{{Bio
|Nome = Melvin "Mel" Jerome
|Cognome = Blanc
|Sesso = M
|LuogoNascita = San Francisco
|GiornoMeseNascita = 30 maggio
|AnnoNascita = 1908
|LuogoMorte = Los Angeles
|GiornoMeseMorte = 10 luglio
|AnnoMorte = 1989
|Attività = doppiatore
|Nazionalità = statunitense
|Immagine =  Mel Blanc (1976).jpg
|Didascalia = Mel Blanc nel 1976
}}

È passato alla storia come l'uomo dalle mille voci, per aver doppiato, in modo personalissimo e insuperabile, i più celebri personaggi dei cartoon della Warner Bros e della Hanna & Barbera.  
== I principali personaggi doppiati da Blanc ==
<small>Tra parentesi: l'anno del primo doppiaggio.</small>
* Porky Pig (1937) 
* Daffy Duck (1937) 
* Happy Rabbit (1938) 
* Bugs Bunny (1940) 
* Woody Woodpecker (Picchiarello) (1940) 
* Tweety il canarino (1942) 
* The Hep Cat (1942)  
* Yosemite Sam (1945) 
* Pepé Le Pew (1945) 
* Gatto Silvestro (1946)
* Marvin il Marziano (1948) 
* Road Runner (1949) 
* Bruno the Bear (1951) 
* Wile E. Coyote (1952) 
* Speedy Gonzales (1953) 
* Il Diavolo di Tasmania (1954) 
* Elmer Fudd (Taddeo) (1959) 
* Barney Rubble (1960) 
* Dino (1960) 
* Cosmo G. Spacely (1962) 
* Hardy Har Har (1962-1964) 
* Secret Squirrel (1965-1966) 
* Bubba McCoy
* La gang di Penelope Pitstop (1969)
* Buck Rogers (1979) 
* Heathcliff (Isidoro) (1980) 
* Mr. McKenzie (1983) 
<!--
elenco parzialmente ripreso dalla versione inglese
-->
Categoria:Personalità legate a San Francisco

{{Infobox actor
| name = Mel Blanc
| image = Mel Blanc (1976).jpg
| imagesize = 200px
| caption = Blanc in 1976.
| birthname = Melvin Jerome Blank
| birthdate = 
| birthplace = San Francisco, California<br />United States|
| deathdate = 
| deathplace = Los Angeles, California
| yearsactive = 1927&ndash;1989
| spouse = Estelle Rosenbaum (July 12, 1920 &ndash; January 12, 2003)
| children = Noel Blanc 
| influenced = Billy West
}}

'''Melvin "Mel" Jerome Blanc''' (American voice actor and Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, Barney Rubble, Mr. Spacely, and hundreds of others. Having earned the nickname “The Man of a Thousand Voices,” Blanc is regarded as one of the most gifted and influential persons in his field.<ref>[http://www.ochcom.org/blanc Mel Blanc's bio at Ochcom.org]</ref>

==Early years and radio work==
Born in Lincoln High School. At 16, he changed the spelling of his last name from “Blank,” reportedly because a teacher told him that he would amount to nothing and be, like his last name, “blank.” Blanc began his radio career in 1927 as a voice actor on the KGW program ''The Hoot Owls'', where his ability to create voices for multiple characters first attracted attention. Blanc moved to sister station KEX in 1933 to produce and host his ''Cobweb And Nuts'' program. 

Moving to Maxwell in desperate need of a tune-up), violin teacher Professor LeBlanc, Polly the Parrot, Benny’s pet polar bear Carmichael, the tormented department store clerk, and the train announcer (see below).

One of Blanc’s most memorable characters from Benny's radio (and later TV) programs was “Sy, the Little Mexican,” who spoke one word at a time. The famous “Sí...Sy...sew...Sue” routine was so effective that no matter how many times it was performed, the laughter was always there, thanks to the comedic timing of Blanc and Benny.<ref> [http://www.youtube.com/v/vIa7GYstYOQ&rel=1 Video of Mel and Jack with one version of the Sy The Little Mexican routine]</ref> 

At times, sharp-eyed audience members (and later, TV viewers) could see Benny struggling to keep a straight face; Blanc’s absolute dead-pan delivery was a formidable challenge for him. Benny’s daughter, Joan, recalls that Mel Blanc was one of her father’s closest friends in real life, because “nobody else on the show could make him laugh the way Mel could.”

Another famous Blanc ''Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga.” Part of the joke was the Angeleno studio audience’s awareness that no such train existed connecting those then-small towns (years before Disneyland opened). To the wider audience, the primary joke was the pregnant pause that evolved over time between "Cuc.." and "...amonga"; eventually, minutes would pass while the skit went on as the audience awaited the inevitable conclusion of the word. (At least once, a completely different skit followed before the inevitable “...amonga” finally appeared.)

Blanc’s success on ''The Jack Benny Program'' led to his own radio show on the CBS Radio Network, ''The Mel Blanc Show'', which ran from September 3, 1946, to June 24, 1947. Blanc played himself as the hapless owner of a fix-it shop, as well as a wide range of comical support characters. Other regular characters were played by Mary Jane Croft, Joseph Kearns, Hans Conried, Alan Reed, Earle Ross, Jim Backus, and Bea Benaderet. (Blanc would later work with Reed and Benaderet on ''The Flintstones''.)

Blanc also appeared on such other national radio programs as ''The Abbott and Costello Show'', the Happy Postman on ''Burns and Allen'', and as August Moon on ''Point Sublime''. During World War II, he appeared as Private Sad Sack on various radio shows, most notably ''G.I. Journal''. The character of Sad Sack was a bumbling Army private with an even worse stutter than Porky Pig. ("I'm Lieutena-eh-Lieutena-eh-Capta-eh-Majo-eh-Colone-eh-p-p-Private Sad Sack.")

For his contribution to radio, Mel Blanc has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6385 Hollywood Boulevard.

==Animation voice work during the Golden Age of Hollywood==
In 1936, Mel Blanc joined Leon Schlesinger Productions, which made animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. Blanc liked to tell the story about how he got turned down at the Schlesinger studio by music director Norman Spencer, who was in charge of cartoon voices, saying that they had all the voices they needed.  Then Spencer died, and sound man Treg Brown took charge of cartoon voices, while Carl Stalling took over as music director. Brown introduced Blanc to animation directors Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, and Frank Tashlin, who loved his voices. The first cartoon Blanc worked on was ''Picador Porky'' as the voice of a drunken bull.  He took over as Porky Pig's voice in ''Porky's Duck Hunt'', which marked the debut of Daffy Duck, also voiced by Blanc. 

Blanc soon became noted for voicing a wide variety of cartoon characters, adding Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, Pepé Le Pew and many others. His natural voice was that of Sylvester the cat but without the lispy spray. (Blanc's voice can be heard in an episode of ''The Beverly Hillbillies'' that also featured frequent Blanc vocal foil Bea Benaderet; in his small appearance, Blanc plays a vexed cab-driver.) 

In his later years, Blanc claimed that a handful of late 1930s and early 1940s Warner cartoons that each featured a rabbit clearly a precursor of Bugs Bunny all actually dealt with a single character named Happy Rabbit. No use of this name by other Termite Terrace personnel, then or later, has ever been documented, however. Happy Rabbit was noted for his laugh which became more famous as the laugh of The Woody Woodpecker Song" for Capitol Records.

Though his best-known character was a Tim Lawson, co-author of ''The Magic Behind The Voices: A Who's Who of Cartoon Voice Actors'' (University Press of Mississippi, 2004), Blanc emphatically denied being allergic to carrots.

Blanc said his most challenging job was voicing Yosemite Sam; it was rough on the throat because of Sam’s sheer volume. (Foghorn Leghorn's voice was similarly raucous.) Late in life, he reprised several of his classic voices for ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'', but deferred to Joe Alaskey to do Yosemite Sam's and Foghorn Leghorn's voices.

Blanc's long association with the Warner Brothers theatrical cartoons was in contrast with the primarily television-oriented careers of such voice actors as Droopy"), the two made far fewer theatrical shorts than Blanc. A closer parallel to Blanc's career can be found in that of Paul Frees, who did substantial voice work for films as well as television.

Throughout his career, Blanc was well aware of his talents and protected the rights to them contractually and legally. He, and later his estate, did not hesitate to take civil action when those rights were violated. Voice actors usually got no screen credits at all, but Blanc was a notable exception; by 1944, his contract stipulated a credit reading "Voice characterization by Mel Blanc." Blanc asked for and received this screen credit from studio boss Leon Schlesinger when he objected to a pay raise.<ref>[http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=6641 ''New York Times'' filmography]</ref>  Other frequent Warner voice artists, such as Arthur Q. Bryan (Elmer Fudd) and Bea Benaderet (many female voices), remained uncredited on-screen.  Blanc's screen credit was noticed by radio show producers, who gave him more radio work as a result.

==Benny/Bugs crossover==
The Warner cartoons were filled with references to the popular media of film and radio, including references to ''The Jack Benny Program'', whose various gags frequently found their way into Warner scripts voiced by Blanc. For example:
*Bugs was known for repeating Benny's catchphrase, "Now cut that out!"
*The "Anaheim, Azusa and Cuc...amonga" joke was once used by Daffy Duck in the cartoon ''Daffy Duck Slept Here''.
*Frank Nelson's "Yeeeeees?" would be invoked by minor characters from time to time.
*Blanc's imitations of sputtering cars, squawking parrots, whinnying horses, etc., would be invoked frequently in both series.
*Blanc used his various Mexican stereotypes frequently in both series.
*On the March 23, 1954 episode of Benny's radio program, Benny encounters Bugs Bunny in a dream.
The ultimate clash of the mythos occurred with the 1959 release of the Warner Bros. cartoon ''The Mouse That Jack Built''. Directed by Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, and Don Wilson all reprised their Benny show roles.

==Car accident and aftermath==
On January 24, 1961, Blanc was involved in a near-fatal car accident on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Hit head-on, Blanc suffered a triple skull fracture that left him in a coma for three weeks, along with fractures of both legs and the pelvis.  

The accident prompted over 15,000 get-well cards from anxious fans, including some addressed only to "Bugs Bunny, Hollywood, USA", according to Blanc's autobiography. One newspaper falsely reported that he had died. After his recovery, Blanc reported in TV interviews, and later in his autobiography, that a clever doctor had helped him to come out of his coma by talking to him as Bugs Bunny, after futile efforts to talk directly to Blanc. Although he had no actual recollection of this, Blanc's wife and son swore to him that when the doctor was inspired to ask him, "How are you today, ''Bugs Bunny?''", Blanc answered in Bugs' voice. Blanc thus credited Bugs with saving his life.<ref name="bio">''That's Not All, Folks!'', 1988, by Mel Blanc and Philip Bashe. Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-39089-5 (softcover), ISBN 0-446-51244-3 (hardcover)</ref>

Blanc returned home from the UCLA Medical Center on March 17 to the cheers of more than 150 friends and neighbors. On March 22, he filed a US$500,000 lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles. His accident, one of 26 in the preceding two years at the intersection, resulted in the city quickly providing money to restructure curves at the dangerous corner.

Years later, Blanc revealed that during his recovery, his son Noel "ghosted" several Warner Brothers cartoons' voice tracks for him. At the time of the accident, Blanc also served as the voice of ABC's ''The Flintstones''. His absence from the show would be relatively brief; Daws Butler provided the voice of Rubble for a few episodes, after which the show's producers set up recording equipment in Blanc's house to allow him to work from his residence. He also returned to ''The Jack Benny Program'' to film the program's 1961 Christmas show, moving around via crutches and/or a wheelchair.

==Voice work for Hanna-Barbera and others==
In the early 1960s, after the expiration of his exclusive contract with Warner Brothers, Blanc went to Foghorn Leghorn's booming chuckle) and Mr. Spacely from ''The Jetsons'' (similar to Yosemite Sam, but not as raucous). Daws Butler and Don Messick were Hanna-Barbera's top voice men, while Blanc was the newcomer, but with all of the 1930s and 1940s Warner Brothers theatrical cartoons appearing on Saturday morning TV to compete with the made-for-TV Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Blanc was again deemed relevant. 

Blanc did these voices, plus others for such ensemble cartoons as ''Lippy the Lion'', Butler was Lippy, while Blanc was his hyena sidekick, Hardy Har-Har. In the short ''Ricochet Rabbit'', Messick was the voice of the gunslinging rabbit, while Blanc was his sidekick, Deputy Droop-a-Long Coyote. 

In addition, Blanc was the first person to play Toucan Sam in Froot Loops commercials, using a slightly cartoonish version of his natural voice. (The ad agency later decided to give Sam an upper-crust English accent and replaced Blanc with Paul Frees.)