Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Hank Azaria attest to the genius of Mel Blanc

(image via WB Animated Universe Wiki (c) Warner Bros)

 

SNAPSHOT
Do you know how hard that is? To do to take your own character, have it imitate another one of your own characters? It’s almost impossible. If you try to combine two voices that you’re doing, you kind of just land in the middle. …we all tried to do one of our characters imitating another one and have them sound different and we couldn’t do it. (speech grab via Laughing Squid)

Mel Blanc was a genius.

The voice of so many of Looney Tunes biggest characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam and a host of others, Blanc had the ability, as Hank Azaria (The Simpsons) admiringly points out to switch seamlessly between characters even when he was voicing one character impersonating another character.

Example A is the classic short “Rabbit Fire” in which Bugs and Daffy are competing to convince Elmer Fudd (voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan) just which animal is the target of the current shooting season.

Both pretend to be each other, creating a voicing challenge that Blanc handled with consummate ease.

Watch and be suitably impressed.

 

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