Twitter users have started reminiscing about the ‘genius’ of the late actor Mel Blanc, but who is the former Looney Tunes and Bugs Bunny star?
Mel Blanc has started trending on Twitter as fans look back on some of his greatest moments as he gave life to some iconic cartoon characters.
Mel Blanc
Born at the turn of the 20th century in 1908 Mel is known today for creating over 3,000 voices for cartoon characters, but his career started in the 1920s when he became a musician for the latest entertainment craze.
Mel even worked with his wife, Estelle Rosenbaum, from 1933, when they hosted a radio show together in Portland – but due to such a low budget it did allow him to hire more people to play other voices, so Mel decided to make them up himself – and thus was the birth of his lucrative career as a voice actor.
In 1937, after several years of freelancing in the Los Angeles area, Mel joined Leon Schlesinger’s animation unit at Warner Bros. studios.
Mel Blanc coma
Although Bugs Bunny may be one of Mel’s most iconic characters the actor started off his career in the Loony Tunes giving the voice to a drunken bull in the 1937 short Picador Porky.
He created voices for an estimated 90% of Warner Bros. characters, including such cartoon stars as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Pie, Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, and the Road Runner.
Mel often credited Bugs Bunny for saving his life after the character allegedly brought him out of a coma. In 1961 Mel was involved with a near-fatal car crash during which he was hit head-on and suffered a triple skull fracture that left him in a coma for two weeks.
While he was unresponsive his neurosurgeon attempted to pull him out of it by addressing him as Bugs Bunny, one day when the doctor did Mel responded ‘What’s up, Doc?’, in character, according to a 2012 episode of Radio Lab.
Mel ultimately passed away in 1989, just one year after starring in the 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? where he provided the voices of several famous characters.
Twitter celebrates Mel Blanc
Now Twitter users are discussing the late actor, sharing some of their favourite moments and some have called him a ‘genius’ for his work and the ‘GOAT’.