05/31/2026
Best known for his work in Warner Brothers cartoons, Mel Blanc also created the voice of Walter Lantz's Woody Woodpecker, whose laugh was a version of a laugh Blanc had been performing since high school. He only performed the voice in the first four Woody cartoons, after which Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies producer Leon Schlesinger signed him to an exclusive contract. Blanc had recorded some of Woody's lines for the cartoon "Pantry Panic" (1941), but had already left the Lantz studio before the short was released, so Danny Webb was hired to finished Woody's remaining lines for that particular short.
Lantz used Ben Hardaway to record Woody's dialogue for subsequent cartoons until 1950, but since no one could properly imitate Blanc's laugh at the time, a sound clip from the 1941 cartoon "Woody Woodpecker" was edited into these later cartoons' soundtracks. In 1948, Blanc sued Lantz for using his voice in subsequent cartoons without compensation and settled with him out-of-court. However, Blanc saying "Guess who?" can be heard at the beginning of every "Woody Woodpecker" short.
In 1960, after the expiration of his exclusive contract with Warner Bros., Blanc continued working for them, but also began providing voices for the TV cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera; his roles during this time included Barney Rubble of "The Flintstones" and Cosmo Spacely of "The Jetsons."
Blanc on on his time working at Hanna-Barbera: "Don't get me wrong - Bill (Hanna) and Joe (barbera) are nice guys and they treated me fine. But artistically, Hanna-Barbera was a desert compared to Warner Bros. I did it for the money, plain and simple." (IMDb/Wikipedia)
Happy Birthday, Mel Blanc!
