Mel Blanc is a well-known man. Even if you haven’t heard of him, the chances are that you’ve listened to him. His nickname is “The Man of 1,000 Voices”, as he has brought numerous cartoons to life by voicing their characters. Many of those cartoons have now become classics, like Looney Tunes’ Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, along with Barney Rubble from The Flintstones and Mr. Spacely from The Jetsons.
Exploring Mel Blanc and His Voices
The podcast is called “Twenty Thousand Hertz,” and is a series that explores some of the most recognizable sounds in the first. It’s a podcast hosted by Dallas Taylor, who works as the creative director of sound design and mix studio.
The first two episodes are dedicated to Mel Blanc’s life, career, and talk about him from his life as a musician in Portland, Oregon, to the end of his career in the animation industry.
Mel Blanc passed away in 1989, but the first episode of the podcast has sound bites mixed in some of his previous interviews and even a few clips of the cartoons themselves. These help to showcase how talented Blanc was.
Blanc had a vocal range that covered eight full octaves, about 6-7 more than the average person. He estimated that he did about 400 voices for 5,000 cartoons during his career.
Other Talented and Recognizable Voices
“Twenty Thousand Hertz” explores more than just the voice of Mel Blanc. It also touches on a few other people and their famous or well-known voices. Featured in the episode about Mel Blanc is his son, Noel.
Bob Bergen was also featured as he was another voice actor that would accompany Mel Blanc in some of his recording sessions during his teenage years. The voice of Jimmy Neutron, Debi Derryberry, was talked about as well in “Twenty Thousand Hertz” as she ended up voicing more than 250 animated characters.