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Mel Blanc, the voice of Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Barney Rubble, Daffy Duck
and countless other animated vertebrates, died Monday afternoon at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
He was 81 and
had been hospitalized since May 19 suffering from heart disease and related
medical problems, said hospital spokesman Ron Wise.
With Blanc when
he died at 2:30 p.m. were his wife Estelle and son Noel, who now does most of
his father's voices.
Known as "The Man of 1,000
Voices," Blanc was virtually never seen on the
silver screen during the golden era of Merrie Melodies cartoons. Yet the
myriad permutations of his acrobatic vocal cords have remained instantly
recognizable by children of all ages around the globe for more than 50 years.
Among the many
lines he repeatedly uttered that arguably rival those of Shakespeare in terms
of familiarity, if not intellectual depth: "Eh . . . what's up, Doc?" through the lips of the wiseacre
hare, Bugs Bunny; "I tawt I taw a putty tat," from the tart-tongued canary Tweety,
and "SSSSSsssuffering
SSSSSuccotash," courtesy
of Sylvester the sloppy cat.
Not to mention
Woody Woodpecker's signature laugh ("Hee, hee, heh, hah, ho. Hee, hee,
heh, hah, ho"); both the laconic train conductor ("Anaheim, Azusa
and Cuc-a-monga") and sputtering Maxwell auto of Jack Benny radio and TV
show fame, and, of course, the stutter-strewn meanderings of Porky the
wistful pig.
Over time,
Blanc's renown "voice characterizations" became nearly as much a part of his
own life as breathing. In his later years, Blanc would often recount the scene
as he lay in a coma at UCLA Medical Center following a nearly fatal 1961 car
collision.
Bugs Bunny Invoked "They say that while I was
unconscious, the doctor would come into my room each day and ask me how I was
and, nothing. I wouldn't answer him. So one day he comes into my room, he
gets an idea, and he says, 'Hey, Bugs Bunny! How are you?' And they say I
answered back in Bugs' voice. "Ehh, just fine, Doc. How are you?!"
The doctor then said, " 'And Porky Pig! How are you feeling?' and I
said, 'J-j-j-just fine, th-th-th-thanks.' "So you see, I actually live these
characters." For days following the head-on Sunset Boulevard collision,
Blanc hovered near death. But like his dynamic cartoon characters -- who so
often slammed into walls and shrugged their shoulders or were blasted by
dynamite and proceeded to calmly wipe the gunpowder off their noggins --
Blanc, after 21 days, finally awoke, picked himself up and went back to work.
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