couldn't say it real well, you know.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_05: Right, right, of course.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_05: It is kind of hard to say, but it's a funny name to say in 1936.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_05: He was uh he made his first uh film in a a movie, uh little these were all short movies, you know, that they would show like in the movie house.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_04: They'd play him ahead of the regular movie.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_05: Sometimes they would show, I think you would go and they would just show just shorts.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_05: Like I think on maybe Saturday mornings the kids could go and maybe they'd show ten shorts.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_05: It wasn't all just before um a feature.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um this show was called this uh this short was called Piccadore Porky.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_05: And he played one of Porky Pig's drunken friends who dresses up like a bull.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um back then, um, even though kids loved this stuff, um, the themes were a little more uh adult than they were like on Saturday morning cartoons.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_05: Porky Pig would have a bunch of friends that were getting drunk and um making mayhem.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it wasn't just cute, adorable stuff, very different than Disney, who was consciously trying to make things for children.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think Looney Tunes was just trying to make funny stuff and crazy stuff, and because they were animated, they could do they could make outlandish uh stuff.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_05: Didn't really matter, but kids would like it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, nothing was really risque or anything, but they uh you know they took on themes like especially during the war, they took on Hitler and very different than than Disney, where they weren't really trying to cater to to kids.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_05: Well, he soon replaced the voice of Porky Pig.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_05: Um the um the guy who played Porky Pig uh originally actually did have a stutter, and that's why Porky Pig stuttered at the beginning.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_05: But because his stutter was so bad, it was costing uh a lot of money because they had to keep redoing re uh re doing redoing takes.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so they got Mel Blank, who took over as Porky Pig, retained the stutter, but only for kind of comedic purposes.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_05: Remember, Porky Pig would stutter, try to say something, and then he'd say a different word.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_05: Uh that was a good idea.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_05: It was easier to stay uh to say.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_05: And this this show was called Porky's Duck Hunt, and that was the first uh appearance of Daffy Duck.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_05: Ah, okay.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_05: And um, and then that became those guys became like a a staple of Looney Tunes, which Leon Schlesinger then then produced.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_05: So let's go through some of these voices.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_05: I've I've mentioned a couple, Porky Pig and and Daffy Duck.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um do you what do you remember any other voices that Well he did Bugs Bunny, right?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_05: He did Bugs Bunny.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_05: Bugs Bunny was in 160 short films.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_05: Uh now Bugs Bunny, what was his he we had uh like a Brooklyn accent, right?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_04: Kind of.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_04: I made a wrong turn at Alba Coikey.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and he was uh kind of a trickster.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_05: So the guy that created Bugs Bunny, I thought this was interesting.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you know, the the you know Bugs Bunny's catchphrase is, right?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_05: Uh tell me.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_05: Picture him, he's eating a carrot, he's just chilling, he's got his legs crossed, and he says, Yeah.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_05: What's up, Doc?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_05: What's up, Doc?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_05: That's right.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_05: That's right.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_05: I'd forgotten that.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_05: So the guy who um created him says, Well, what's up, Doc?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_05: Is a very simple thing.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_05: It's only funny because it's in a situation.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_05: It was an all bugs bunny line.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_05: It wasn't funny.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_05: If you put it in human terms, you come home late night from work, you walk up to the gate, and into the front room, the door's partly open, there's some guy shooting up your living room.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_05: So, what do you do?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_05: Well, you run if you're any if you have any sense.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_05: The least you do is call the cops.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_05: But what if you come up and tap them on the shoulder and look over and say, What's up, doc?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_05: You're interested in what he's doing.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_05: That's ridiculous.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_05: That's not what you say at a time like that.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_05: So that's why it's funny.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_05: In other words, it's asking a perfectly legitimate question in a perfectly illogical situation.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_05: Right, right.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_05: That was the secret sauce.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_05: That was the secret sauce for what's up, Doc.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_05: That he would just like all chaos would be uh going down, and there'd be people bullets flying, and literally on some of those shows, right?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_04: He's also very calm in all those situations.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_04: Like it doesn't, he's not phased, he's not phased by the chaos going on around him.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_05: Because he always comes up on top, right?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_05: He always knows there's about to be an anvil falling on you, so he's he's a good chill.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um, well, Bugs Bunny was um in a uh, like I said, 160 short films, second only to Porky Pig.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_05: He was in the most of the short films.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um Porky Pig.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um uh now I mentioned the stutter.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_05: The stutter is also to kind of um sound like actual grunting, because uh he he Mel Blank said, well, if a real pig was to talk, he would he would um you know talk like you know, he would he would grunt and then that would come out like a a stutter.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um who else you got?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_05: You got Daffy Duck, I mentioned him.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Yosemite Sam.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_05: No, wait, Daffy Duck uh was kind of a screwball um, you know, he would he would um over-the-top stuff, right?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_05: And he had a lisp.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_05: Remember, he'd have kind of a crazy list.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_05: And he said the reason he had put on the lisp was because he said, Well, if you had a beak like that, of course you're gonna talk with it.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_04: I was just about to say the beak, it's kind of almost how you form your mouth if you're trying to talk like that, like a beak.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and Daffy Duck, remember, was also the the funny part is they would have these uh like spin-off characters like Duck Dodgers.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_05: Remember, Duck Dodgers was was Buck Rogers, so they'll like put these guys in a different scenario and then they would give them a different um character, but the character would still be Daffy Duck playing a character, or he would be like uh a scene completely uh set in Italy, and it would be all the same characters, but they would all have Italian accents.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_05: Right, right.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_05: Which is probably hard to do, you know.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_05: Play 13 characters all with Italian accents, but the exact same characters that you've been playing before.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_05: That's really pretty clever.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_04: And I guess he was playing multiple characters in one show.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_04: Like he would he would play the part of uh Absolutely.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_05: Uh did he do Foghorn Leghorn?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_05: He did.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_05: You mentioned Yosemite Sam, he said Yosemite Sam was the hardest one to do because he had to get real gruff and his throat.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um he did play Foghorn Leghorn, which was uh a big rooster, right?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_05: Uh yeah, like a huge uh tall rooster with a sandwich.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_04: I say, I say, I say uh maybe Colonel Sanders kind of vibe.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_04: Pay attention now.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, or dialect.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: Actually, actually, if you've been watching the Righteous Gemstones, the one you just baby Billy.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um that that's he uh Foghorn Leghorn and Baby Billy.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_04: That'd be interesting to listen to those two back to back.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: I say, I say, I say, pay attention now.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, you need to acting, you need to act.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna play Jeep.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_05: I think he had like a almost sounded like a southern lawyer or uh or maybe a congressman or something like that.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_05: He kind of had kind of an importance sound about him, too.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um Southern aristocracy.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_05: Who else can you think of?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_05: Uh was he Elmer Fudd?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_05: Elmer Fudd, right.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_05: Elmer Fudd uh had what uh road roticism, which is when you replace your L's and R's with W's, right?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_05: So um yeah, silly Wabbit.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_04: Silly Wabbit, Twix of the Kids.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_05: And that all these little ticks and and uh and features of the voices made it so you didn't have to come up with somebody with you know you can only go so far with this guy has a high voice and this guy has a low voice, and this guy has a gruff voice, this guy's a squeaky voice.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_05: But by giving them these kind of speech impediments, it also made them distinguish him.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and this he said that they would show him a picture of the character, and he would think of all right, what does this guy must sound like with the way their face is looks, and and then but the thing is too, then you have to remember all that stuff.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_04: I think that's yeah, you almost have to like implant it into your brain and be able to recall you're not recalling a phrase, you're recalling the way they talk.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_04: So any phrase has to um yeah, that that would be I mean without computers though.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_05: Without computers, so you'd say, so they say, How did I do Pepe Le Pew last time?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_05: Well, here you now you have to set up the the reels recorder, yeah, exactly.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_04: Play it back.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_04: Do you remember Pepe Le Pew?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_04: Pepe Le Pew, yeah, he was always trying to get that cat.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um he was always trying to the cat that had a uh paint, the cat would somehow get a stripe of paint down its back so it looked like a skunk, and then Pepe Le Pew would chase the cat in a romantic fashion.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_05: Very French, very French, yeah, right?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_05: Like a French lover type.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um Marvin the Martian, you remember Marvin the Martian?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yes, he talked kind of like this, I think.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think people loved him.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_05: He was one of those characters that didn't show up a lot, but you got excited when when you'd show up, right?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna give a shout out to my buddy Jim, who uh who has several tattoos now, but his first tattoo was Marvin the Martian.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_04: I remember he was he was so proud of it.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_04: He was like, Yeah, that's this and that's pretty cool tattoo, honestly.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, like I say, it was kind of um one of those more obscure ones, yeah.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_05: But not obscure, not super obscure.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_05: Like everyone knows about it.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um he did the voice of the Roadrunner, which was just uh Me meep.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he did um Sylvester the Cat.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_05: Which he said was basically just his voice with uh with a um like a Yeah, he kind of had a uh uh you know what that's called?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's called a plosive.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, right.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um I've also heard it called.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_05: the that sound a bilabial fricative right in in sound editing you hear like there's there's devices to to keep that away right to get well to get rid of the plosives yeah yeah the plosives are the P that's what those pop filters are for get rid of you played the he played the Tasmanian devil yeah and uh Tweety remember Tweety oh yeah Tweety bird I am just a whittle bud I taught I to a putty cat putty chat yeah yeah um and Speedy Gonzalez now Speedy Gonzalez is interesting because yeah and and his and his cousin Slowpoke Slowpoke Rodriguez yes I forgot about Slowpoke that's like evil can evil and awful can awful like two two opposites no slow poke Rodriguez that is such a great name Speedy Gonzalez was interesting because um Looney Tunes and and Warner Brothers decided that that was probably um that they that was a stereotype that they didn't want out there.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_05: So for years they shelved it and you couldn't find it like in the 90s you could not find Speedy Gonzales and interesting thing happened um the um you know Lulak the um I forget what it stands for but it's the uh organization for for Latin Americans uh for you know advancement of Latin Americans okay um they protested they said uh that speedy Gonzalez was a cultural icon among Latin people and that he was a heroic Mexican character he was quick witted he always came out on top right and they love him like in Mexico they love Speedy Gonzalez and they consider him not uh not a cartoonish stereotype that's negative but uh somebody that they really liked and speaking of tattoos I think there's a lot of Speedy Gonzalez tattoos out there yeah um if you've got a Speedy Gonzalez tattoo send us a picture not at dirtnapcity.com we'd love to see it yeah so it's it's one of those things that you're not sure if it's appropriate or not but Speedy Gonzalez has uh been endorsed by uh Lulak so um yeah yeah I mean it's that is such a that is such a fine line such a such a treacherous um thing to have to go through I am I'm just kind of pontificating here a little bit about um those stereotypes or things where you take somebody's culture and you use it as part of a character and is it is it um making fun of them is it appropriation is it an exaggeration or a stereotype or and are stereotypes I mean stereotypes are based on reality right and think of think about the number of um kind of you know the Foghorn Leghorn and Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam these these are all white guys basically that that are being well it's stereotyped as well right well um uh Hank Azaria uh faced this with the character of Apu yeah and and stopped doing it and there's a whole movie about it and um he it really hit him hard the kill with Apu or the problem without poo and that wasn't necessarily a positive stereotype it was just a it was just a Indian guy that worked in a convenience store and I think they were making fun of that trope and he would a lot of times say things about Hinduism and you know it's like you say it's a white guy um making jokes about a culture and I think they did cross the line a few times um with that but with speedy and zealous I don't think they were making fun of Mexicans they weren't making fun of um Latin people he did have a Spanish accent but like I said he's he was a heroic he would always come out on top just like Bugs Bunny he was always outwitting the other guys right so if you're watching it from the lens of that culture you don't see anything wrong with it right if you're watching if you're Indian and you're watching the Simpsons you're thinking oh that's kind of it was kind of a low blow whatever he just said you know it wasn't done in the same even though Ankazaria like I said he felt really awful he didn't I don't think it ever occurred to him but that's the problem right that it doesn't occur to them yeah yeah yeah and and and eventually I mean Apu was a major character in the Simpsons for years and years and I I remember some some Simpsons episodes though where Apu was the smart guy where he you know where he kind of like came out on top but yeah it's again I don't know I can't say what's right or wrong and I think it's very contextual but I'm glad to hear that Speedy Gonzalez because I always enjoyed Speedy Gonzalez as a character on the shows.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_04: I thought he was funny I thought he was clever um but maybe we need more Slowpoke Rodriguez.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_05: Well and there is now in um in voice acting there is a conscious effort to make sure that um when people is of that of that culture.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely absolutely yeah um and you know there's so much voice work these days because you have video games and you have you know all these all these different channels and all these different outlets that voice acting is a is a major thing.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_05: But even that I I mean I can understand it on one level having having the character be you know um a a Latin character to do speedy Gonzalez but does that mean for foghorn leghorn you have to have a old old southern guy you know is is is that why why are some of these accents okay and some of them not I I don't know that we can get through all that but just for I I don't know it's hard to say I think if if they're the hero or the or the foil you know I think if if uh you know if if uh wily coyote was of a different culture right and always had the anvil dropping on him that wouldn't be now now wily coyote is an it did did didn't he talk a few times yeah he did he did I remember a couple he had kind of a a sophisticated uh English accent or something like that there was a couple times where they kind of broke the fourth wall on that and I don't know if my favorite one was camera the my favorite one was one where they punch a time card like they show Roadrunner and why the kind they're coming to work to do their like hey how was your weekend pretty good yeah and and they're just like out of character but they're and then and then they go and they chase each other in the desert but I th that was right and then they punch out and then they're like hey all right see you tomorrow exactly like this whole thing was just acting I love that um he actually started um he did those things outside of Warner Brothers also like he started as the voice of Woody Woodpecker um which was which was not um Looney Tunes um that was uh I think that was Mary Melody's right or maybe no that was but that was universal and then he had to stop doing that when Warner Brothers signed him to an exclusive contract but he invented the laugh and the they kept that Mel Blanc's laugh in there until 1951 and you know how at the end of or at the beginning of Woody Woodpecker he says guess who yeah that was Mel Blanc's voice they kept that in there until they stopped making Woody Woodpeckers like in 1972 um so that was that's pretty cool that he and he was also um when his contract with Warner Brothers expired his exclusive contract expired in 1960 then he started working with our friends Hanna Barbera oh okay and like he was the voice of Barney Rubble he was the voice of Cosmo Spacely you know uh Jetson's boss yeah yeah yeah Mr Spacely Spacely Sprockets yeah and he was the voice of Captain Caveman I think we talked about him on the Hannah Barbera wow you know this is the this is kind of the third of the trifecta with Disney Hanna Barbera and now Mel Blank I think we've covered all the cartoons that I want to uh cover until Matt Greenig uh passes away right right and um yeah but um he also worked with Chuck Jones and even did some Tom and Jerry cartoons in in the in the 60s and he was the first voice of Tucan Sam the Fruit Loops uh mascot I can't even imagine what he yeah I guess he was just pitching Fruit Loops right that was just you know that's all he did.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_04: There were most I mean Tucan Sam wasn't actually a wasn't actually a cartoon right it was just uh no he was like they had well I mean what no it wasn't a show right it wasn't he was a cartoon it was it was pitching Fruit Loops it was just just to um I want to just go back real quick and we don't have to talk about this much but just kind of acknowledge um Hank Azaria as because doesn't he do a large number of the voices on the Simpsons?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah yeah he does like all the minor characters yeah yeah and so um but I can't think of anybody else that would be as universally used for voices.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_05: I mean I guess um Billy West Billy West um Billy West does yeah at least he does all the all the other cartoons like he does he does a lot of uh he'll do like Futurama and he did I think King of the Hill and all those he's he Billy West is still alive.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_05: Billy West is still alive and so is Hank Azaria so we can't really talk about that much.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_04: But but Billy West is like the modern version of Mel Blank.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah I think he he he'd be like oh he does those and those I think Billy West did Spongebob SquarePants oh well okay um a lot of those kind of cartoons I think voice acting um like I said because of video games voice acting is a huge career and there's a lot of people that you would never know their faces that are making great money and stars like they go to those those uh you know comic comics Nancy Cartwright Mart Simpson but also also um James Earl Jones right I mean he's he's he's the voice of Mufasa is the voice of Darth Vader he's the voice of uh wasn't he wasn't he the voice of several other cartoons I he is in Dirtdamp City so we could talk about him oh yeah well uh okay so he did all these voices that we grew up with yeah yeah yeah so in 1961 Mel Blank was in a car accident bad car accident he fractured his legs fractured his pelvis and he was in a coma and he was non-responsive and um and there was nothing they could do to really you know this was in the 60s they probably didn't know as much as they know now about how to get people out of comas the doctors tried everything they didn't have any luck and then one of his he was at UCLA Medical Center one of his doctors decided we we've tried everything um we're giving him all the medicine we know to try we're we're we're doing all the all the things we know there's one thing that I'd like to try let's try to address his characters let's try to talk to his characters and his doctor came up to him and he said how are you feeling Bugs Bunny and Mel Blank who had been in a coma for days says eh just fine doc how are you whoa and then he says this is a true story this is a true story he says is Tweety there too and he goes I taught I taught putty tat coming came out of his coma went home a few days later was all like that's how they brought him out of his coma that crazy well I mean I it it's actually when you said he wanted to try something I thought well maybe it had something to do with the characters and but just that immediate response and yeah that's amazing it's just shows there's different parts of the brain conscious is is acting is still working but you know his character of himself couldn't come to life until the back you know they say you know when you sit with somebody who's you know in a coma and you and talk to them that there's parts of them that are you know taking in that information.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_05: You hear about people that are in a coma a long time they get visited and then when they come when they come out of it and you try to tell them um what's what they've missed a lot of times they're like oh I did know that because you've been telling me that right right um but I don't remember you telling me that but somehow I do know that so it it's hitting somewhere I think music also tends to um for some people um touch a part of their brain and get them out of the coma but just so as there's a lot of things that we don't know um but what a you know if he hadn't done that who knows what would have happened you know I mean he yeah he might not have ever they might have just pulled the plug on him you know um well he went home after that and he sued the city of Los Angeles because uh where he had the accident was at a place they had called Dead Man's Curve.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_05: There had been 26 accidents in the in two years in a two year time and um they changed the route they changed the the the uh the way the uh the street went because of um he sued him you know he actually had the I don't think other people had had the resources to be able to sue the blank check change yeah well he died a year after Roger Rabbit came out you remember who framed Roger Rabbit yeah it was the only time he had ever worked with any Disney characters and he died a year after that uh came out was he Roger he was Roger Rabbit no he was but he was all the all his care all of his characters okay um you know he smoked a pack of cigarettes a day from the time he was nine wow till nineteen eighty five so like from nineteen seventeen to nineteen eighty five he smoked a pack of cigarettes a day and so um yeah yeah and but you know the doctors said that his voice had unbelievably unusually thick vocal cords that were similar the only time they'd ever seen those was like famous opera singers that that would give him the range to go from Tweety all the way to Yosemite Sam.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_05: It's a pretty big range.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah right it is um so that I don't think they did an autopsy but when the doctors um while he was alive the doctors said well your your vocal cords are amazing that uh that reminds him of opera singer his last recording session was Jetsons the movie that came out in 1990.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um and he's buried in um I think at Forest Hills in LA with a lot of the other Dirtnap City um residents.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah yeah uh you know what his headstone says uh that's all folks yep uh did you just guess that or did you not I did I did get no I just guessed it yeah that's all folks that's all folks that's that's I mean that's awesome right that's a great headstone yeah he he was the first voice actor to ever receive on screen credit prior to that they there they didn't even they weren't even thought of as real actors you know they just didn't didn't get any credit and he demanded on-screen credit and uh worked tirelessly to you know for that industry to get more credit and get paid uh what they were worth um and his um biography is called Melvin the Mouth well you know when you said Melvin if you had said Mel I think I might have gotten it faster than I'm guessing but when you said Melvin I had to think about it a little bit you know this is probably a bit of a dying art because I feel like ai is going to be able to um replace I don't I don't know if you've ever asked chat gpt to um to say something with a certain accent or with a certain like in a certain way but you can actually ask chat gpt the voice version to to to tell you something with a with a German accent or a Jamaican accent or a midwestern accent and with like our voices um yeah there's so much manipulation you can do with voices now uh electronically and and it isn't like you have to do it you can create a model that will have a certain voice and then just use that right and so voice actors voiceover people you know I work with a lot of people who do voice over work uh for corporate videos and training videos and stuff like that and and uh you know it's getting harder and harder to get those gigs because you can do so much with AI.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_05: I think they did that in that movie The Brutalist that just won the uh Academy Award that they used it for Adrian Brody was supposed to have a Hungarian accent apparently he didn't do a great Hungarian accent and they used AI to take his voice and make it sound Hungarian.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah yeah so what do you think the but but uh AI is not gonna be able to I don't know I I wouldn't say anything after that phrase I would just leave it because it can do everything it it will be able to but you know whenever people criticize AI whether it's from writing or um music or I mean the the silly songs that we put at the end of these shows I I hear one criticism a lot and I'm probably gonna stand by this until I hear otherwise is that it it doesn't have as much you know it doesn't have soul you know yeah it doesn't have the same soul as a guy looking at a picture of a pig and making up a voice um you might be able to approximate something like that the creativity side of AI is limited in my opinion you couldn't tell chat GPT make up a new style of music that I've never heard before you can't say um show me an instrument that I've never heard before you can't you know I mean it's it's derivative right it just takes things that already exist yeah and people like Mel Blank or just creative people in general come up with things that have never existed before and I think that's where humans still for now I still think um are better.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah for now for now and I'm I'm not criticizing or advocating for AI.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_04: I'm just saying it's I've been pretty I've been using it more recently and I've been pretty amazed at some things that I didn't think it can do that it can do.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah but that that's that's not that's off topic you know uh Mel Blanc Mel Blank um he he proved his teacher wrong at the end of the day right he became uh pretty pretty uh well known person who I guess younger generations might not know his name but they'll know the characters those characters will be around for a long time you think do you think Bugs Bunny is in the culture today?
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_05: Like do you think I mean I know like at Six Flags I think owns those characters right so they have those mascots walking around the park and um I feel like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are iconic but I wouldn't know where to go watch I mean other than YouTube I don't know if if they're like front and center of the of the culture these days I mean do young people know those characters and know why they're funny um I don't know I don't know that that may be we we may just assume that they'll be part of the culture forever I might assume that and be wrong.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_04: That could be that you know that 50 years from now nobody's gonna know who they are anymore.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_04: I think a lot of it is is commercials right I mean if you think about the peanuts now are in aren't they in some insurance like uh yeah they've been the they've been MetLife uh characters for 50 years I think yeah yeah yeah and and that seems to be where a lot of people see them for the first time you know other than the the specials that the specials that get played year after year for the peanuts are classic and they're ones that people um that people today show their kids I don't know that I don't know that any of us you or I are excited enough to sit down with our kids and show them oh look it's Bugs Bunny we need to watch this um you know Mike I'll tell you what that stuff was funny though like the stuff from the 30s and 40s yeah like I said it's not just made for kids and it's very smart yeah it's very smart stuff good writing it'll make you it'll make you laugh yeah and the voices are what makes it funny I think I mean yeah yeah I mean um not all of it but um you know you look there's a there's a list here of all the all the characters that that he played and in some of these minor ones like you know George K.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_05: Chickenhawk
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's just a funny Oh, I I remember um I was the chicken hawk the one that had the little little tiny uh it was a little tiny bird and he's like, I'm a chicken hawk and you are a chicken.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_04: Was he the friends with he was always trying to capture um Falkhorn Leghorn because Henry Hawk is what you're thinking of, and the chicken hawk was his father, George K.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_05: Chickenhawk.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_05: But just the fact that his name is he's a father, so he has to have a middle initial initial because he's an adult.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_05: That's funny to me.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_05: And Henry Hawk was yeah, he was the the small one yeah, who was all full of uh pissed with a loudmouth, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_05: He was foghorn leghorn's foil.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_05: Right, right, right.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_05: That's just funny, man.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_05: And then um and then he played Adolf Hitler, you know, um did uh in a lot of different cartoons, and and part of the part of the thing was making him look like an idiot, you know, making him look like a boob.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um that that was you know, that was not for children, you know, back then.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_05: And just like Disney did, they they used a lot of uh animation for the uh for uh like basic training.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and some of it was not probably culturally appropriate uh by today's standards.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um but that was um that was another place that they uh used their stuff.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um the um I see a character here called Mark Anthony and Pussyfoot.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_05: Those were like two animated like a like a big dog and a little cat.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um the um Mrs.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_05: Daffy Duck, Nasty Canasta.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_05: Do you know who Nasty Canasta was?
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_05: No idea.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_05: Do you?
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_05: It says he was like a big, like an outlaw, like a cowboy.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_05: Um that um he would, you know, he would um he would mess with Daffy Duck when Daffy Duck would go into an old saloon or something.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah, which happened frequently.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_05: Uh O Pat and O'Mike were the ju the um Irish Irish Irish characters that he had called O Pat and O Mike.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um but sometimes they would disguise themselves as one um they were like leprechauns when they would disguise themselves as a human named Seamus O'Toole.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_04: And one would stand on top of the other's shoulder.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_04: You remember that?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_04: No, I'm just guessing, but that's how leprechauns would do that.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_05: Because they thought Porky Pig was trying to steal their gold.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_05: So they would the Penelope Pussycat is the the name of the uh the cat that looked like a skunk.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_05: The Pepe Le Pew was.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_05: Then you had Petunia Pig.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_05: I remember.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_05: That was uh Porky's girlfriend.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_05: You knew it was she looked just like Porky, but she had um well, she had pigtails, right?
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_04: She had pigtails, of course.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um played a character called Professor Calvin Q Calculus.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um I just think this stuff is uh pretty classic.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_05: You can go pretty deep with these.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, well, that's uh Mel Blank.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_05: Nice, nice.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_04: That was a good one.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_04: That is right up your alley.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_05: Well, that's all folks.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: Remarkable gentleman with me this morning has probably made more people laugh without being seen than anyone else I know.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: His name is Mel Blank, and if that doesn't quickly ring a bell, let me add that Mel Blank has been and is the voice of such characters as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Elmer Flood, Pepe LaPew, Speedy Gonzalez, and dozens and dozens and dozens of other characters.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: Good morning.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: I cannot tell you what a great pleasure it is to meet you, having heard you and been delighted by you all of my life.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks very much, Gene.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Nice to have you say that.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: Mel couldn't be with us today, but a number of other people have.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, Tweety Bird is with us today.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I thought I saw a putty cat.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: I did see a putty tap.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: And that putty cat was probably Sylvester.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, buffer and fucking tattoo.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: Putty tap.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: Then there was Daffy Duck.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Daffy is uh sort of a crazy little uh bird that uh says that bugs bunny is a good pickable.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: Roadrunner, I love though.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, all Roadrunner says is meet, meet, meet, meet.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then another chicken from the south, no doubt, Froghorn Leghorn.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh pay uh pay attention, Gene.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: Foghorn, you looking for chicken, see that little house says D-O-G.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: That spells chicken.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: Go get them, boy.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Speedy Gonzalez.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Speedy Gonzalez, fresh muscle mexicals.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: Who didn't love your semi sales?
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yosemite Sam's one of my favorites too.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: Shoots gumdrops.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody's laughing in the studio because you're wonderful.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Peppy La Pew.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, the little friend skunk.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: It says the pussycat didn't catch your thinky sum.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Elmer Fudd.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm looking for rabbits.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: And the rabbit he was looking for was the most famous of all characters, Bugs Bunny.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks very much, Doc.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you like him, too.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Porky Pig.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but yeah, but Porky Pig it it is a very timid little hug.