BLANC, Mel

Beginning as a musician, Blanc became in the heyday of American radio comedy the man of a thousand voices, because he could do imitations, at once credible and ironic, of nearly anything that made a distinctive sound. He could imitate animals; he could reproduce innumerable national accents; for The Jack Benny Show he mimicked the sound of a sputtering car—a stunt for which I know no precedent. For cartoons such as Tex Avery 's Bugs Bunny series, Blanc made animals speak...