Jack Benny and Mel Blanc - The Man of a Thousand Voices | Carson Tonight Show

those of us and those of you who follow Jack's radio

show

over the years remember his wonderful cast, of course, with Mary and Don Wilson and Rochester Dennis Day Phil Harris, even going back to the Kenny Baker days , one of the men on his

show

who played many different characters and as you probably know, he has done the

voices

of most of the famous cartoon characters of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Barney Rubble from The Flintstones and we will talk about some of the other things Mel has done in your show over the years he is truly an artist would you welcome Mr Mel Blanc thank you ah Arya Mel well thank you you are very close that's right Mark how many years did you work before that people would actually see you doing something, I mean you people who do

voices

and start with voices uh, you do very well in the business a lot of my friends like Juni Fourier and other people who do voices, everyone listens to them but rarely watches them until television came along, right, that's right, I started radio in 1927.

You started in early 1927 the show in Portland Oregon called The Who dials in which I sang a song that my brother Henry He accompanied me and uh I sang this crazy little song, yes, I want to eat, I want to eat, Juanita, how do you get into that? a small group of people who do voices, you show up or people say we want a voice for something and you go in and audition for a particular character or not. I tried for a year and a half to get into Schlesinger cartoons and uh. This head of the company or head of the voice department kept saying that we have all the voices we need, we don't need anyone and I continued like this every two weeks.

I went there and he kept saying the same thing as me. just listen to me anyway and I kept saying I have all the voices we need finally the guy died cute to laugh at the dead oh well anyway I went to the next guy in charge named Trey Brown and told him I wish he would listen to me, He said, sure, what can you do? I auditioned for him and then he said great, would you do it for the directors? So I auditioned for the directors and one of the directors said, can you make a drunken dish? bull, yeah, I had eaten some sour mash and I had to do it, that's not him and uh, relax from that picture you saw, yeah and I thought yeah, I said I can make a drunk Bowl, he said what would it sound like, I told him , well, it sounded like a bit.

Like he was looking for a sour mask, he said great, what are you doing on Tuesday? He said, let's say Tuesday. He wasn't doing anything. I see, I think I can do it well. Jessica, that was the first voice I did in the cartoon and the director who asked me to do it was Frank Tashlin, who knows the pictures. It's certainly how Bugs Bunny came to be. Now you auditioned for that, no, show me a picture of this crazy little character and they said he was tough, tell me what. the story was going to be and I thought, let's see now which is the toughest voice in the United States, is it Brooklyn or the Bronx, she said, why don't I put the two together?

So what comes out, doctor? What's funny? when they put these voices on cartoons and we tried to destroy it one night and it didn't work because we couldn't get the settings right that's when they show a cartoon or an animated image and you see people like Mel and Alan Reed and June for Ray and Paul freeze and someone who does a lot of these voices watches the cartoons and stands around a microphone for grown people doing these voices it's the funniest thing, it's hysterical, they should film that you know, grown men turning into babies and They go home later.

One day at work from years ago, when I listen to Jack's show, they filmed everything he did on my show and he did all the characters he did. First of all, you did the train announcer, how did you do that train leaving on track five towards Anaheim? Azusa and the cook, come on, then would you add something. Don't get off at Cucamonga, we don't stop there. You know, for years, people who live in the Midwest didn't know there was a place like Anaheim. Azusa and Cucamonga. I thought we had never heard of those places, we did a show, he stopped in the middle of the kitchen for a long time and I said something and then I heard what he said, do that thing where you said Anaheim azuzah Anaheim starts with the train, the train leaves by track five. for Amazon Anaheim Azusa and Coop oh no train leaves the track even myself this is the rehearsal okay you can come out okay the train leaves track five for Anaheim Azusa and kitchen oh no, oh yeah, a manga from 40 years ago, no I don't remember 40 years, he remembers everything, what else?

When I used to listen to your show. I'm going to ask him this and you got out in the Maxwell and started the car. Yes, I would say those are the wireless sound effects. Have I ever heard in my life because most mechanical things are done by something recorded and men used to do it when I went to see the radio show and Mel would stand on the stage, yeah, he used to say and the audience would go hysterical I used to say Rochester, turn on the Maxwell because I want to leave and Mel would be the Maxwell.

You should have a microphone near you. Can we leave this? Can you let this go? Put it on. the picture don't worry yeah so I said ask Rochester to turn on the Maxwell and he would come out and you would hear the Maxwell and this would be good my Maxwell still sounds like that and the studio audience used to fall out. from the laughter just seeing Melody, the English horse, wait, you have to listen to this, you know, we used to do weeks of westerns called Buck Benny Rides Again, of course, Andy, so we would have a horse.

Andy Devine would be honored to be called Buck and all that. he would do the horses, so first he did just the horse, the wind now, one day my Riders and I got together and said, let's play tricks on Mel Blanc and see what he does in rehearsal, he should comment on it, so we said, writing on an english horse for no reason now we thought he should certainly tell us what the hell this means an english horse never said a word to us never opened his mouth when it came time to do the english horse this is what we did and we didn't even know that It's cool, we just did it, it's cool, what else did we do?

Let's see, sorry, yeah, the Mexican, yeah, you used to do the Mexican, always the Mexican routine and it was always the same way and the people. I yelled at the same things and I saw him, he would be Mexican, let's say he would be at a railway station, you know the routine you used to do when you were making the treasure of the Sierra Madre and he kept saying look, remember that you I know that's it routine, so I would say, "I would go up to him and say, sorry. Are you going to Mexico City? She's your train late.

Have you been waiting here for a long time? She's a foreigner. What is she?" ?" your name Psy is a friend of yours sitting with you she your sister she I'm afraid to ask the next one what her name is oh what else where would we go from there what does she do? oh yeah oh this one I probably said one thing, this wasn't even the script, I said what does she do, so those are great, great routines, those were some of the best constructed comedy moments ever seen on the radio, so a little dialogue, big build, boom, boom. boom, then the topper and then the topper and we'll take a short break, we'll be right back, stay with us